On December 21, 2021 the former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted this:
The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. Itâs ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.
Know what youâre getting intoâŠ
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Itâs fair to say his words started a raging debate on whether Web3 is more than just a clever marketing scheme developed by the venture capitalists and their incumbents.
In the past week another prominent critic poured fuel on the fire with her in depth analyses of the Web3 state of affairs.
At this point, a critical reader should be wondering why Andreessen Horowitz - a venture capital firm that has backed (and continues to back) some of the largest Big Tech firms, and whose entire business model relies on accruing value to themselves and their investors - would be interested in something that was truly âcommunity-governedâ where âvalue accrues to network participantsâ.
According to Molly White, Andreessen Horowitzâs newest State of Crypto report is an incredibly shameless piece of propaganda showing the extents to which the VC firm is willing to manipulate facts and outright lie, hoping to turn the sentiment on the crypto industry back to where retail investors were providing substantial pools of liquidity with which they could line their pockets.
While I appreciate the contributions of people like Jack Dorsey and Molly White to this conversation, I also find their points of view incredibly one-sided and biased against Web3.
Iâm afraid you wonât be able to make a clear judgement on the progress and innovation blockchain technologies have brought by only reading what the loudest critics are saying.
Web3 wants to take politics as we know out of many things but not to be âneutralâ but to take democratic rights and rules for participation away. When only the code decides and there is no place for debate and political struggle, how do the disenfranchised get heard? How do the powerless organize and revolt?
Politics is about struggles. About people having different interests and fighting for them and often against their political opponents. Web3 doesnât want to âstay out of itâ, it wants it to stop.
On March 19, 2022 a popular Youtuber posted a rather long exposĂ© on the topic at hand. She starts by showing the peculiarities of Web3 culture but quickly paints the picture in political colors. If you watch the video until the end, youâll see the quote above and realize this Youtuberâs lack of objectivity when talking about everything blockchain.
One might say this was not mĂŒnecatâs goal at all. Nevertheless, I find her video essay amusing and entertaining.
Stripe expands access to its crypto onramp with a new hosted option.
Stripeâs hosted fiat-to-crypto onramp makes it easier for Web3 companies to help US-based customers purchase crypto. The embeddable onramp is helpful for these companies that want to fully customize the branding and customer experience, while the Stripe-hosted option provides an even easier way for users to get started.
My name is Petar Kashev and Iâm a marketing professional from Bulgaria đ§đŹ You can follow me @petar on Warpcast or message me @petar on Telegram.