The year 2021 was quite a roller coaster. Restrictions, stimulation checks, and general social withdrawal made this a noteworthy year. The crypto industry also rode a wave of excitement in the following year. Dogecoin’s remarkable rise to a price of $88 billion, Bitcoin’s $68,000 high, El Salvador’s enthusiastic acceptance of the cryptocurrency, and the weirdly valuable cartoon depictions of monkeys all come to mind. Now in that time, you should have been familiar with Web3.
What exactly is Web3?
So, there’s Web3, which is both important and linked. This concept was supposed to become popular, but recent research by YouGov and Consensys reveals it’s still finding its way. While 92% of people understand crypto, only 8% are familiar with Web3.
What’s the point here? First, Web3 has had a tough time. The excitement was more than what happened, and the systems are still working to show how useful they are in the always-changing crypto space. Second, the people who criticize it have a point. People are familiar with Web3 and Web3 don’t know what it is like to look at a strange painting and not be sure what it’s supposed to show.
Actually, the survey found something interesting. People are concerned about those issues that Web3 ironically says it can fix.
Here are some statistics that show what people think:
- 79% of people want to be in charge of their online identity.
- 83% of people value their data privacy.
- 67% of people believe they should own what they make.
This may be good news for some fans because it shows that people are interested in the problems Web3 wants to solve and that there will be a market for it. In another way, though, it says exactly what the trouble is. These problems are very big and hard to understand.
The Aftershocks of Facebook Rebranding
People might be interested in these things, but that doesn’t mean that the Web3 protocols meant to solve these “problems” will work. As we’ve seen, once the price of tokens drops, the overall financial climate changes quickly.
It caused a lot of talk in the tech world when Facebook changed its name to Meta. This move shows Facebook’s inclination towards the metaverse. Facebook claims the Metaverse is a digital place connecting the real and virtual worlds.
Zuckerberg stated that they remained fully committed to the Metaverse vision. Further, he mentioned they have worked parallelly on both major priorities, AI and the metaverse, for many years. They also stated that the two areas overlap and are complementary.
Meta’s Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) business, which runs Metaverse, lost $13.7 billion on $2.2 billion in 2022, up from $10.2 billion in 2021.
Meta has done well this year because the tech sector is doing better. The stock rebounded after performing poorly compared to the Nasdaq. The underperformance got worse after the company’s Meta rebrand in October 2021.
Metaverse: The Unfortunate Timing
Meta’s rebrand timing was unfortunate. It made a public declaration to the metaverse and changed its name on October 28, 2021, just thirteen days before the peak of Bitcoin price and the height of the COVID-driven crypto craze.
Meta is the opposite of what Web3 believers want. A powerful tech company with a questionable past and public image. The metaverse is not Web3, but it’s hard to define it clearly.
The crypto sector is struggling, including metaverse and Web3 tokens. Bitcoin is still more than 55% lower than its highest value. The macro-environment has been difficult, and risk assets have struggled. Interest rates have increased to over 5% after being near zero for a long time.
Concluding the Future of Crypto and Metaverse
Interest in Bitcoin is decreasing, as shown by low search volume for the past two years. The damage to the metaverse has been worse. Metaverse coins on CoinMarketCap are mostly down. The top currencies have dropped by at least 84%, with an average drop of 92%.
Crypto has been tough for everyone. Metaverse has almost demolished the new concept. Some tokens and projects in the metaverse are useless, even though they are familiar with Web3 promises. Studying metaverse coins can teach us valuable lessons for ongoing space projects.
