The year is currently 2022 and web3 is still continuing to spread around the globe. Some of the hottest topics in the space right now are NFTs, NFT gaming and domains. DeFi has seemed to lose some hype but is still around for the most part. A lot of communities have formed around these NFT projects that minted out during the bull run. DAO tokens also launched around some projects but have failed to maintain traction.
I was very bullish on DeFi back in early 2020 because it showed a clear use case. Assuming that you are only having to track numerical data, or balances, between contracts and key addresses, it would make sense for the industry to utilize such an idea. Block-chains have limited storage by nature making this a great utilization of the technology.
With these other tokens however I’m not sure. They are called ERC-721 or NFT’s. They extend the idea but rather than track balances, users are storing a small amount of external data tied to a contract or public key address. Users have put links to pictures or information as the data of choice for this and called it an “NFT”. Rather than it being just numerical balances it is now a unique piece of data that can be transferred between people with the block-chain as the trusted third party over the web.
The primary use for this data right now is images and profile pictures. However, that does not limit that use of transferable data to just that. You could potentially use the data for subscriptions, memberships, game items, art, collectibles, and much more
What is next in web3 depends on how much the community evolves as more and more information is spread around the globe. Right now people that use the internet don’t understand fully how things work but that shall change in the future. As more and more users learn they’ll search for and build alternatives to the systems we currently use today. There are devs currently working on this and more and more people around the globe learning daily.
Which ever chain focuses on innovating past just the “smart contract” has a chance of accelerating the growth of the web3 space the most. A service or product that empowers decentralization across all nodes in the block-chain ecosystem. I don’t think the idea shall be specific to the ETH community nor any one community in the crypto ecosystem. I think it shall incorporate direct commutation to the users nodes. Not allowing users on the network with just a wallet, but instead making it mandatory they are running a node to access the network.