If you have been on Twitter long enough in the past few months you must have seen a lot of tweets about NFTs, metaverse, Web3, Defi, and DAO.
Just recently, in fact, Constitution DAO raised $47million dollars to buy the US constitution, although they were unsuccessful in their bid. The rise in Web3 platforms has created a lot of buzz and rightfully gotten a lot of people excited.
For context: Web3 is said to be the future of the internet. It is meant to be decentralized and built entirely on the blockchain.
You know how when you sign up on a new fintech app, you are required to do some form of KYC — BVN, NIN, Passport etc. This KYC (Know Your Customer) is meant to verify the identity of the user (which in this scenario is you). In Web3 there isn’t any of that, instead, you can begin leveraging any web3 app by just connecting your wallet (Metamask, Trustwallet, etc) to the Web3 platform.
This is really great, you are “anonymous”, well, until you decide to fill in your profile.
Privacy has been a strong selling point for Web3 advocates. Web2.0 platforms(the current internet eg Facebook, Google) have been accused of breaching privacy laws. With Web3 it is believed that the control is now back in the hands of the users. Browse anonymously!
However, since it is built on the blockchain and the blockchain is very transparent — you can track every transaction done on the blockchain. In fact, if you know the wallet address of someone you can tell what activities they are doing as long as it is on the blockchain.
I saw this very interesting tweet. Apparently, a group of people discovered the wallet address of Dom Hofmann, Cofounder of Vine, set up alerts for his wallets, and could see what contracts he was minting. That doesn’t sound very private, does it?
You can say well the wallet addresses are still anonymous. Think of all the possible information that can be exposed especially as more social web3 platforms arise. When people are given the chance they tend to overshare. One moment you are posting your wallet address in a giveaway, next day you are mentioning how there was so much traffic in Surulere on your way home or your new job and position.
Sharing in itself is not a bad thing, it is the fact that there is now a wallet address that is publicly available on the blockchain.
Another privacy issue is that Web3 (and DeFi) platforms track your browser activities. I hate to break it to you but it is true. The very same thing they blame Web2.0 platforms of doing
Polkadot tracks users and has a cookie policy. It isn’t just Polkadot, you can find similar things on Pancakeswap.finance
They clearly have a Google analytics and GTM, so they can track you quite similarly to how Web2.0 platforms currently do.
As a Growth marketer, I can understand them. Without proper tracking, it is difficult to attribute what marketing channels bring in the most conversions. Will just be great for a bit of honesty from the advocates.
It is important to note that there is a blurred line between transparency and privacy. Web3 offers transparency which is a feature.
However, transparency infringes on privacy and therein lies the issue.
Again, I do not have any issues with Web3.0 platforms, I honestly believe it is the future of the web as written, I just think a lot still has to be done for it to be truly private and it will be great for these concerns to be talked about.
Wagmi though
Wagmi — We are gonna make it