After Crypto

Crypto, as we define it today, may end up being the first exploration of a larger structure of public blockchains underlying shared infrastructure, post-platform experiences, and a more collectively owned and governed digital universe than we have today.

We shouldn’t need to rely on infinite credit cards or the Wayback Machine to tell future creators and generations the stories of our work. Because a blockchain is a giant public ledger, it allows for agnostic permanent storage and provenance that will become even more important the older and bigger the Internet gets.

To say there’s an “after crypto” isn’t calling for the end of crypto or to discredit projects in that space. It’s to say there are potentially groundbreaking and perfectly valid reasons to create tools built around public ledgers that aren’t only about crypto. Our thinking needs to evolve.

Crypto and blockchain-based applications aim to steer the web towards its original vision: an open network, based on public-domain protocols, controlled by no one. It promises to enable "decentralized" alternatives to the tech and government giants we all know and love.

One major challenge is that the blockchain has, at present, approximately zero uses for the typical consumer. Theoretical uses abound, but no ordinary person is choosing a blockchain-based technology over its traditional counterpart. More than a decade after blockchains first caught tech geeks’ eye, not a single smartphone app that you use with fri... See more

Fast forward to today, and it’s become increasingly clear that the crypto ecosystem – specifically, its blockchain infrastructure – will fundamentally change the way we use, build and benefit from the internet.

Crypto and “Web3” are really all about blockchain tech. And what a blockchain lets you do is run perpetual decentralized applications.