Thoughts after watching a16z partner’s speech: Is Crypto a Sisyphean rebellion?
Written by: YBB Capital Researcher Zeke
Preface
This article is my reflection after watching the speech video of Chris Dixon, a partner of a16z. The theme of his speech is "Is Web 3.0 Dead?" As an idealistic technology investor, Chris has analyzed and reviewed the development of the Internet since the 1990s, and believes that the future of Crypto is still full of potential. But from the current situation, I think the inside of Web3 is in chaos. This article is a summary of my recent thoughts on Crypto, and it is also an extension of the previous articles.
1. Gamblers’ needs and geeks’ vision
Chris Dixon mentioned in his speech that there are two mainstream cultures in crypto: one is the speculative "casino culture", and the other is the "computer culture" that focuses more on technological development. I will refer to them here as "gambler culture" and "geek culture". In the process of promoting Web3, the two cultures that should have been mutually exclusive were held together by something called "vision", and eventually pushed Crypto to the mainstream. Since the Bitcoin era, the vision of crypto has been very grand, from a decentralized P2P payment system that is not controlled by individuals, institutions or countries, to Vitalik's world computer, decentralized permanent storage, the reshaping of the Internet of Things... To put it in a smaller context, there is also my favorite 10k PFP, yes, it is composed of thousands ofCommunityMembers jointly promote IP to the world. But unfortunately, these visions are only visions in the end. "Cash" has become "digital gold", the ideal of "world computer" is full of contradictions with reality, and my favorite narrative has become a joke in the circle. The needs of gamblers and the vision of geeks will not always intersect. When a gap appears, decentralization, vision, and mission are no longer important. Just like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, human needs are in order from the most basic physiological needs to transcending needs. The basic needs of mainstream crypto users aremake moneyWhen the technical narrative no longer works, users will go to where the voice is the loudest, PVP in MEME; Tap to Earn on Ton; at worst, they can go to A-shares and US stocks to find liquidity. The reflection in reality is that our focus has gradually shifted from technical narratives to Powell, ETFs, Trump, and what other memes can be used as MEME in the West today. Sometimes I feel dazed, as if these blond and blue-eyed people are the long-lost Satoshi Nakamoto. However, it is indeed human nature to talk about ideals after a full meal.
At present, the industry often talks about putting aside the technical narrative, looking for incremental growth, creating experience, and making consumer-level applications, and focusing on high-performance heterogeneous chains. This consensus is actually to let "gamblers" and "geeks" intersect again. If successful, we will enter a new era of diversity, and "gamblers" and "geeks" will become contributors to reshaping the Internet. If it fails, then we will regain the P2P vision and return to the essence of finance (I don't think it can supportBlockchainFuture growth). But no matter where this road leads, I think it is more important to meet the value needs of ordinary users and have driving force. We often hear the word "falsification", and the basis for this word is mostly that the token price has returned to zero, the threshold is too high, etc. But let's think about it in other directions. What is its driving force? I wrote an article last year, which roughly talked about AI Decentralization of computing power. At that time, there was very little relevant information available, but I was confident in this direction and even divided it into two chapters to describe its future. With the continuous update of GPT this year and the soaring stock price of Nvidia,AI The topic has been hyped again and again. Computing power projects are not new today, but unfortunately most of them have no motivation to drive users to use them. In the case of giving up high efficiency, it is difficult to even have one of the three: stability, low loss, and affordability. Compared with most of the TG mini-games today, there is basically no essential difference except for the appearance. They are all waiting to be listed on the exchange to find exit liquidity. The only thing that can be discussed is still the vision.
Today, when generative AI is implemented in every industry, Web3, which lacks driving force, can hardly impress "gamblers". The driving force of Ponzi is human greed, and the driving force of consumer applications is value. Whether it is emotional value or practical value, you must at least provide value. A qualified APP, in terms of the circle, can be various evergreen protocols in DeFi, which meet users' various financial needs such as trading, arbitrage, and gambling. There are many outside the circle. Let's take the early ChatGPT as an example. There are cumbersome payment steps, long queues, various IP interceptions, and account closures, but people still flock to it. In the period of liquidity flooding in 21 years, twelve mnemonics could not stop uncles and aunts from rushing to the local dog. The two are the same, but the driving force is different. The entry threshold and experience are indeed very important for ordinary users, but they are inferior to dopamine and practicality. After we have solved various abstract problems and lowered the threshold, what is the driving force that can drive non-Web3 users to visit? For a non-speculative Web2 user, Web3 currently provides basically no practicality other than transfers and payments, so where will the incremental growth we imagine come from?
2. Why don’t we talk about decentralization anymore?
I know that the current popularity does not mean that centralized heterogeneous chains will be right in the future, but judging from the popularity of the altcoin market, the momentum of heterogeneous chains is about to overwhelm Ethereum. There are so many criticisms of Ethereum that even Vitalik is calling for the fragmented Ethereum ecosystem to be aligned again. Looking at it from multiple dimensions, Ethereum is indeed still the Apple of Web3, with the largest ecosystem, the highest TVL, and the second most decentralized and decentralized after Bitcoin.SafetyIt’s just that today it’s more like the “Apple” that Cook took over from Jobs. It’s no longer so cool, and no one cheers for its innovation. At least, today, decentralized public chains are no longer directly equated with success.
From the perspective of the development of technical paths, decentralization,SafetySex is a rare thing that takes a lot of time to obtain. It should be impossible to reproduce artificially like gold. But this method of reproduction was thought out by Vitalik and Mustafa Albasan. Decentralization is more like the artificially cultivated diamonds in Zhecheng today. From the best quality Ethereum to the most cost-effective Near DA, there are dozens of sellers. So will Ton or Solana become Layer2 in the future? I think the answer is yes. Of course, for factional reasons, these two cannot be Layer2 on Ethereum. However, decentralization andSafety性极度外溢的可不止有以太坊，BTC 的安全性、去中心化程度、社会认同、共识机制的认可度都要优于以太坊，而 BTC 又不存在派系一说。即使是在 1:1 Fork 而来的思路下，只要在未来能实现足够原生的 DA 方案，那么以太坊最引以为傲的去中心化及安全性会不会在那时化为子弹射向自己？以太坊的捍卫者要如何抨击构建在 BTC 上的异构链？
From the perspective of the development of ZK technology, since there can be ZK Rollup upward, there can also be coprocessors, ZKML, etc. downward. As the off-chain computing technology of high-performance applications matures, it is not impossible to achieve a balance between scalability, decentralization, and security on Layer 1. So from this perspective, it is not a bad idea to put ecology and experience first without mentioning the old triangular paradox.
3. Is Web3 following the same path as Web2?
Tokenomics is always an interesting topic. We have seen countless complex economic designs, but in the end, only service-oriented tokens can achieve long-term success through Tokenomics. For example, from Cex, Layer1 to various DeFi, first of all, the simplest reason is the demand issue.BlockchainBasically, only these projects have real demand and benefits. From the embryonic stage to the current mainstream era, Token has played a vital role in these projects and theirCommunityThey played a key role in the process of becoming giants. The virtuous cycle makes their moat deeper and deeper. The negative example is that many 10k PFPs in 22 years also tried to save the project by staking and burning when they were on the verge of death, but without strong demand, it was meaningless no matter how small the number was.
Another problem is the confusionTokenA long-standing question,Witch。女巫是让 Token 最为头疼的存在，许多渴望以激励模型完成自下而上的项目也因此成为泡影。在过去勉强能解决这个问题的方案只有 Kyc，中心化平台以及一些合规项目还能依赖 Kyc 规避女巫。但这个问题对于纯链上项目就非常复杂，虽然 Vitalik 也提出过类似魔兽世界soul bindingSBT, but there are obviously many logical loopholes. And using Worldcoin's iris is even more impractical. Nowadays, the more effective way to prevent witches has turned to Point. Witches can create a large number of addresses and swipe a large number of transactions. But money cannot be counterfeited, just like the computing power of the PoW mechanism. If it cannot be counterfeited, it doesn't matter how many addresses there are, as long as the deposit is set to the maximum or unique in the weight of Point. This method has many benefits for the project party. Point is just a soft promise, and the final right of interpretation is still in the hands of the project party. But for the development of Web3, it is heading in a worse direction. Only whales can benefit from this activity, not real users, and it will not attract users outside of Web3. After the Token is listed, there is only a mess.
It is not uncommon to see the operation of suppressing one problem but causing another to pop up in this circle, so why not just not use tokens?TokenThe projects of are far superior to most competitors in many aspects. They will not be killed by the Ponzi model, nor do they have to worry about witches, coin prices, empowerment and other problems. Focusing energy and resources on publicity and ecology can accurately acquire valuable users and thus expand the ecology.
What makes me think deeply is, has this become a kind of Web2? Web3 oligarchs like Base provide users with high-quality services and continue to profit from them, but the community cannot share. What is the difference between this and today's Web2? Coinbase has a monopoly on everything from construction to implementation, and it also handles the ace protocol Farcaster in the ecosystem by itself, and even excludes Friend.tech for this. Is this a manifestation of the spirit of decentralization? We have to admit that our development path is becoming more and more similar to Web2. The vision of the Internet in the 1990s was to return power and wealth to users. In the Web 1.0 era, it was television and radio that controlled the media, and in the Web2.0 era, it was the seven giants of Nasdaq that controlled the Internet. Now, the oligarchs of Web3.0 are testing the bottom line. Are those bottom-up legends true?Xiaobai NavigationIs this the end? I don't know, but I'm sure we're at a crossroads.
4. Scarcity is a double-edged sword
Before the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, gold played a key role in human currency. It has a good advantage: scarcity, and it also has a bad disadvantage: scarcity. From shells to gold, decentralized currency has existed since ancient times. Before humans entered the steam age, scarcity ensured that dictators could not arbitrarily plunder people's wealth, so that society could function normally. When science and technology exploded, scarcity hindered humans from reaching the stars and the sea. Former US President Bush said in a speech in 2002: "In the history of mankind for tens of millions of years, the most precious thing is not the dazzling technology, not the classic works of the vast masters, not the politicians' exaggerated speeches, but the realization of the taming of the rulers and the dream of putting them in cages. I am now standing in the cage and speaking to you." Putting power in a cage is the only way for humans to compromise with credit currency. Currency that is not based on any precious metal is of course the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history, but it has made a great contribution to the development of modern society.
Scarcity isBlockchainOne of the characteristics of NFT is also the value. We emphasize the importance of scarcity all the time. However, sometimes I wonder if excessive scarcity is also hindering our progress. For example, if Bitcoin was born in an isolated country, would its vision be realized soon? The 10k PFP is a better microcosm. Bored Ape, Azuki, and Pudgy are all very successful NFT projects. To be more precise, at least the first two were in the past. At the crossroads of development, they chose three different directions: games, animations, and peripherals. The latter's practical approach allowed it to go against the current and turn over, but making games or animations or even developing an IP universe is also very cool in my eyes, but scarcity dooms them to fail. As I mentioned when discussing GameFi, the degree of money burned by a 3A game is unimaginable. The limited number of NFTs isolates participants, and the disguised issuance of NFTs will exploit the community. This is like a microcosm of a dictator's economic regulation, and the community's voice is far less than imagined. Bored Ape and Azuki both eventually fell on the road of the Crazy Hair Growth sub-series. Thinking about it now, I feel relieved.
当然，这把利刃的另一面也在以太坊身上得以体现，关于这个问题我们在上一篇文章中说过，这里就不再展开。说回重点，当一个去中心化项目变得无比庞大并进入主流时，在通缩通胀上究竟该怎么做呢？是依靠规则简单的代码，还是听从于只有几人或者几十人的项目方？又或者是那些灵魂人物？噢，对了，我们还有治理代币。只不过治理代币在解决女巫问题前毫无意义。民主投票永远无法在治理提案体现，毕竟 a16z 只用几个walletWhat’s the point of voting if you can overrule a large community’s vote of approval?
5. Business logic cannot be closed loop
When writing the Babylon research report, I thought about a question: How many projects in Web3 can complete the closed loop of business logic? I think at least 95% of the projects cannot. In most cases, this closed loop can only be realized in the white paper. People always build the sink very perfectly when designing it, but they are very idealistic when talking about where the water comes from. In an ideal state, Babylon and Eigenlayer can mobilize the dormant Bitcoin.walletand Ethereum's pledge tokens, thereby eliminating the LST bubble and bringing security to various long-tail chains, protocols and new projects. At that time, I thought this was also a grand vision. But a doubt punctured my fantasy. To mobilize the security of trillion-dollar assets, how much interest should be paid to pledgers every year to attract BTC whales to flock in? How much share of the trillion-dollar assets can long-tail projects rent? Where should we find the gap that cannot be closed in the end? I think it may be Token again.
This problem is reflected in every corner of Web3. The same is true for the popular Ton ecological mini-games. After the airdrop, the leading projects such as Catizen will soon be able to prove whether they have real consumer users. Most of the remaining mini-games will die quickly, which is inevitable. In many Asian, African and Latin American countries, Crypto has begun to shine in payment and transfer. A large part of the user groups covered by Ton also come from these countries. What I hope is that based on the user needs of these countries, the next giant can eventually run out in Mini App.
6. The story should not end on Wall Street
Nietzsche once said: "There is no truth in this world, only perspective." My point of view is from the perspective of pragmatism, and the idealist's point of view may contradict me. But I think we are both right. After all, there is no truth in this world, and we must learn to see new perspectives from different viewpoints. Tolerating "opposition" will be closer to the truth itself than a single belief. Every project I match is also what I love. And there will be at least one common point between the two factions. That is, I hope that Web3 can be on par with the current generative AI and play a role in promoting human progress. The story of Crypto should not stop on Wall Street.
7. Sisyphus
When I was naming this article, I thought of a very suitable Greek mythological figure, Sisyphean. In Homer's epic, Sisyphus is famous for his cunning and wit, which allowed him to hoard a lot of wealth. Every time he felt that death was about to come, he would trick the god of death into putting handcuffs on him, and as a result, no one on earth could enter the underworld. As a punishment from the gods, he was sentenced to push a big stone up a steep mountain. Every time he tried his best and the stone was about to reach the top, the stone would slip out of his hands and he had to push it back again, doing endless labor. In the Western world, the word Sisyphus can also be used to describe "a task that never ends and is futile." But in Camus' philosophical essay "The Myth of Sisyphus," Sisyphus's efforts to climb to the top of the mountain are a symbol of human optimism and resistance. The positive and negative sides of this story are very similar to the current situation of Web3. The night before dawn is always the darkest.
The article comes from the Internet:Thoughts after watching a16z partner’s speech: Is Crypto a Sisyphean rebellion?
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