web3 is coming.

But what kind of web is it? How is it distinct from Web 2.0?

[ronin]

Here's Moxie Marlinspike (formerly of Signal) talking about first impressions of web3:

[moxie.org...]

I liked one of Moxie's observations regarding Web 2.0:

A sure recipe for success has been to take a 90’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralize it, and iterate quickly.

And more reflections on web3 from Chris Dixon:

[future.a16z.com...]

[ronin]

Separate from cryptographic technologies and a focus on decentralisation (can we say de-platformisation ?) it emerges that the earliest attempts to imagine the kinds of innovations which might define web3 have (reassuringly) not yet been forgotten:

We are trying to fulfil the vision of the Semantic Web (aka. the OG Web3, before all the NFTs took over!), transforming the web's randomly formatted, human-readable pages into structured troves of connected knowledge, improving both user and developer experiences as we go.

Source: [blockprotocol.org...]

[NickMNS]

Here a couple of podcasts that really do a great job of looking at the web3/nft/crypto in an informed, objective and critical manner.
Crypto and NFT:
[wnycstudios.org...]

Web3:
[wnycstudios.org...]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Enabling self-verifiable mutable content items in IPFS using Decentralized Identifiers

Is that like saying Weeb 3.0 can tell your site to get cancelled if it has an unapproved word on it somewhere?

[ronin]

No, it means a distributed asset which changes over time can reliably verify that it is the asset it says it is.

Imagine jQuery being distributed all over the web and that you always want to have the latest version of jQuery.

Until now, the approach has been to get your jQuery from a trusted provider.

But that means you now have to rely on centralised trusted providers. That's Web 2.0.

In web3 in the absence of trusted providers, you still need to know that what you're downloading is actually the latest version of jQuery.

Which means that, somehow, each instance of the asset - wherever it is on the web - needs to be able to reliably verify itself as an actual instance of the asset. And not a corrupted or manipulated version of the asset. Or some kind of Trojan or Worm etc.

[NickMNS]

Here is a video from a VC that explains "real" use cases for web3 in gaming. By real, I'm not talking about the pyramid scheme use case used for "Play-to-earn" games such as Axie-Infinity.
[youtube.com...]

[ronin]

I very much like some of what Levy-Weiss is saying in principle, but... there's a lot of focus in his talk on buying / selling / renting / profit.

To me, one of the best things about the potential of web3 is the same as one of the best things about the original World Wide Web before it was largely eclipsed by venture-capital-driven surveillance capitalism - that it may aspire to be a platform on which accessible paths to enablement, empowerment, greater opportunity can evolve.

And that this empowerment can happen in the absence of repeated monetary payment or (Web 2.0's signature approach) giving away access to personal data and profiling.

I fully get that trade has utility. But just because it has utility in some contexts, doesn't mean we should then seek to turn every context into one in which trade is the primary dynamic.

I would want to put (most, though probably not all) data-based assets in the same category as everyday health, education, community and (at least) the lowest two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy: a category of "the commons" in which things tend towards abundance and propagate naturally according to individual and collective need, instead of the other sort of category which plutocrats inevitably seek to ringfence and capture, seeking ways to exacerbate scarcity so they can establish and entrench a profitable market.

If I could describe web3 in two words with my most fervently optimistic outlook, I would use the words: accessible abundance.

I'm not for a second suggesting that web3 should preclude trade, Merely that I'm looking forward to a web3 in which trade is certainly not the only (or even the principal) signature dynamic, when the gates are open to open-source, open-data, open-content sharing, collaborating, enhancing, mixing, mashing-up etc. all free from corporate capture.

[ronin]

Re: Solid

It seems (to me) right now (in mid-April 2022) that whenever web3 is mentioned, the term blockchain is mentioned in the very next (and sometimes in the same) breath - as if the former were inextricably dependent on the latter.

I wonder if this is (still) an early semantic confusion - a bit like in the late-nineties when many AOL-users often weren't significantly aware that AOL's walled garden actually wasn't the entirety of being online and that, even if you used AOL dial-up, you could then explore the web without being dependent on AOL's walled garden at all.

It's hard to find many articles / comments which remind people that while the blockchain has inarguable utility within the context of web3, it's neither essential or even necessary to the over-arching concept of a peer-to-peer, distributed web.

I would find it reassuring if, in the context of web3 more people started talking about other equally relevant P2P distributive technologies such as:

Solid (Social Linked Data)
[solidproject.org...]

IPFS (Inter-Planetary FileSystem)
[ipfs.io...]

HyperCore
[hypercore-protocol.org...]

etc.

N.B. I was motivated to post this, after reading [stackoverflow.blog...] in which the author gives the impression that web3 is literally built on the blockchain, when, in fact, the blockchain (or, rather, any of an increasing number of blockchains) is only one P2P distributive technology upon which web3 may be built... and then (soon after) reading an article about Solid (which I'd half-forgotten about) and then wondering why there isn't a fraction of the amount of enthusiastic discussion about Solid as there is about the blockchain. To me (at least), Solid holds at least as much (if not more) exciting promise as a Web 2.0 slayer as the blockchain.

[ronin]

Here's a thoughtful piece on the decentralized web by Ruben Verborgh from late 2017 (nearly four and a half years ago!)

Paradigm shifts for the decentralized Web
[ruben.verborgh.org...]

The article doesn't mention the term blockchain even once.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Keep the number of "Terms of Service" agreements you need to accept to a minimum and you'll generally be fine..

- Domain registration: required
- Hosting registration: required
- Everything else: optional + another failure point + loss of control potential + resources to support/instal/apply/understand/etc

[ronin]

Simultaneously hilarious, tragic and utterly dumbfounding:

[web3isgoinggreat.com...]

I really had no idea there was so much activity going on out there.

Half the news items read so preposterously, that if you didn't know better, you'd reasonably conclude it was a spoof site.

Almost without exception the developments reported on represent all the aspects of web3 I'm entirely disinterested in and none of the technologies and aspirations associated with web3 that I find genuinely compelling and appealing.

[ronin]

Tim Berners-Lee, skeptical about a blockchain-based web, weighs in:

"Screw Web3 — my decentralized internet doesn’t need blockchain "

Source: [thenextweb.com...]

I have a lot of sympathy for this.

As far as I understand it - I hope we can all agree on this definition - the whole idea of web3 - and it's a good idea - revolves around making a sustained effort to improve how we currently access, store and ship data on the web.

To what end?

Amongst other considerations, to help make information more public and more free.

Not least, to prevent commercially-locked-down silos of information (not exclusively but often personal data which isn't even known or owned by the individual it relates to).

web3 then is a public re-democratisation of the web, after the corporate excesses and exploitation which have come to be seen as hallmarks inherent to Web 2.0.

I'm afraid that the people who want to make web3 and blockchain inseparable from each other are... (at best) lacking in imagination.

I have no objection to blockchain being one tool used in web3 to enable decentralization, but I don't doubt for a second there won't be many other tools which similarly enable forms of data decentralization.

[edited by: ronin at 5:03 pm (utc) on Jul 8, 2022]

[ronin]

More commentary over on Slashdot:

[tech.slashdot.org...]

[Dimitri]

Considering how much blockchain requires resources, and the cost of energy, I doubt this is the solution ...

[ronin]

how much blockchain requires resources, and the cost of energy

I hear you regarding proof-of-work blockchain - it does require a seemingly excessive amount of energy.

Fortunately there are other blockchain models:

- Proof of Stake
- Proof of Authority
- Proof of Weight
- Delegated Proof of Stake

and probably more.

All these represent far less resource-intensive consensus models than proof-of-work.

Regardless, I feel that attempting to inextricably link any sort of blockchain with web3 is misguided.

Imagine - to take one example - we'd (somehow) committed to inextricably linking the process of transferring data between software with... XML.

That would mean:

- no JSON
- no YAML
- no CSON
- no base-64 data URIs
- no Eno
- no MessagePack
- no protobuf
- no Apache Thrift
- no Feather + Apache Arrow
- no Apache Avro
- no RDF
- no JSON-LD

etc.

We're much better off when we don't conflate:

i) a process; with
ii) a single technology which can enable that process.

[ronin]

I see that a number of enthusiasts of what I'm starting to lean towards referring to as eth-web3 are strongly of the opinion that the killer-app inherent in their vision is near-frictionless micropayments to access data and information.

Noteworthy then that before Web 2.0 ever evolved, the WWW established HTTP Response Code 402:

402 Payment Required
[developer.mozilla.org...]

Three decades later, 402 remains experimental and non-standard.

Micropayments - or, at least, the idea of micropayments - is clearly not an innovation of eth-web3.

I recally that the conversation about micropayments has been going on for a really long time... but it's surprising to me that it goes as far back as the mid-1990s www.

That's not to say that eth-web3 doesn't have a fair chance to deliver a viable, widely-adopted implementation of micropayments.

But even if it does, I continue to remain sceptical that the promise of the vision of web3 (as a concept) ought or needs to be conflated with any implementation of eth-web3 (as a technology).

[engine]

There is some resetting going on for some parts of web3. I guess we'll need to see where it settles before we can make stronger predictions.

[ronin]

I guess we'll need to see where it settles

I guess so. There just feels (to me) like there's way too much obfuscation going on - even from apparently well-intentioned people who don't seem like they're out to hawk tulips. (And, let's face it, there are a lot of tulip-hawkers out there...)

For instance, here's Chris Dixon (back in April 2019):

From the mid 2000s to the present, trust in open protocols was replaced by trust in corporate management teams. As companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook built software and services that surpassed the capabilities of open protocols, users migrated to these more sophisticated platforms. But their code was proprietary, and their governing principles could change on a whim.

[...]

That’s why the pendulum is swinging back to an internet governed by open, community-controlled services. This has only recently become possible, thanks to technologies arising from the blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Source: [cdixon.org...]

(My bold).

That last sentence is just nonsense, isn't it? Open, community-controlled services have only recently become possible thanks to blockchain and cryptocurrencies?

Really?

So how do we account for technological initiatives like WebMention then?

[w3.org...]

A W3-endorsed protocol innovated by IndieWeb:

[indieweb.org...]

Isn't that a community-controlled service? What is it, if it isn't?

WebMention is user-controlled, open, democratic, decentralized and not mediated by any corporation,

It doesn't have anything to do with blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

[ronin]

This is intriguing:

Minecraft represented an attractive potential market for NFTs, with a user base – estimated at more than 141 million by August 2021 – already engaged in sharing unique digital items developed for the game.

But the Microsoft-owned development studio behind Minecraft, Mojang, has put an end to speculation NFTs could be allowed in the game. In a blog post on Wednesday, the developers said blockchain technology was not permitted, stating it was antithetical to Minecraft’s values.

“Each of these uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and playing together,” the company said.

“NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots. The speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players.”

Mojang said the creations in Minecraft had intrinsic value and there had been instances where NFTs were sold at artificially or fraudulently inflated prices.

The studio said it was concerned third-party NFTs may not be reliable and could end up costing players. It also said it was worried an implementation of Minecraft built entirely on blockchain technology could also disappear without notice – meaning players would have lost their investments.

Source: [theguardian.com...]

This is the first time I've seen a high-profile company reject blockchain-verified assets due to what amounts to cultural objections.

[ronin]

Following on from the post above, it strikes me that a web3 which revolves exclusively around a blockchain (or several blockchains) is a web which explicitly prizes the pursuit and / or realisation of digital scarcity.

I would struggle to get enthusiastic about this... this feels to me like this is a vision going in completely the wrong direction.

By contrast, I can get really enthusiastic about digital abundance.

Movements like FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) for example - that's a trend that can, has and will continue to empower individuals, organisations & communities and positively change lives.

[en.wikipedia.org...]

I can't speak for others, but this all seems like a very different mindset from the Crypto-evangelists enthusing about MetaMask etc.

For the record, the software ecosystem project I'm working on is intended for a vision of web3 which prioritises digital abundance over digital scarcity.

[ronin]

I've not looked in on web3 for a couple of months, so I was intrigued to read today that there are now a handful of Web 3 Browsers available:

- Opera Crypto Browser
- Osiris Browser
- Puma Browser
- Aloha Browser

Also web3 capabilities have been / are being added to:

- Brave Browser
- Beaker Browser

I'm happy to see innovation in browser technology and web infrastructure.

I like Brave, I like IPFS and I love the protocol innovations that Beaker Browser has been pursuing for the last couple of years.

The issue I have with this - as with every other time I see web3 mentioned, immediately before the writer breathlessly follows up with invocations of cryptocurrency and cryptowallets - is this comment over at Brave:

In Web 2.0, we log in to websites and apps with usernames and passwords, so it may seem odd to think of connecting to a website with a wallet instead. But there’s good reason for it: Web3 is built on blockchain networks, and blockchain requires cryptocurrency to function. And because crypto is so fundamental to Web3, crypto wallets play a crucial role in navigating the decentralized web.

Source: [brave.com...]

Give it up already.

web3 is being built on ideas about decentralisation and privacy and accountability and individual ownership of individual data and, yes, that can lead to practical implementations which sometimes involve cryptographic hashes, but no, those practical implementations don't have to relate to a blockchained cryptocurrency.

IPFS doesn't run on a blockchain.

Inrupt's SOLID doesn't run on a blockchain.

SubResource Integrity Hashes don't run on a blockchain.

Decentralised IDs (for which there is a W3C Recommendation here: [w3.org...] ) can run on a blockchain, but, beyond that, they are intended for any decentralized system:

A DID can work with a blockchain, but it doesn’t have to be based on a blockchain, DIDs are designed to work with any decentralized system. DIDs are designed to decouple from the status quo, removing the need for identity providers (IDPs), certificate authorities and the centralized registries we are so used to.

Source: [resources.infosecinstitute.com...]

I feel that towards the end of 2022, there's still a great deal of:

No centralized registry, therefore... Blockchain!

No.

There are ways to decentralize data. Blockchain is one way. It's not a bad way. But, it's not the only way.

I'd be really happy if more organisations spoke up and clarified: web3 may involve decentralization and cryptography, but it's absolutely not synonymous with crashing cryptocurrencies, dodgy exchanges, snake oil sales pitches, #*$!coins etc.

[ronin]

Ohhh... a thought has struck me.

Maybe this is it: two different communities are excited about web3's promise of decentralization for two radically different - perhaps even diametrically opposed - reasons.

There are people who are enthusiastic about P2P technologies who are happy to see a significant evolution towards direct peer-to-peer transactions, sharing, conversation, gameplaying etc. because it removes multi-million dollar profit-making centralized-platform-in-the-middle entities, gets them out the way and brings people together on their own terms. Some (like me) might see this is as the direction the original World Wide Web was heading in, in the first place, before the giants asserted their very successful land-grab.

Then, there are people who want the centralized-platform-in-the-middle entities gone, not because they see them as hulking great technological parasites, or as a source of infrastructural friction, or as a brake on conversation and collaboration, but because the Web 2.0 giants are seen to be making inconceivable amounts of money from their quasi-monopoly positions within Web 2.0 and others would like to hasten the advent of web3 so they can grab a piece of that pie for themselves in web3, instead.

Is that it? If it is, the reason I've been somewhat confused about the tone of so much of the hype around web3 this year - and the unceasing obsession with cryptocurrencies - is because I didn't even see the second, opportunistically-driven, perspective. To be honest, that perspective isn't even envisioning something approximate to the way I now imagine an evolved web3. Instead it's looking at what appears to me like a fragmented, de-monopolised Web 2.0. A web which doesn't have hundreds of centres, but hundreds of thousands of centres. A Web 2.5, if you like.

For me the big deal about web3 is very much the first perspective: that lots of many near-frictionless interactions will become possible in a way we've never yet seen on the web. And, beyond that, that people who use the web should, for the first time since since around 2014, be able to start to re-assert much more control over the shape and direction of their web experience once again.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Tokens give users property rights: the ability to own a piece of the internet.

No, it literally doesn't give users more property rights. It allows websites to be treated as shares in a stock market, whoever is already the richest wins.

What Tokens do, however, is create a method to cancel a user entirely from the internet. It creates a measure of power over everyone, by the elite few. In just the past two weeks I've seen a dozen reputable sites start to claim tokens are the future so money and resources are being devoted to making it so. It's certainly not a "free" future, though.

Tokens are useless without registering them. In a digital currency world, you may find yourself unable to obtain/own/sell or profit from them should you fall out of favor with whoever controls the system.

IMO - Internet tokens are a solution to a problem we don't have and the key to problems we don't want.

[ronin]

Agreed.

So much of this talk of tokens related to web3 etc. sounds to me not dissimilar to direct selling / multi-level marketing etc.

I feel like these people aren't really talking about web3 at all.

I saw a great quote on Twitter:

@mor10 / Aug 7, 2022: "web3" is the definition of vaporware - an entire imaginary future built on imagined future tech with capabilities everyone describes differently and nobody is actually building, all imagined on platforms powered by the very tech the imagined future is meant to supplant.

I don't disagree with that either - it's an apt description of "web3".

But I think it's important to distinguish between "web3" (the superlatively over-hyped vaporware) and actual web3.

I don't know what the first killer app for web3 will be - but I suspect social without the surveillance is a pretty strong bet.

This would be precisely the kind of thing that decentralization enables - via decentralized logins, decentralized data, decentralized media etc.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I don't know what the first killer app for web3 will be - but I suspect social without the surveillance is a pretty strong bet.

That's a tall order given the competition, their obsession with controlling the platforms(and thus the data) and how much they spend on it.

example: The future apparently has this wonderful MetaVerse, but one company is buying all of the companies who would develop it. They are making the rules and have already brought it to the stock market. As a free to use environment it's far from. You're only free to do cool stuff for the platform itself. It's not going to be made open source so everyone can create their own worlds free from Meta oversight.

Anyway - it's all future looking at this point. My best bet is that the first killer apps will target 16 year olds and be game related with cool music and flashy effects. It will sell you an ideology, a digital game currency, perceived status and perhaps most importantly a "break from the real world".

Hmm... I just described Meta. Without jobs we'll need something to pass the time with I suppose.

I'd gladly discuss actual tech btw, but there isn't any yet. We 3.0 is being marketed as new but it's what we already have so why should we want to turn it into a controllable(but not by us) stock platform? Not all roads lead to crypto. Current news about the billions being lost should tell you why.

Danger: Web3.0 might be webmasters needing to buy a virtual world license if all eyes visit the net from within that virtual world. Licenses come with regulations, restrictions and more. ie: Not free. It's a neat magic trick too, getting people to pay to have their sites seen in a new popular way while it's the sites who should be getting paid.

[ronin]

I'd gladly discuss actual tech btw, but there isn't any yet. Web 3.0 is being marketed as new but it's what we already have

There's plenty of nascent web3 technology out there - though I'd agree that much of it is still pretty low profile at present.

It's definitely not "what we already have", though.

This point almost never gets mentioned, but you know how Node has npm?

Deno doesn't have an equivalent. There is no dpm.

The data (now decentralised) has taken priority over the platform. To my mind, that's web3.

JAMstack (ie. Front End + Cloud Services)? That looks pretty web3 to me, too.

Why? Because the data (in this case the APIs) takes priority over the platform(s) (the API service providers).

Solid is clearly web3 - it's whole mission is to ensure the data takes priority over the platform:

Simply Explained has a great intro to Solid, here: [youtube.com...]

The Social Web Protocols (https://www.w3.org/TR/social-web-protocols/) definitely look web3 to me.

The Fediverse is web3. The Mesh is web3. etc.

Arguably, any example of data being liberated and superseding the platform(s) where it used to reside is web3.

[ronin]

I mentioned above:

So much of this talk of tokens related to web3 etc. sounds to me not dissimilar to direct selling / multi-level marketing etc.

I feel like these people aren't really talking about web3 at all.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I came across this article by Lars Doucet:

[noahpinion.substack.com...]

With some entertaining observations like:

One thing web3 and Amway both (allegedly) have in common is [...] turning your friends into wild-eyed fanatics who can't stop trying to sell you on a convoluted and complicated system that they're totally gonzo for, but still can't articulate exactly how it is supposed to work.

and:

What the two cultures really have in common (allegedly) is selling you on a dream of independence, while delivering what is actually total and utter dependence on a system outside of your control, putting you (and your money) entirely at its mercy.

In amongst several (somewhat rambling) asides, there are a few more comparisons between crypto-bro culture and Direct Marketing culture that are on the nail.

Towards the end, Doucet writes something I hugely applaud:

Remember when "crypto" was short for cryptography? And remember what Blockchain was like before it got all financialized? Remember when it was all supposed to be about independence, and decentralization? Remember when it was about freedom, and weird nerds, and cool technology? Remember when people felt about it approximately the same way they felt about BitTorrent?

Yes. Cryptographic Hashes. Decentralization. P2P interaction liberated from Platforms.

Not this jargon-filled, self-referential culture of quasi-brainwashed, spend-to-earn hustling.

Conclusion: it's nothing less than essential to emphasise (to anyone open to listening) the difference between all the breathlessly over-hyped web3-eth vaporware nonsense and actual web3.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Wow, great points Ronin. You made me think deep for a moment as to why I see what you describe but don't care to embrace or reject it, yet.

Best I have this morning is that it's being hyped through a stakeholder economics lense, which isn't working out so well for the "useless" class of humans. [ideas.ted.com...]

Mr Harari said something I hugely applaud, too.

"Since we do not know how the job market would look in 2030 or 2040, today we have no idea what to teach our kids. Most of what they currently learn at school will probably be irrelevant by the time they are 40."

Web 3.0 is both subject to the same uncertainty and will be relied upon to solve it. 3.0 has much higher stakes, it's not about what's "cool" anymore.

edit: Most won't know who Mr Harari is from that Ted Talk. He's a respected historian involved with World Economic Forum activities that are creating future history. Web 3.0 is likely to change the very ethics we live by, according to Mr Harari. It's a lot to take in. I used to feel wonder and marvel as web 1-2 were created, 3 has a distinctly more unyielding feel to it. Once 2.0 is gone it's not coming back so 3.0 has to be good for everyone, especially the new "useless" class.

Take my opinions with a grain of salt, no matter where 3.0 leads, or how smart AI gets, I won't be putting a microchip in my brain. I'd rather be left behind with the useless class.

[ronin]

I see what you describe but don't care to embrace or reject it, yet.

Neither, do I, entirely, yet. But I feel a lot more informed than I did at the beginning of this year when I first ran across the term web3 and wanted to find out what it was all about. (My interest in federated social media goes back ten years, I started following Beaker Browser / Dat / HyperCore back in 2019 and I've dabbled a very modest amount in BitTorrent since 2020, so the idea of a decentralised third manifestation of the web immediately caught my attention.)

Today (long overdue), I decided to find out more about IPFS.

In articles across the web IPFS has generally always had a higher number of mentions than HyperCore, so I've long been aware of it. But I wasn't familiar with the details.

Since it's been referenced in this thread several times this year - first by @NickMNS, back in January - I thought I really ought to educate myself and gain an understanding of IPFS fundamentals:

Interplanetary File Storage
[youtube.com...]

IPFS uses content-based addresses, which essentially means you access a resource by asking for it by its identifier.

A network of content-based addresses adds up to an immutable decentralised datastore - much like a blockchain.

But it isn't a blockchain.

So when people make assertions like:

web3 is decentralized and is built on / relies on / can't run without the blockchain

it's important to point out that, yes, blockchain is one solution to decentralization, but it's far from the only one.

[ronin]

I referenced Beaker Browser immediately above (and elsewhere in this thread) but I've only just become aware that the project was discontinued just over a year ago (see: [github.com...]

The end of Beaker is not the end of HyperCore protocol.

The latter lives on as a core pillar of Beaker's successor, Atek, which focuses on enabling

a personal cloud for small home servers like Raspberry Pis

[web.archive.org...]

[engine]

Thanks for all the information on this.

I'm still very interested in how the different aspects could be applied in real-world applications. Some are obvious, and some are still reliant on massive development expense.
The Net has become a way to make money, and I can't see businesses offering products and services in the same way they were. For example, Meta is spending billion in making its own system, and you can be sure it'll want to make money from that investment.
The ad-based version may not work in the same way, especially as privacy has become more to the fore; although not as important for the vast majority that are happy to accept so much of their own data being shareable. I wonder if this will change.

I was looking at IPFS, and, great, I see how it can be used, but it still requires storage. As far as I see it, the only difference is decentralised versions, in the same way crypto is decentralised.

For me, the real key is not how it's done, but what can be done with it.

I may be naive, but i'm willing to learn.