What is Web3?

“We are on the brink of a new epoch where technology is reimagining everything that is possible,” says Alex Tapscott. The author of Blockchain Revolution and the managing director of the Digital Asset Group at Ninepoint Partners sees tremendous opportunity for investors as the Internet makes it’s next leap forward.

The Dotcom era of the late 1990s was largely a one-way medium for consuming content. Web 1.0 made way for Web 2.0, with a two-way ability for Internet users to interact with each other. It led to the rise of the tech giants Facebook, Google, and Apple. Web 3 will address the shortcomings of its predecessors by fundamentally changing the way we view the ownership – and value of our data. It’s a direct response to the belief that “data is the new oil”.

Blockchain is the foundation of ensuring the value of anything digital, and much like the monetary system uses dollars to denote value, a Blockchain uses virtual tokens. “In a way, it's like this container,” explains Tapscott, “this blank slate that we can fill with anything of value and represent as an asset online. So that can be money, but it can also be financial assets like stocks and bonds, titles and deeds. It can be art, collectibles, anything that requires scarcity to have value can be represented by a token.”

Tapscott tells The Alt Thining Podcast that one of the areas where this technology is having the most immediate impact is in financial services. While Web 1 and Web 2 were different from each other, both were ways to access, to share, and to propagate information. What's different about Web 3 is that it is a medium for value or for assets.

In terms of financial markets as a whole, he believes that as with any other technology revolution, there are going to be big winners and big losers, and that's true for publicly traded companies as well. “This technology stands to disrupt a lot of legacy business models,” Tapscott says. “There's a huge opportunity to harness these tools to improve your business in pretty profound ways.”

In Part 2: how Tapscott is investing in Web3 companies and how you can, too. Subscribe to the Alt Thinking Podcast wherever you get your favourite shows.

Listen to the “Investing in Web3 part 1 with Alex Tapscott” podcast, featuring host Michael Hainsworth.

Part of Ninepoint’s Alt Thinking Podcast Series. Available at Google, Apple, and Spotify Podcasts.