Adrien Book
1 supporter
How the Financial Crisis, Trump, Covid-1 ...

How the Financial Crisis, Trump, Covid-19 & GameStop created Web3

Apr 04, 2022

The world is bursting with talks of new, exciting technologies. Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, DAOs, DeFi, Metaverse… all manners of concepts have seemingly sprouted from our collective digital imagination. Alone, they are naught but fun diversions. Together, they make up the key components of Web3.

Technology is neither inevitable, nor inexorable. Much like Web2.0, Web3 is being born out of social and financial pain. The circumstance of their birth matters more to shape technologies than the intent behind their creations. Logically, then, we must first know where we’re coming from to understand where we’re going.

The 2008 Financial Crisis

The gig economy became inevitable after the financial crisis. Bitcoin was also born at the same time, for the same reasons : “the elites cannot be trusted, and we want to be our own leaders”. This sows the seeds of web3.

 The Trump Election

2017 was a year of political upheaval, intensified by technological platforms. It is no surprise, then, that a technology promising a new, better deal would come to the forefront. Young people needed hope. They found cryptocurrencies.

 The Pandemic

In 2020, digital ate the world. The economy leaped forward 7 years in terms of digitization compared to expected trends. We were ready to accept the idea of digital finances, digital organizations, and even a whole digital universe. We were ready for Web3.

 The GME Short Squeeze

Buyers of meme stocks view their investments as an opportunity to fight against a rigged  financial system. The stock market is a battleground on which they right perceived wrongs. This is when Web3 went from obscurity to obnoxious ubiquity.

 You are Here

Over time, seemingly unplanned, unrelated, chaotic actions give rise to something that seems like it has been designed. We needed a financial crisis to create the app-led world that isolated us and primed us for anger at elites. We needed chaos to envy a new system. We needed COVID to digitalize the world. Without these events, web3 would be radically different.

Read the full article here.

Enjoy this post?

Buy Adrien Book a beer

More from Adrien Book