Avatar (Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog

Web3: the risk of naming

November 26, 2021

In the last few weeks, I’ve heard from many - mainly not technical - people the expression “Web3”. In a way, it is excellent that people that are not tech-savvy start to learn about the Web, how it works, and where it might go, since they are using it consciously or not to perform the majority of tasks in their lives. The issue I have with this, though, is that no one of them could explain how it would work or why they are so confident that the future is going in that direction. The only thing they could associate with Web3 was that cryptocurrencies would be the future, and their value would go to the moon.

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Facebook Libra

June 20, 2019

A few days ago, Facebook presented Libra, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency project.

After the inception of Bitcoin around ten years ago, we got more and more used to new cryptocurrencies being presented every other day. Often those projects are created by small teams of people, often anonymously. Facebook’s announcement is very different since Facebook is a huge company and has partnered with many other huge companies for this launch.

I’m very skeptical of Libra, and I think it will not succeed in the long run. In fact, it already starts with big challenges, including the fact that most people do not trust Facebook. Differently from many companies, Facebook is used by many people, but it is not generally trusted, and the base requirement for the success of any kind of currency is the trust in the entity behind it. Libra will be managed by the Libra Alliance and not Facebook directly. Still, so far, we have seen a much more significant presence of Facebook than any other Libra Alliance member, so easily Libra will still be referred to as “the Facebook cryptocurrency” many years from now.

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