EXCLUSIVE: “An online democracy: The Internet under Web 3.0” – Sophie Guibaud, Fiat Republic in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Sophie Guibaud, Co-founder and Chief Commercial and Growth Officer at Fiat Republic, goes back to the future as she imagines what Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision will deliver 30 years from now

The year is 2052. Your everyday life is powered by Web 3.0. Traditional bank accounts are consigned to the history books, and you instead use a multitude of embedded wallets that are specific to the service you are looking to access. Your wallets are self-optimised, automatically staking and lending crypto when available, to provide you the best returns for your money.

All payments are now automated, too – paying is not something that you do anymore, it’s something that just happens in an embedded world.Cash is dead and all fiat value has moved to crypto. You own a multitude of NFTs that you display within the metaverse, and you transition into your online avatar multiple times a day. You also rent a few of them regularly to make extra revenues. Your second life has become an integral part of your offline life.

THE ORIGIN STORY

The original interpretation of the internet (Web 1.0), had been a revolutionary tool for communication and collaboration, but its centralised design led to abuses of power by the companies that controlled it. As the internet evolved, it slowly but surely started to shape our habits and it seemed to know everything about us; our likes, dislikes, friends and favourite dog videos. At the start, it was considered useful, as you were invited to read news articles you didn’t know existed or you benefited from targeted advertisements for products and services you didn’t know you needed.

This could be interpreted as either good or bad, but it is without a doubt when communications moved to Web 2.0 that the ‘convenience’ transformed into invasiveness. Social media was the poster child of Web 2.0, allowing users to upload their own content, creating online forums in which freedom of speech was championed. However, a number of high-profile data leaks, campaigns of abuse, and the spread of misinformation laid bare that this freedom of speech was built upon a profit-first business model.

The platforms that hosted it had ultimate control over both the content and the data on the users who consumed it. The big corporations, although sanctioned on several occasions, neglected user welfare and were only concerned with harvesting data to then sell for profit. Users began to demand more privacy over their data.

Web 3.0 was always meant to be but, only after Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin White Paper was published in October 2008, was the framework and ideology created to fully realise the future. The Satoshi Paper is now held in the same regard as some of the most important pieces of work in history; laying the foundations for society’s transition to Web 3.0 through open-source software, and utilising blockchain technology to be trustless and permissionless.

This third iteration of the digital space has fully seized power from the big corporations and democratised everything, from banking to art, while banishing the need for intermediaries and championing self-governance on a global scale.

Web 3.0 promised to fix the flaws of Web 2.0; decentralised apps addressed the way in which data is stored, moving away from large data centres and instead using the safety and the security of the nodal blockchain to offer better protection against data leaks and data loss. It phased out the threat of hackers, and offered users a safer place to exist. Information became verifiable and, perhaps most importantly of all, the digital space became self-governed, with users being able to vote out what constituted online abuse through the blockchain technology itself.

This third iteration of the digital space has fully seized power from the big corporations and democratised everything, from banking to art

CROSSING THE BRIDGE TO WEB 3.0

By 2021, 13 years on from the publication of the Satoshi paper, almost four per cent of the global population (more than 300 million people) were users of crypto. Institutions were keen to participate, too; governments had started to issue digital currencies; and traditional banking firms, such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, had integrated crypto into funds and made moves into the metaverse.

Traditional institutions still leveraged a lot of power over financial ecosystems, though, as did fiat currencies. Governments that opted to create central bank digital currencies (CBDC), moved from fiat to tokenised fiat, but this was still highly centralised and controlled (just like most things in Web 2.0). Banks across the globe started to experiment in the form of holding and trading crypto and building a presence in the metaverse.

At the same time, Web 3.0 stakeholders focussed on decentralisation and self-custody. A dichotomy of ‘old versus new’ existed, and it was a huge barrier to entry for those wanting to access crypto. For those early adopters, exchange of currencies was slow and complicated, while for crypto platforms traditional compliance didn’t work.Platforms yearned for a similar treatment from banks that e-commerce or other enterprises could expect. The forward-thinking members of old and new realised they needed each other to thrive.

A UNITED VOICE EMERGES

By creating a consortium of reputable and responsible crypto providers, Fiat Republic became an intermediary that oversaw the shift of power between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Its aim was to educate, broker and negotiate; becoming the voice of the crypto industry and working alongside traditional regulators to deploy the code of practice in crypto that we see today.

By gathering those that were experts in both the old world and the new and creating a bridge between the two, it enabled banks to take on crypto flows, understand the crypto business better through interpreting the real-time transaction data available to them.

Regulators were brought onside, too – open dialogue was encouraged and a unified voice of the crypto community was ever-present in the creation of new crypto regulation.The revolution was about efficiency, and having everyone fulfil their purpose. Fiat Republic offered a united voice and a common standard to power business opportunities within crypto.

AN ECONOMY AT SCALE: EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

By 2030, there were more than one billion active users worldwide and the global cryptocurrency market was valued at almost $3trillion. Bitcoin had become a stable store of value and a mainstream currency, underpinned by the evolution of payments and micro-payments, powered by the Lightning network. The blockchain was now the central source of truth, immutable and permanent, and adopted by every industry, from healthcare to legal.

Employers were now paying employees in cryptocurrencies as soon as work was performed, with some opting to build in performance-related bonuses using smart contracts. Financial institutions were using crypto to diversify fund portfolios and as a hedge against inflation, powered by platforms such as Fiat Republic to convert legacy fiat investments into crypto.

For those early adopters that had put their faith in cryptocurrencies, the rewards were extremely generous, and return on investment was better than they could have ever hoped. Even late adopters had their chance to grab a slice of the pie; crypto became a leading currency in the global peer-to-peer lending market, valued at more than $700billion in 2030.

Satoshi’s vision was finally being realised, and decentralised finance (defi) was now financially empowering the masses to take control of their present and future. Actors like Fiat Republic facilitated access to an increasing number of markets and sectors to people and organisations around the world.Web 3.0 altered the way people viewed the workplace and how individuals managed specific tasks. Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) thrived side by side with the digital workforce and helped solve the trust element that the internet had been battling for decades.

An increased number of tasks was automised by blockchain technology. By removing the tether to third parties that drove connectivity in the Web 2.0 era, Web 3.0 could provide autonomy and freedom to employers and employees to shape their jobs. In the creative space, NFTs were changing the way artists were able to earn from their work forever. E-commerce was transforming, too, with profits being shared equally among those in the blockchain rather than being capitalised on by the few. People now had a sense of belonging and ownership, and were rewarded fairly for their contributions to commerce.

This neo-capitalism wasn’t necessarily re-distributed wealth, but incentivising entrepreneurial spirit and giving people across the globe equal access to the financial ecosystem.

TRUE FINANCIAL INCLUSION AT SCALE

The idea behind Web 3.0 was, and remains to this day, to provide inclusion; for the society and the individual to retain responsibility and ownership of what they’re sharing, and whom they’re interacting and transacting with. Web 3.0 not only allows individuals to own their data but also compensates for the time spent on the web, shaping financial inclusion. Everyone can choose whom to transact with.

When it all started, it was simply about people reclaiming their freedom for digital expression. It is now also the legacy of decentralised ownership and financial inclusion of the people, by the people and for the people.

Fiat Repbublic will be running a webinar on unlocking the benefits of Web 3.0 on October 27 at 3pm GMT. To join An Online Democracy: Web 2.5, go to https://eu1.hubs.ly/H01R95k0

This article was published in The Fintech Magazine Issue 25, Page 40-41