Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of Twitter and current CEO of Block is making headlines with the announcement of the creation of web5—the next step in the future of the internet where web3 and web2 are combined in a seamless relationship.
TBD, the crypto company created by Jack Dorsey explains that the evolution of the internet has historically placed individuals at the center. In the very first iteration of the internet, the great majority of information was static HTML. Then came the onslaught of social media, which led to the creation of web2, and this allowed users for the first time to interact with applications like Facebook and Myspace.
Finally, the blockchain arrived, and with it, web3 — where applications are now decentralized, zero-knowledge proofs are now used to secure data, content is tokenized, and ultimately users’ identities are protected now.
Web5 will go one step further and combine characteristics from both web3 and web2 (which add up to web5, in case there was any confusion). In web5, Jack Dorsey envisions an ecosystem where the user is king. Dorsey elaborates, explaining,
“The web democratized the exchange of information, but it’s missing a key layer: identity. We struggle to secure personal data with hundreds of accounts and passwords we can’t remember. On the web today, identity and personal data have become the property of third parties.”
Why Is Dorsey Backing Web5?
Since the very start of his career, Jack Dorsey has been an outspoken leader with a great interest in progressive technology—specifically, blockchain technology and bitcoin. Jack, like so many other early crypto adopters still believes that Bitcoin is the ultimate utility when it comes to securing value in the digital form.
This is why Jack is choosing to focus his company, TBDs efforts on the Bitcoin network—with the intent of building web5 on top of the Bitcoin network. Thus wiping out the need for any other altcoin or so Dorsey explains it.
Critics have already begun to cite Ethereum and the invaluable network it has built for the support of not only NFTs but a slew of metaverse projects as well. Unfortunately, Bitcoin cannot boast such feats (for now).
What Will Web5 Do?
The name of the game for web5 will be decentralized—decentralized identifiers, decentralized web nodes, and a self-sovereign identity service with a software development kit to go alongside it. This means that there will be less focus on third-party applications running the system like Facebook and Google and more of a focus on the individual.
In web5, the individual user will be king, or so the creators of the project are lauding. They go on to say this about the official project purpose,
“We struggle to secure personal data with hundreds of accounts and passwords we can’t remember. On the web today, identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to your applications. It lets devs focus on creating delightful user experiences while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.”
How Soon To Expect Web5
Jack Dorsey is quick to launch his plans and put them into action but this is one project that will take a bit longer than others. With web3 not even fully formed and the great part of the internet still operating under the rules of web2, it looks like it might be a few years before we see anything like the web5 Jack has envisioned.
For now, the focus is on continuing to develop web3, and once it is up and running, the transition to mending the two and creating web5 will be seamless.
Johnny Clark, founder of GDPR, a crypto compliance startup explained,
“A benefit of centralized internet, Web2, is the ability to employment verification and identity assurance. The benefit of the decentralized internet, Web3, is bypassing central ownership and enabling true anonymity”.
Maybe just maybe, we’ll get to 2 and 3 and in due time, 5 will be just around the crypto Riverbend.
