A bold statement I know but hear me out on this one.
Elon Musk might be doing more to usher in Web 3.0 than any human on the planet. Pretty ironic considering he is the one who Tweeted out that he can't find it.
Nevertheless, the moat around Twitter might be breaking. A lot of this might not be surprising to those who are advocates of Web 3.0 and involved in cryptocurrency, yet the world at large is getting a glimpse into what is taking place.
To start, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about Musk. The vital factors are the core issues of the deal, especially how it pertains to the opportunity presented for a blockchain like Hive.
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Twitter Bots Killed The Deal And Caused A Lawsuit
For those who are not paying attention, Musk walked from the deal based upon his accusation of the Board misleading (and ultimately filing fraudulent numbers with the SEC) the public about the percentage of bots and fake accounts on the platform.
Certainly, none of us can claim the validity of either side. What we can say is that anyone who is a long time, heavy Twitter users knows that their following is not made up of real people. To most, the number of bots seem higher although this is not empirical in any way.
Now Twitter's Board is suing Musk. They are trying to hold him to the deal at the original $44 million price.
There are a few ways this can go.
A ruling in favor of Musk gets him out of the deal and probably sets off a SEC investigation into the filings of Twitter.
If Musk loses, he will either have to pay $1 billion as a penalty to walk away from the deal or go through with the original $44 billion deal.
There is another caveat for Musk: The deal is contingent upon him retaining his original financing. This is $13 billion that he secured from the largest banks in the world.
Here is where things can get tricky. Do you think the banks will be willing to fork over $13 billion to a buyer who doesn't want what he is buying? Certainly, they cannot just pull the financing because they feel like it but these are banks, there likely are hoops they can go through to remove the funding.
And Musk is free from the deal.
Of course, there is always the chance they (Musk and the Board) come to some other arrangement.
No matter what happens, this could take a while. At the same time, Twitter is being pulled through the mud.
Time For Web 3.0 To Step In
According to Musk, one of the big issues with traditional social media and Web 2.0 is the topic of free speech. It actually goes deeper than that.
At play here is the ability to have one's digital life erased with the click of a button. Anything taking place on a centralized platform is subject to that which is in control of the data.
Here is where blockchain changes the game entirely. Using a decentralized database coupled with an account management system that gives one full ownership of his or her account. This means that everything one does is protected. There is no single entity with the ability to remove it.
This makes the data, and by extension, one's digital life, immutable. We can start to see how important this is.
Since the situation between Musk and Twitter arose, there are a number of projects coming out claiming to be able to serve the purpose. The challenge is they are looking to build on blockchains with transaction fees. Some might disagree but if one has to pay to engage, that seems like a non-starter.
Another advantage to Hive is that it carries zero direct transaction fees. This is ultimately something that can be leveraged for massive growth.
Hive uses Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPos) which has caused some controversy. One thing that cannot be disputed regarding it is the ability to scale. This is going to be a crucial factor when creating decentralized social media.
Hive Is Already Working On This
Over the past few years, some development took place that will place Hive in a position to toss its hat in the short form content ring. If Twitter is being exposed for its shortcomings, the door is opening for an alternative. The key is going to be offering a user experience that can rival what people get now.
Fortunately, with Twitter, it is a rather simple application, at least with its core feature. Hive can process long form content. Thus it will make Tweet-like content a piece of cake.
If the ledger can handle blog posts containing a couple thousand words, then a "Tweet" is easily processed.
DBuzz is already in operation. This application provides the ability to place short form content on Hive. However, the one drawback is that it uses the top line blog feature as its method of writing to the chain. This has a few limitations, one being the ability to post once every 5 minutes.
This is a drastic change from what Twitter offers. For this reason, they are experimenting with off-chain mechanics to overcome this.
Another is the Leofinance revelation that it is close to implementing "Threads". This is an important step in the development of its short form application.
What "Threads" will do is remove the posts from being top line. This means that each "Tweet" will mirror what people are accustomed to. From the blockchain perspective, this will be nothing more than a comment.
Another option could be to have these submitted to the blockchain as Custom JSONs. This would require less bandwidth for each transaction, further enhancing the potential for scale.
Notice how the entire discussion did not even mention tokenization. Most attribute Web 3.0 to simply adding a token to a platform. As we show here, it is more about the data structure and the control users have with the applications.
Ultimately what Leofinance is working on, if successful, will be a front end. All the data is written to the blockchain means that anyone can develop an application to pull the same information. Here is where the digital life is protected.
Since Hive is a distributed ledger, it is concurrently housed on more than 100 computers around the world. This means the back end is open to anyone.
We ultimately could see a number of front ends offering something similar to what Twitter provides. Thus, Twitter will exist on the Hive blockchain since all the data resides there yet will be accessed via many different applications.
Welcome to Web 3.0.
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