The digital world that we live in has gone through major generational shifts. We went from plaintext websites to streaming video. We went from static web pages to full-featured applications served remotely through the browser. 

As this digital world matured, we grew to rely more and more on a handful of large companies. Google built the fastest and most convenient search engine, and have been rewarded with control over 74% of all search traffic. Facebook built the most popular social network, and was rewarded with control over the online identities of 2.2 billion people.

These and similar centralized companies follow a predictable life cycle. At first, they begin with an objective to cater to masses by providing a platform that solves and addresses the issues of the world. As a process to implement the same, they go on a recruitment spree to bring on board a larger work force and third-party vendors like creators, developers, and businesses.

Over time, as platforms move up the adoption curve, their power over users and third parties steadily grows. With complete access to their data, they end up breaching the privacy of users and also capitalizing on their data by selling it to other companies.

The new digital world that we want to deliver is better from what it is today. This digital world isn’t about speed, performance, or convenience at its core. And it definitely isn’t about centralization of power. 

Instead, this new digital world is about bringing power to the masses. It’s about who has control over the technologies, data and applications that we use every day. It’s about breaking the dynamic that has shaped the last decade of the web: the tradeoff between convenience and control. 

This new digital world / web3 we envision has the following core principles that guide its creation to drive change for the better,

Web3 gives you ownership of your digital assets in an unprecedented way. For example, say you're playing a web2 game. If you purchase an in-game item, it is tied directly to your account. If the game creators delete your account, you will lose these items. Or, if you stop playing the game, you lose the value you invested into your in-game items.

Web3 allows for direct ownership through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). No one, not even the game's creators, has the power to take away your ownership. And, if you stop playing, you can sell or trade your in-game items on open markets and recoup their value.

The power dynamic between platforms and content creators is massively imbalanced. OnlyFans is a user-generated adult content site with over 1-million content creators, many of which use the platform as their primary source of income. In August 2021, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content. The announcement sparked outrage amongst creators on the platform, who felt they were getting robbed of an income on a platform they helped create. After the backlash, the decision got quickly reversed. Despite the creators winning this battle, it highlights a problem for Web 2.0 creators: you lose the reputation and following you accrue if you leave a platform.

On Web3, your data lives on the blockchain. When you decide to leave a platform, you can take your reputation with you, plugging it into another interface that more clearly aligns with your values.

As well as owning your data in Web3, you can own the platform as a collective, using tokens that act like shares in a company. DAOs let you coordinate decentralized ownership of a platform and make decisions about its future.

DAOs are defined technically as agreed-upon smart contracts that automate decentralized decision-making over a pool of resources (tokens). Users with tokens vote on how resources get spent, and the code automatically performs the voting outcome.

The present digital world’s payment infrastructure relies on banks and payment processors, excluding people without bank accounts or those who happen to live within the borders of the wrong country. Web3 uses tokens like ETH to send money directly in the browser and requires no trusted third party.

Traditionally, you would create an account for every platform you use. For example, you might have a Twitter account, a YouTube account, and a Reddit account. Want to change your display name or profile picture? You have to do it across every account. You can use social sign-ins in some cases, but this presents a familiar problem—censorship. In a single click, these platforms can lock you out of your entire online life. Even worse, many platforms require you to trust them with personally identifiable information to create an account.

The new digital world solves these problems by allowing you to control your digital identity with an Ethereum address and ENS profile. Using an Ethereum address provides a single login across platforms that is secure, censorship-resistant, and anonymous.

To achieve vision, we have a strong and a measurable mission ahead of us for the next 3 years to come.