As blockchain has come into popular consciousness, much of the hype has surrounded its disruption of currency. Digital cash is how a vast majority of people think about cryptocurrency and blockchain.
And while this aspect is arguably revolutionary, blockchain has the power to radically transform more. There is a real and tangible democratizing force behind the technology.
Community And Contact At the very core of blockchain is the idea of community. The technology was built by and fostered by a small community of idealistic members with a new vision for the future. This community was based on empowering every member, leveling hierarchies, and wrestling power back from large institutions and mega-corporations to put it in the hands of the people. This ethos has carried over into much of today’s Web3.
Some individuals say that it stands in stark contrast to the current Web2 model — Here, the Meta Platforms Incs (NASDAQ: META) of the world hold much of the power. They own the content and data produced by their users.
Blockchain offers users ownership of their own data and self-direction. One of the most exciting outgrowths of the crypto world is known as a DAO or decentralized autonomous organization. These are communities that are entirely self-directed. Members vote on decisions concerning the group in a direct democratic system that is protected from any form of fraud by the underlying blockchain technology.
Web2 has brought us more social interaction than ever before. But some say that the model has substituted quantity for quality. The mental health costs of social media are becoming documented at this point and as working from home has become the norm, “Zoom fatigue” has reportedly hit many.
Despite these very real costs, digital contact brings with it myriad benefits. Luckily, Web3 may be able to provide ease of contact without the costs associated with today’s model. There is some evidence that the metaverse and extended reality (XR) may be able to offer similar benefits as real human contact does, reducing the mental load and costs associated with Web2.
Environment As the world moves closer to climate difficulty, the need for real solutions has never been more critical. Criticism has been leveled that a drain on the planet’s resources is the hyper-scale data centers favored by Web2 companies like Microsoft Corp . (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:AMZN).
One example of a company that says it looks to create promising solutions comes from Cudos (CRYPTO: CUDOS). The layer 1 blockchain is building a layer 2 distributed computing platform called Cudo Compute that will use the world's idle computing power. This helps save precious resources and may help the world move away from the hyper-scale model favored by Web2.
Education In addition to building community, the metaverse presents an exciting new frontier to modernize education, which is ripe for disruption and innovation. Mountains of student debt are crippling Americans as tuition costs balloon. The ability to effectively educate students while cutting costs is paramount.
Web2 has presented a solution in the form of MOOCs or massively open online courses. These online courses brought free classes from institutions as prestigious as Harvard University or Stanford University to the masses. However, their effectiveness remains in question. Without the contact and presence of a traditional education environment, learning suffers.
The metaverse allows for a simulacrum of this personal contact and creates an immersive learning environment in which students can thrive. And the work that Cudos and other blockchain projects are doing to enable the metaverse is helping bring that vision into reality.
To learn more about the transformative power of blockchain, check out https://www.cudos.org/.
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