The word crypto refers to cryptography, which means that information is encrypted in order to be stored and transferred securely online. The result of this encryption process, using math, has been called crypto currency. It can be used online to make transactions and purchases, or it can be simply held as an investment with the hope that its value will increase as more people use it (much like stocks). At first glance, crypto currency may seem confusing, but you have probably seen them before without realizing it. Have you ever bought anything on Amazon?
What is web 3?
Technology is starting to get to the point where you no longer need an internet connection or any kind of physical device in order to conduct business. Web 3 offers businesses a whole new way to build relationships with their customers, including by gamifying interactions that have traditionally been limited to single tasks (such as filling out forms). Plus, it’s impossible for competitors to steal or spy on your data if all communication is done in person-to-person encrypted messages rather than via email. There are also new ways for companies to invest funds through crypto currency, which can be built into their contracts so they can transact only when certain milestones are reached or share dividends automatically with investors. One of the major differences between web 2.0 and web 3.0 is that in web 2.0, we relied primarily on Facebook’s feed algorithm to determine what we see online; but now, instead of relying on one site’s curation methods, our feeds will be more personalized based on what we have found personally valuable in the past — think Reddit’s upvote system or something similar.
As a result, we will rely less heavily on social media outlets for our news sources; this change has already started happening due to recent revelations about how Facebook and Twitter handled Russians meddling with American elections in 2016 – users were upset about being misled about how much control these platforms had over what information was shown to them online.
What does this mean for crypto currency?
The current way that the internet operates is controlled by a few tech giants such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Web 3 will change this. This update to internet technology has created investment opportunities in web hosting that has facilitated the creation of new blockchain businesses while also redefining how we create partnerships in our every day lives. For instance, those who might want to purchase tickets for events will be able to do so through the application of crypto currency in addition to fiat currencies. Companies can now provide crypto-backed rewards programs for their customers and prospects alike. There are many ways that Web 3 will affect society going forward but it is clear from the beginning that crypto currency provides an opportunity for more freedom on the Internet when it comes to what we spend, what information we share with companies about ourselves, and which companies have access to data about us. As Web 3 becomes mainstreamed into everyday life, expect some changes.
How will things change?
Blockchain technology is going to shake up just about every industry by turning web 3.0 into a fully decentralized Internet with global reach, where anyone can access any information at any time without censorship or control. For the first time, crypto currencies are becoming practical in people’s everyday lives as merchants around the world accept them as a form of payment, either through traditional crypto wallets or exchanges that convert their funds to fiat currency instantly on deposit and make it possible for them to spend anywhere they want to shop online or offline with confidence that cryptocurrencies cannot be stolen from their wallets, once deposited there by debit card or bank transfer, like any other currency.
It’s already happening: The blockchain-based company Centra has developed a debit card called Centra Card, which allows you to buy goods or services by converting your cryptocurrency balances into fiat currency – meaning that if you have $2,000 worth of Bitcoin in your wallet, you can pay for an item costing $1,200 using the conversion rate on the day. And not only does this remove the risk of volatility with trading, but it also gives holders peace of mind because it makes sure they will always have access to their money even if something goes wrong with the market. What could go wrong? Well, one way in which the current system fails us is through its ability to hide data from public view. An example of this would be our data when we use Google products. We might assume that we’re sharing our data with Google only, but there are often various third parties harvesting what we do too; sometimes unknowingly when signing up for free apps or joining email lists. So how would blockchain change things?
The Upside of PIVX’s Privacy Features
Privacy is an essential component for a functioning democratic society, especially in today’s digital age where nearly everything we do is recorded online, often without our knowledge or consent. PIVX is built on Proof-of-Stake, not Proof-of-Work like Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies out there. PoS systems are less energy intensive and require little mining effort; they only need to use computing power instead of wasting resources on costly mining hardware that burns through electrical power 24/7 (Cohen). Consensus is attained through virtual voting among community members. Holders of PIVX tokens vote by using their wallets, which contain a private key as well as public key to authorize votes with. Private keys provide identity protection for holders because they can anonymously vote without fear of reprisal from hackers. However, this does not mean that holders have privacy for all transactions, since every transaction needs to be broadcasted to the network regardless. The upside of PIVX’s privacy features: if an individual wants complete anonymity then transactions can be done offline using paper wallets or offline transactions such as those offered by Coinspot .
These offline methods help ensure privacy since no third party will ever know who sent what amount of money to whom. PIVX also has a fast block time of 60 seconds. Transactions processed at lightning speed make it possible for individuals to invest small amounts of cryptocurrency into various ventures without worrying about exchange rates or processing delays. In addition, PIVX has very low transaction fees. Unlike traditional banking institutions, crypto currencies have been specifically designed to reduce dependence on large corporations for financial services and monetary transactions. With crypto currencies now available in over 6 thousand different stores around the world, governments have taken notice. Governments worldwide see crypto currencies as competitors to fiat currency and regulators are beginning to step up efforts to limit access and control distribution of crypto currencies.
The Downside to Public Blockchains
Public blockchains have many advantages, but they also have significant limitations that give rise to new technical challenges. It is unrealistic to expect a public blockchain to provide absolute transactional security without latency or throughput inefficiency, even when it uses formal verification techniques such as TL/ACID transactions, distributed compensating methods such as Proof-of-Work (PoW), distributed PBFT mechanisms such as SPECTRE or Hashgraphs, or cryptographically secured computation via Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). That said, PoW consensus algorithms do offer relative protection against attack because every transaction on the chain must be verified by nodes before it can be included into a block. Furthermore, these algorithms are inexpensive for users to maintain due to their economic incentives. The need for confirmations makes these chains highly energy intensive however; more specifically, PoW will never produce an outcome faster than you would expect from the complexity of its calculations. Consequently, at some point there will not be enough resources available on earth for this type of energy consumption .
When dealing with massive datasets, which IoT devices often collect and send to the cloud, we cannot rely on this form of consensus. Even if we could find another way to make PoW work with IoT data, it has been shown that a high number of nodes participating in this network offers no improvement in efficiency over just a few nodes. In other words, decentralization offers no performance advantage over centralization if networks aren’t very large. For these reasons and others like them, crypto currencies with low transaction fees such as Bitcoin Cash may soon become the best option for processing large amounts of data while still maintaining total control over one’s information without having to trust third parties. In light of these limitations, it is critical that developers continue innovating in order to ensure the future success of our Web 3.0 applications. There are a variety of emerging technologies being explored that address the issues discussed above. Some solutions use alternate approaches to cryptography such as proof-of-stake algorithms, proofs of elapsed time, and zero knowledge proofs. Others take advantage of novel hardware architectures with faster processors and more memory space including field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and specialized processors called Tensor Processing Units (TPU). These emerging solutions combined with advanced research in virtual machine technology such as Ethereum’s Virtual Machine or Tendermint’s Cider mean there are exciting developments happening all around us.
Conclusions
What does Web 3.0 mean for you? From what I’ve gathered, it doesn’t really affect your day-to-day life (unless you’re trying to set up a wireless network). What it may affect is a coming age where information and transactions will be more decentralized than centralized. For instance, if you plan on buying something on the internet, odds are you’ll use some form of crypto currency like Bitcoin or Ethereum in order to make that purchase. But one thing is for sure: no matter what happens next, we’ll all be looking at Web 2.0 as an old friend that has stepped aside for something different (but nonetheless valuable). What are your thoughts on Web 3.0? Let me know in the comments below!
Regardless of whether you think Web 3.0 will succeed or fail, there’s a lot we can learn from its potential. We learned how people want quick access to information, which brought us search engines. We learned how people want instant communication with others around them, which brought us social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. And now, with cryptocurrency taking off into mainstream consciousness, we’re learning about how people want to hold value between each other through digital means instead of paper money. More than anything else though…we need more time to figure out exactly what’s going on with blockchain technology before making any conclusions about its ability to succeed in modern society—which might also mean we need to keep our minds open so new ideas can develop over time too! It seems as though Web 3.0 is still very much in flux, so stay tuned for updates soon!
In closing, I’d like to end things on a positive note. Whenever crypto currency fails (if it does), I’m hopeful that key innovations will carry over into future web technologies that could improve upon what we have today. In my view, Web 2.0 was pretty awesome – but if all goes well – maybe even better times are ahead? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!