MOVING TOWARDS A DECENTRALISED DIGITAL EXISTENCE

If internet is treated as one platform catering to all that has been happening since its inception, we are likely to miss out the huge technological churning. The nascent one, Web3 might be totally different from where it all started. From the dot.com boom, what supposedly is called the digital, connected era started, it got into a variety of areas, communication revolution transforming it. Information became the key to start with. It moved onto content sharing, web applications and centralized global companies, gaining unassailable power from the creation and control of data on their platforms. Now its time for churning once again, Web3 will transform the internet yet another time. This is strength of this mother of all platforms, creating successive waves encompassing whole of mankind.

This is the live technology of today. The current wave is the internet.  Web3 is a reality today. Web3 is an umbrella term for an online ecosystem, cutting out the IT behemoths and it need not be navigated through search engines. The new technology and tech platform being provided to propel the Web3 age is Blockchain technology. It is a technology that fuels the cryptocurrencies. The biggest achievement of this technology is that makes internet decentralized. The data does not reside at one single location and in one person / management ownership or control. We should not miss the trees for the woods. Given the current nature of change and the general business direction of Web3, blockchain is bound to become the ruling technological deity of Web3.

The focus can also be gauged from the fact that the Blockchain startups have started to grab investors eyeballs during the Covid-19 pandemic, now that time has come for Web3 startups to shine. The total funding of new-age startups rose to a record $587 million in Oct 2021 compared to $37 million the earlier year. This raised hopes for blockchain focused startups in India. Decentralized apps to replace centralized social networks. Individuals can maintain ownership of their data. In the present form these genre of apps is available for finance, arts and collectables, gaming and technology. As per the current estimates, there stands a good chance that  8,00,000 jobs would get created in blockchain and Web3 related fields by 2030.

Polygon is leading this revolution. It is an Ethereum scaling platform that allows for cheaper and faster transactions on the blockchain. It has raised. $450 million in the first institutional round. More than 38 global institutional investors have invested in this blockchain venture. This is critical for the Web3 developers in India, founded by persons of Indian origin, aims to become Web3 Amazon Web Servives.  Undeniably, an ecosystem is important. The early age startups can keep can keep building their applications on Polygon. The mission is make India a superpower in Web3. As of now we have only a few Web3 companies in India, but experts say that this emerging sector is bound to be a hotspot for venture capitalist. Antler, a venture capital firm is said to have committed $50 million across 25-30 startups in blockchain and We3 in the next few years.

Sanjay Sahay