In this video, we
will be discussing a series of similar concepts, namely web 3.0, decentralized autonomous organizations
(more commonly known as DAO’s), NFTs, Blockchain, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and Ethereum.
Let’s begin by diving into the world of web 3.0.
Imagine that Sarah here is surfing the web for some new shoes.
She really likes the genre of heels and repeatedly looks at different kinds of high heels.
Then she notices that the next day, and several days following that, random ads for high heel
shoes would pop up when she was merely reading the news or on an unrelated website on Google.
Sarah was shocked – was she being stalked, could the internet read her mind, or was there
something else at play?
With a little research, she realized that this was due to the power of web 2.0, that
allows the machine to learn a bit about us with every Google search by storing details
about our search and using the info to enhance itself for the next time we use it.
Previously, web 1.0 merely served as a one-way communication, wherein individuals could search
things up, and the internet would answer without recording any information on the back end.
Sarah was amazed at the usefulness and intelligence of web 2.0.
But she wondered, how trustworthy is it for my machine to be storing all my personal information
in cookies and selling these information-laden cookies to different companies such as Amazon
and Microsoft so they can use the info to target their ads effectively?
Doesn’t this seem a bit like a privacy and security concern?
Enter web 3.0.
Web 3.0 is driven by AI blockchain technology, giving it the power of decentralization and
mitigating the issue of trustworthiness and an external authority handling internet affairs
like Sarah’s concern.
A moment ago, I mentioned two terms.
Blockchain and decentralization.
Let’s dig deeper into these terms.
Blockchain, a popular buzzword, allows for the decentralization of data on the Internet
and establishes trust in the digital realm.
Blockchain is essentially composed of a series of blocks that contain certain information
and is open to the public.
Let’s take a closer look at the components of a block.
So every block has the data stored inside of it, it's hash, and the hash of the block
preceding it.
The data stored inside of a particular block varies blockchain to blockchain.
For example, if we had a blockchain about the bitcoin cryptocurrency, which we will
dig deeper into later in this video, this blockchain would hold and track balances of
bitcoin transactions.
Each block would contain details about the sender of the coins, the receiver, and the
amount transferred.
Now, onto the block’s hash.
This hash is unique to each block and essentially serves as its identification.
Think of a QR code or a bar code.
When you scan one of these, it leads you to a particular destination that this code is
unique to.
The hash of a block is the same idea.
Now, what’s important to note is that the hash for a block is assigned right as the
block is created, and if the block is changed, then the hash of the block will also be changed.
These features, having hashes, having hashes that change with a change in the block, as
well as each knowing the hash of the previous block, lends to the security and trustworthiness
of the blockchain as it is extremely difficult to change a block once it has been established.
Changing one block will make all of the previous blocks invalid because the hashes won’t
match up.
In addition, blockchain relies on a peer-to-peer network.
Every time a new block is created or changed, every person in the network sees this change
and is able to verify it, deeming it valid or invalid.
If everyone agrees that a block is valid, it stays, and if not, it does not stay.
This is the concept of decentralization – where the blockchain is distributed among thousands
of people in the public rather than being in the power of one single authority.
So connecting these concepts of blockchain and decentralization back to Web 3.0, web
3.0 allows information to be kept in several blocks, which would essentially make the whole
system decentralized and disallow the internet giants like google and facebook from maintaining
huge databases with personal info.
While we are on the topic of decentralization, let’s take a quick look at DAOS, or Decentralized
autonomous organizations.
DAOs utilize blockchain to ensure that the members that are involved in the organization
along with their information are well organized and distributed on the internet.
Companies that are DAOs, such as Slock.it, have no CEOs or Presidents.
All the members of the company get to vote on changes in the company rather than one
central authority dictating how things go.
Some use cases of DAOs are to raise money for a charity or form an investment where
members contribute funds in exchange for equity, and each member will pay a certain amount
of crypto currency, and the amount of cryptocurrency would dictate how many tokens (DAOs version
of equity) the participant might receive.
If you aren’t sure what cryptocurrency is, it’s basically a Virtual/digital currency
that works on blockchain.
Just like most things in Web 3.0, crypto is decentralized.
There isn’t any transfer limit, or paperwork necessary, or transaction fee, or time needed
to wait for individuals to get money.
So, as I stated, cryptocurrency works on blockchain technology.
Like I briefly mentioned when we talked about the bitcoin blockchain as an example, each
block on a cryptocurrency blockchain stores the sender and receiver of the transaction,
and the amount of trade as a digital record that is distributed to everyone across the
network.
This, as we discussed earlier, allows the data to be replicated on each block and in
the possession of each member across the network, thus ensuring validation and verification
of data by everyone involved.
A great example of a DAO that connects this term to cryptocurrency is the Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a very popular cryptocurrency that is also a DAO, where every transaction is
recorded on the bitcoin blockchain through the process we just described above.
Most Decentralized autonomous organizations that exist today run on the Ethereum network,
which is the second biggest blockchain.
An important side note to consider while learning about this network is that the Ethererum network,
because it is the home of NFTs, is very bad for the environment.
The amount of energy that this network consumes is enormous – to think of it in geographical
terms, the amount is the size of Serbia (33 terra watt hours of electricity).
As you can probably imagine, this has detrimental real-world effects.
The fossil fuel emissions keep the machines alive, but fossil fuels also mean huge amounts
of carbon into the atmosphere.
This is ironic because all of these concepts we are discussing – metaverse, blockchain,
crypto, etc. is all online and intangible, yet they all have destructive real world problems
that affect us real world humans.
Now a second ago, I mentioned the term NFTs.
Let’s take a quick look at what this is all about before we transition back to our
discussion about web 3.0.
NFTs stand for non-fungible tokens.
Let’s break this term down.
Fungible means replaceable by an identical item.
For example, physical money and even other cryptocurrencies are fungible because they
can be traded for one another and are exactly equal in value (one bitcoin that one person
has is the same as one bitcoin another person has.
However, NFTs are different.
Non-fungible means that there is only one of the specific item – in essence, something
that is non-fungible is non replaceable, and are far more valuable than something that
is fungible.
Each NFT has a digital identification that disallows individuals to find another NFT
that matches an existing one or for an NFT to be exchanged for another.
That’s why Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, “just setting up my twttr” is an NFT that
sold for 2.9 million dollars – there is only one of these tweets that exist.
So as I mentioned earlier, most NFTs exist on the Ethereum blockchain.
NFTs are minted from digital items that can initially be tangible or intangible, such
as graphic art, videos, souveneirs, GIFs, music, video game skins, etc.
NFTs are basically like a digital version of items that can be collected (such as digital
art rather than a physical painting hung on a wall).
An individual who owns a particular NFT gets exclusive ownership rights for that NFT, and
the reliance on blockchains as the home of NFTs allows for easy verification of ownership.
We will get back to Web 3.0 now, but right after that, we’ll be connecting NFTs to
information from the last video about Metaverse.
For web 3.0, the last we left off on was a discussion Web 3.0’s feature of decentralization
that allows it to be so useful and effective.
Now, we will briefly discuss 3 more transformative features of web 3.0.
First, is the fact that web 3.0, unlike the previous versions of the web, is powered by
AI and machine learning.
As we’ve learned in previous videos on this channel, natural language processing allows
machines to understand human language in nuanced ways, just like another human would.
This feature of web 3.0 allows the machine to be even more effective when answering our
queries because the machine will not be thrown off by human errors or other differences in
linguistics.
Another feature of web 3.0 is its permissionlessness and trustworthiness.
This is closely related to the concept of decentralization.
In web 3.0, users do not rely on an external authority/intermediary and instead interact
with one another directly.
Your cookies will not be stored and bought by an internet giant for their well being.
The final feature we will discuss is web 3.0’s ubiquity.
This internet, unlike past internets which are mostly limited to smartphones and PCs,
will be accessible to anyone at anytime and anywhere thanks to the iOT (internet of things)
technology that will launch in several new types of devices.
So this is the essence of web 3.0.
now a moment ago, I mentioned that we’d be referencing NFTs in the context of metaverse.
So as we briefly mentioned in the last video, one of the use cases for metaverse is the
ability to game.
Alike fortnight, wherein individuals take on different avatars while in the game and
connect to people around the world who are playing the game at the same time, people
usually buy skins in games to represent the particular character they are playing.
People have begun to turn these game skins into NFTs.
Because NFTs use blockchain, blockchain can verify all of the characters and who owns
each one.
The players of the game own the skins and other assets, and can either use them on different
games or sell them on the market.
This disallows big gaming companies from owning all the skins and making huge profit off of
them.
Everything in the future society revolves around these repeating concepts of decentralization,
blockchain, crypto, NFTs, metaverse, and web 3.0.
We already live in a society encompassed by the digital world, and this is only projected
to grow at an exponential rate.
It is important to learn these concepts now to not only prepare for our future but also
prevent things from getting out of hand and to preserve a sliver of humanity even when
in the face of a mass shift towards the virtual.
So, as a quick summary of the concepts we learned in this video and the last:
Metaverse is a virtual world in which indiviudals can take on a specific avatar and perform
actions that humans in the real world would, just as attending meetings, going to concerts,
interacting with other individuals, shopping, eating at restaurants, etc.
Web 3.0 is the next iteration of the Internet that is based on blockchain technology, and
powered by Artificial Intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, decentralization,
and a token-based economy.
Web 2.0 is the world wide web that we currently use today, which allows the computer to gain
back end information about our searches and online profile, store this information in
cookies, and sell the cookies to internet giants like Amazon for them to personalize
their ads to suit your needs
Web 1.0 is the most primitive version of the internet wherein the machine would simply
answer a query it is given by a user
Blockchain is a system in which transactions are made through cryptocurrency and data is
stored on a series of blocks that are maintained across several devices and are linked through
a peer-to-peer network
DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, are community-led entities that have no central
authorities and rely on the concept of decentralization, smart contracts, and basic foundational rules
that are agreed upon by all members involved
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency wherein transactions are verified and maintained by
decentralized systems that lack a central authority, such as a bank
Bitcoin is a popular specific type of cryptocurrency
NFTs are non-fungible tokens, meaning they are digital items, such as art, tweets, videos,
etc. that have exclusive ownership rights
Ethereum: is the second biggest blockchain, home of most NFTs, and huge power consumer
Well, that’s it for this video, and I hope you learned some valuable things from this
video.
if so, please give it a like and comment down below what you’re most curious to learn
about with regards to any of the many concepts we discussed in this video.
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you don’t miss any videos that’ll help you on your journey towards mastering artificial
intelligence.
thanks for watching, and ill see you next time.