What kind of Web3 are the pioneers of Web3 building?

499Block
6 min readJan 18, 2022

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The wave of decentralization brought by blockchain technology has gradually deepened, such as the decentralized currency and decentralized production organization management form. Nowadays, it spreads to the decentralized Internet “Web 3.0” which will let “readable and writable” Web 2.0 evolve into “readable, writable and controllable”. Web 3.0 is expected to solve the monopoly of Internet giants and bring more reasonable distribution of value to users, making Web 3.0 a hot direction for entrepreneurs and capital. The 499block invited the teams of Solcial, Deep Network, Mask Network and Pocket to observe and discuss what kind of Web 3.0 we are building.

Solcial Idris - Partner of Solcial

Solcial, a social application based on blockchain, is an uncensored, unlicensed and truly open social network.

“Web 3.0 means the Ecosystem, the environment around blockchain, and the effects blockchains have on our daily lives: the way we use our finances, games, and soon the way we use our social networks.”

“We think that 2022 will be the year of Social Tokens.”

“Social is a decentralised social network built on top of Solana, The idea is that every user on the app can invest in people, artists, singers or anyone. You have your own market cap.

Solcial has 3 subscription levels, you can follow someone for free, like on instagram or twitter. But also you can access their private content, similar to patreon and onlyfans. Instead of paying a monthly fee, you invest in them, so if you hold tokens of an artist, you can access their tier 2 or tier 3 subscription levels.

Anyone can share whatever they want to, they can share their market analysis, or even their jokes if they’re a humorist. Whatever your talent is, as long as the world is willing to pay for what you have to offer, you can become like a public company, you can have your own token, market cap and monetize your talent. And this tokenisation is only possible because of Web 3.0.”

Pocket Network Michael - Co-founder and CEO of Pocket Network

Pocket Network is a blockchain data ecosystem for Web3 applications. It is a platform built for applications that can coordinate and distribute data on a large scale at a lower cost. Seamless and secure interactions between blockchains and applications are supported. Through Pocket, the use of blockchain can be simply integrated into websites, mobile applications and the Internet of things, so that developers can freely put blockchain applications into the “pocket” of each mainstream consumer. Pocket currently supports more than 21 blockchain networks and more than 21,000 nodes, truly realizing decentralization.

The problem of the underlying basic data centralization of the blockchain has actually existed for a long time. At present, although most of the public nodes of the blockchain are reputed decentralized, they actually run on the cloud servers of network service providers such as Amazon, which is also a form of centralization. When people pay attention to the application such as Web3.0, in fact, the centralization of Web3.0 infrastructure has been quite prominent, and now it is also facing severe challenges.

Developers run all nodes by themselves to provide data support for applications which may get rid of centralized node service providers such as Infura. However, it will not only increases operating and maintenance costs, but also reduces efficiency. For developers, they naturally choose Infura to provide basic data services, mainly because of convenience. As a result, a large number of DApp developers give up building all node services by themselves and rely on centralized blockchain basic data service institutions such as Infura, resulting in possible single point of fault. Pocket Network has perfectly avoided such problems and successfully built a decentralized blockchain basic service network to ensure the stable operation of upper layer applications.

Pocket Network redistributes the basic data nodes of the blockchain through incentives, increases data backup and reduces data service fault, so as to ensure the stability of the underlying data services of the blockchain. It also provides a unified API interface for various developers, which solves the problem of centralization of blockchain network data from the bottom, providing reliable infrastructure for application developers to ensure the normal operation of blockchain applications.

Mask Network Taylor Zhang - Ecosystem Lead of Mask Network

It is undoubted that Web 3.0 impacts on Web 2.0 giants. Such a relationship will inevitably lead to obstacles by internet giants, and users also need a process to use Web 3.0. How to make all of them accept Web 3.0 is a question that builders should consider.

Mask network wants to be the channel for Web 2.0 users to enter the Web 3.0 world, by providing users with a similar experience to Web 2.0.

Founded in July 2019, Mask Network, one of the earliest projects to deploy Web 3.0, allows users to send encrypted information, files and currency on the platforms of traditional social giants such as Facebook and Twitter, and use decentralized applications such as DeFi and NFT to protect their privacy, hold their data ownership and easily experience Web 3.0.

Mask Network has a variety of functions such as information encryption and decryption, ITO (initial twitter offering), transaction based on social scenes, activity display on the chain such as NFT avatar display and Web3 tag, distribution of red envelope, decentralized file storage services, etc. It also has access to a number of third-party dApps including Uniswap, OpenSea, Arweave and Snapshot, extending the functions to DeFi, NFT and Web3.0, providing an all inclusive one-stop solution.

In November 2021, Mask Network released a brand upgrading scheme called “Mask 2.0”, focusing on the Mask multi chain wallet, Mask identity and decentralized application market named D.Market in the next stage.

Deeper Network Eric Ma - CMO of Deeper Network

Deeper Network is a Web3 project which combines blockchain, network security, and sharing economy to create a global peer to peer network that empowers the real users of the internet and paves the way for the next generation of the web. Winners of the Substrate Builder’s Program Web3 grant, Deeper Network is a Polkadot ecosystem project which seeks to create a more secure, private and fairer internet for everyone. Having solutions for current pain points in security, privacy and Internet monopolization, Deeper Network has a full stack Web3 solution. Deeper Network is trying to accomplish what Apple and Google did by bringing users from Web1 to Web2 with their app stores but bring users from Web2 into Web3 through its Dapp store and Web3 ecosystem.

Web3 Dapps already include decentralized VPN (DPN), decentralized advertising, and soon to come a decentralized video content platform called D-Tube. Other Dapps what will be coming to the ecosystem include the D-Gate, a decentralized Dapp store, decentralized naming services (DN), decentralized content distribution network (CDN) services, decentralized file sharing and storage services, defi marketplaces and NFT exchanges all with their native coin $DPR at the heart of the ecosystem.

Already with 4 generations of hardware and its own Helium (HNT) attachment, the devices not only offer all the features above but also help you earn DPR & HNT coins. The family of devices include the Deeper Connect Mini, Nano and Pico and all currently sell on Indiegogo and their own shop and provide easy plug-and-play access.

With over 55,000+ nodes around the world and in 135+ countries, Deeper Network is projected to hit 1 million nodes by the end of 2024.

Reality Chain Adam Ardisasmita - CEO of RealityChain

Reality Chain is an award-winning Social Metaverse that seeks to give you a non-immersive Metaverse experience with the power of Web 3.0. A Metaverse shouldn’t replace your social interactions; and instead, it should be a complementary part of your social life. Reality Chain’s Metaverse provides a “casual” experience while still giving you the benefit of owning pieces of it as NFTs.

Arcanum Capital Lucia Zheng - Founding Partner of Arcanum Capital

Arcanum Capital is a US-based investment advisor with principals and advisors across multiple continents. The firm is focused on accelerating the growth of early-stage technology startups in emerging markets. Arcanum’s leadership have served as both operators and investors in frontier and emerging markets since 2013 and have incubated and worked extensively with numerous emerging technology companies around the world, from startups to decentralized networks to publicly listed companies. For more information, visit arcanum.capital.

Wall Amarnath Jayanti - co-founder of Wall

Despite the promising future, Web 3.0 is a reconstruction of the Internet and a transfer of paradigm and value. Both the application level that users can see and the underlying facilities behind are facing great challenges and difficulties, so we need excellent developers to lead us forward.

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