My Thoughts on the Future of Decentralized Technology

I had a chat with Marcus Patel from publish0x about the future of decentralized technology.

“She understands that where blockchain brings in transparency and openness, Zero-Knowledge technologies are ever more important. With the world only beginning to scratch the surface, different applications of ZK within both Web3 and Web2 will become evident. Marlene is visibly excited to be a part of a journey that will continue to evolve and offer better privacy and security.”

The fully article can be found here.

Can I say something controversial?

Back in November I joined a panel discussion with Maja Vujinovic, Managing Director at OGroup, Jeffrey Joh, independent consultant and angel investor, Lou Kerner, Venture Partner at Blockchain Coinvestors.

We discussed the meaning of community in Web3 and whether it’s always community first or whether Web3 stands for – IMHO – mainly decentralized infrastructure. Check out the video below for my “controversial” statement.

Thanks to Anjali Young from Collab Land for moderating this session.

DAOs: Past, Present & Future

I got invited by DAO Planet to speak at Dcentral Miami about the Past, Present and Future of DAOs.

Why do we need DAOs in the first place?

You can just incorporate a company, have shareholder agreements and voting rights. No Need for a DAO.

The true innovation of DAOs goes beyond everything being on chain, it goes back to one of the early memes of the 1990s Internet:

“Online nobody knows that you’re a dog.” 🐕

DAOs are meritorcracies and enable a pseudonomous economy. It doesn’t matter who you are and where you come from, instead your skills are front & center.

crypto’s endgame.

The holidays are around the corner, so time to prep some answers for noisy relatives. 

The other day I was interviewed by a university researcher about crypto culture. One of her questions was about our *why*. Why do we build these immutable, permissionless technologies? 

Before I answer, a little side quest: 

Crypto is not FTX. Crypto is not Celsius. Is crypto Luna? 

Confession time, I didn’t know what Luna was before it went into shambles, just that I didn’t trust 20% APY on fiat. I’m not an American citizen, so I couldn’t use Celsius, and I don’t trade much on CEXes, so no need for FTX. 

I also don’t find any of these three projects or companies particularly interesting. They don’t have anything to do with my personal *why crypto*. 

On to the *why*. For me, crypto is (1) prepping financial, communication & governance infrastructure and (2) experimenting with new forms of finance, communication & governance. 

There’s no killer app in crypto (yet). At first sight, there’s no apparent need for any of the stuff we’re building, especially not for those residing in stable, developed nations. But maybe there will be one day, and perhaps while we’re running all these game theoretical experiments on the future of finance, communication & governance, we will discover something new.  

What could that be?

—> more transparent systems within existing governments where budgets & their spending can all be inspected on-chain. The same goes for companies & NGOs.  

—> new governments in the cloud, think network states, or think country X is being physically invaded by country Y, but decides to continue its existence in cyberspace

For this, we need more than just immutable ledgers to do the accounting work; we also need decentralized storage, communication & governance systems. Something that cannot be shut off, neither by the good guys nor by the bad guys. For me, that’s web3. 

I’ve no idea where the idea on web3 took the wrong turn, and it became jpgs and VR mini-games. And I don’t know when people started thinking that crypto is equal to gambling on centralized exchanges, but all of this has very little to do with my personal *why*. 

Digital Discourses – The Future of Internet

The internet is broken. While Web 2.0 is rampant with surveillance capitalism, the next phase of the internet will have decentralisation at its core. How would Web3, with blockchain as its backbone, be different? Could it lead to a more cooperative web? What is the future of the internet? Here’s my talk for Goethe Institut Jakarta, the Center for Digital Society and Engage Media.