Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier

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The Web, and with it the Internet, are entering a new era. Over the past three decades, we’ve moved from the “Read-only Web,” which had little more than static content, to the “Read-Write Web,” which turned internet users into content creators and offered endless opportunities to collaborate. While this new Web revolutionized the media, retail, and other industries, the profusion of cyberattacks, data hacks, and online profiling have led many to view digital life as a Faustian bargain. Intermediaries and tech giants became gatekeepers, enacting barriers, and imposing tolls on everything we do, stifling innovation and economic freedom online.

Enter Web3, the “Read-Write-Own Web”—a decentralized Internet where individuals own their own identities and online creations and can securely trade assets like money, securities, intellectual property, art, and data peer to peer. Web3 allows us to reimagine cultural industries, transform money and markets, usher in new kinds of assets and organizations, and support greater global participation in our digital economy. If the spread of technology truly makes the world flatter, then Web3 could be a steamroller, remaking the world in profound and unexpected ways.

Like all revolutionary innovations, Web3 comes with immense promise and potential peril for leaders in business and society. 

In his timely new book Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier, award-winning author and technology investor Alex Tapscott provides a cutting-edge guide to the Internet’s next era. In his widely shared 2016 TEDxSanFrancisco talk, Blockchain is Eating Wall Street, which has over 820,000 views, Tapscott gave viewers a crash course in how new financial services technology had the potential to redefine Wall Street business as usual. Now, the field is so much bigger and more bewildering. Covering everything from the metaverse and non-fungible tokens to DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity, this indispensable, forward-thinking book describes the building blocks and often hidden technologies that will be foundational to our cultural and economic progress going forward. On The American Banker podcast, Alex said it best: “Web 3.0 empowers us with the ability to own assets online and control our own identities, and as a result, potentially even have a say in how the services that we consume are run and how they're governed.”

About the Author

Alex Tapscott is a globally recognized writer, speaker, investor, and advisor focused on the impact of emerging technologies—such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies—on business, society, and government. He is the co-author (with his father Don Tapscott) of the critically acclaimed nonfiction bestseller, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies is Changing the World. In 2017, Alex and Don co-founded the Blockchain Research Institute, a multi-million-dollar think-tank that is investigating blockchain strategies, opportunities, and use-cases. Alex is also managing director of the Digital Asset Group at Ninepoint Partners, an investment firm with around $9 billion in assets under management and institutional contract. Also in 2017, Alex was recognized with the Digital Thinking Award from Thinkers50. He is a CFA charter holder and a graduate of Amherst College. He lives in Toronto, Canada. Learn more at alextapscott.com.

We have 20 copies available, provided by the Harper Business. The giveaway will end on Monday, September 25th.