Backpacks is the closest word we have to describe the benefits of crypto that will resonate with the widest possible audience. Crypto gives everyone their own Internet backpacks, cracking open the ability to travel from app to app, site to site, with their own stuff intact.
My own experience of this came in late 2020 as I set up my first Ethereum wallet, funded it with ETH, and started using applications like Rarible, Zora, Uniswap and Zapper. I touched upon this realization that there is another layer of the Internet, one that sits below the websites and apps we use. My online identity and inventory does not splinter across the internet from siloed app to siloed app, but instead follows me around, remaining constant, whole and real. My backpack is my own, and these sites simply expose and interact with what is truly mine.
This experience cannot be fully expressed in words. It must be experienced first hand. The products and experiences we build are what give people their first real taste of what it’s like to have an Internet backpack. It is through these touchpoints that a shift in our collective perception of digital space will take place – one that transcends the websites and applications we use and exposes a deeper layer that enables a more interesting, more fair, and more meaningful Internet.
Notes: This post was first published on Matthew Chaim's Paragraph blog here. "Backpacks" builds on an idea first tweeted by Fred Ehrsam and later Disco.xyz's "Data backpacks" concept.
