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Been doing some thinking lately about the state of web3 and ownership in general, here in early 2023.

The trend towards digital ownership and more robust security (via decentralised networks + storage) is a slow but steady one, with (big) bursts and setbacks.

Bear with me…

The crypto and web3 market relates somewhat to the western dream to ‘own’ your life: Your home, car, health (via some kind of sustainable regular activity), fruitful or fulfilling work, a good network of friends, family (checking up on each other as best you can) and admin – investments, hobbies, insurances, incomings and outgoings. And what about your data or your money? This vital, but grey area where things can get stolen, hacked or disappear in a bank run?

Some folk may have a strong local (real) network with local knowledge, and even a global network of people to call upon (social media etc.) It’s about living robustly or more decentralised. It’s not a task everyone achieves in a lifetime but we’re all still very dependent on one another. Of course, we depend on medicine and on the law to protect ourselves – and from those who no longer feel like grinding towards that goal. Younger people are understandably the most dependent but they’re also (mostly) the more social and they have more fun. They are learning about ownership and what it means to take care of things.

For you could say that owning nothing (or less) = greater freedom, with a lot less to lose, but this places you at the mercy of others – and of change. Change is something people – and society – will always fear.

Those who’ve won ‘ownership’ via some hugely diverse means be it fortune or glory, (may) own more Time and can afford to live outside of the system, or they’ve built their own systems, and are moving towards greater self-sufficiency with decentralised support. (Yet it seems a lot of wealthy people have no idea what to spend their money on. They can be as over-preoccupied with the present as any normal person.)

Those who don’t understand crypto and web3? I’d suggest that they don’t understand the above, and its unstoppable trend.

Digital Content

So what do you – digitally – own? Do you own your emails, your photos, your data? I bet you still don’t. Not really.

It’s also a more complicated question. What content needs to be owned and kept more permanently?

Well, there is temporary content which will go out of date (like this blog post and social media in general), and more permanent content and data like passwords etc.

There are blog posts which I plan on ‘backing up’ from now on to a decentralised platform. This latter is largely creative or arty content and promo that has come from me: it relates to any value I may’ve created and wish to preserve. It can explain the power of NFTs.

Solutions

‘Stop watching markets, start using tools‘ (tool list coming below).

I think creative people really adopted NFTs because they were looking for digital realms that aren’t set to disappear. Ok, Amazon, Spotify etc… feel as though they are permanent, but they actually have full control and are not decentralised. They dictate a lot. But finally, Ethereum, Polygon etc. : they offer a way to register something permanently, and its location on decentralised storage. Then YOU can choose what various platforms and marketplaces can do with this content (via web3).

I’ll keep on watching a lot of these entities grow, and investing and using them.

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• Metamask remains the vital tool or wallet for owning digital things at last, or logging in to dapps.

• Unstoppable Domains allows you to buy a domain name forever, and to link sites and wallets. (AdesPress referral discount code)

• Mirror.xyz is a platform for writing (or creative content) you own and wish to share or collect, and is stored via permanent, decentralised storage. (A lot more of my content is going there, see here🙂

• Skiff is google-suite etc. replacement for more private, secure email, drive etc. (AdesPress Skiff referral link)

• Filecoin and ARdrive for decentralised storage and perpetual storage.

• Presearch is decentralised search (referral link)

• Brave is a better browser.

• Audius for music.

• Alethea for AI.

• Opensea marketplace for art and nfts with perks.

• Decentraland and Next Earth project (commission link) for metaverse.

• Uniswap and Pancakeswap for De-Fi and token swaps.

• Monolith for a crypto to VISA payment card.

Social media? That’s still a tough one, since Meta, Twitter etc. still dominates. But will they adopt web3 like Instagram has adopted NFTs?

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So, fellow bloggers, readers and dreamers, let’s continue to move more decentralised and start owning more. Let’s start staking and supporting networks we rely on, and governing via DAO.

Let’s start collecting the work of others we see value in, or which helps us to evolve, or see more clearly, or celebrate things together.

Less middle-man, all-powerful platforms. More direct transactions.

The pure thing about Bitcoin is its value is reflected in any given moment by the status of its network. That price is the amount of trust placed in it, and also the current strength of the western ownership dream. You can always diversify and hodl some with ease, as part of an unstoppable trend.

The dollar etc? It’s another beast entirely. It may remain the oil of a system, but not the only system.

Be bankless.

Feb 2023.