Web 3.0 at Miami Art Week
EDITORIAL 26 DECEMBER 2022
Patrick Thompson
The first week of December, I went to Miami Art Week (Art Basel), the for-profit, privately owned, and managed international art fair. Although fine art got the spotlight that week, the event attracted several tech and finance companies looking to grow their network and make or receive investments.
I spent 100% of my time at events for venture capitalists, bankers/financiers, startups, and individuals that work in tech. The conversations I had in those spaces gave me a better idea of the current sentiment around digital assets, given the ongoing bear market. Here are what I learned.
Nobody says blockchain anymore
The very first thing I noticed is that nobody refers to blockchain or digital asset projects as “blockchain-based projects,” “a project that uses cryptocurrency,” or “a project that uses digital assets.” Instead, everybody throws projects of that nature under the broad umbrella of web3.
Although web3 started as a way to describe private ownership of your content and property that could be distributed and consumed directly from peer-to-peer, it has now become the new way to say, “This project uses a blockchain or a digital asset.” It’s no secret that web3 is one of the latest buzzwords to be used in the blockchain and digital asset space, but still, it was a surprise that people go out of their way to avoid saying the word blockchain or ‘cryptocurrency’ these days. I believe they do this for two reasons:
The events that have taken place in the digital asset industry in the last six months have given words like “blockchain,” “bitcoin,” “Ethereum,” “crypto,” etc., a negative connotation, while web3 is so broad and obscure that it narrowly escapes being clumped in with the words that have been used to describe blockchain-based projects for the last eight years.
I think newcomers, people that began participating in the blockchain and digital asset space around 2020 and afterward, genuinely know the space as being referred to as web3 since they joined at a point when the buzzwords of the past were beginning to get phased out of the conversation.
This brings me to my next observation…everyone that I talked to that joined the blockchain and digital asset space in the “web3 era” are significantly underwater on their investments.
Retail investors are ruined
Most of the web3 era retail investors I talked with said they were down roughly 85% on their initial investment. With hindsight, it is clear why this is the case. The web3 era of blockchain enthusiasts and investors made their first investments right before the bear market began.
Unfortunately, the bad timing of their investments has deeply scarred them and played a big role in shaping their overall opinion of the blockchain and digital asset space. Most people in this category I talked to admitted to investing out of FOMO and expressed that the bags they are left holding do not have any utility outside of price speculation.
As a result, many of these web3 era retail investors will stay away from the blockchain and digital asset industry for quite some time now. If a new trend pops up and it picks up traction, the web3 era of retail investors will be skeptical and recall their personal experience of going in on a promising trend, only to lose 85% of their money. I believe the group that has been deeply scarred will only return to the blockchain and digital asset space when everyone around them is making money except for them, and FOMO kicks in once again.
