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Discussion on: Why I'm excited about web3.0

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Thorsten Hirsch • Edited

We have been using P2P to exchange data for decades. We know how to synchronise data with P2P, but the problem was that we couldn't mutate data in a decentralised manner - we always needed a (write) master and everybody had to trust him. That was until blockchains had been developed. Blockchains use P2P, a runtime layer, a defence mechanism, and some clever data structures on top of databases in order to get rid of the (write) master in a global scenario. Now we have a network of equal nodes, in which everybody can verify data mutation and as long as > 50% of the nodes play fair (=come to the same result) the blockchain works. It's indeed a very expensive composition of technologies just to get rid of that single trusted master server, but it might be worth it depending on the use-case. Today we know for sure of one use-case that's worth all the fuzz* and that's Bitcoin. Web3 is the term that's used to explore blockchain use-cases other than just payment.

* = I don't think that PoW is worth it.