Web 3.0: A Lie of "Cyber Capitalism"

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"The 'cyber-born' of ignorant capitalism."

The source of this article is "pinwancool" (ID: pinwancool), reproduced by Tencent Ventures with permission.

Author / Guo Haiwei

Cover source / Visual China

On March 4, 2021, a registered account of the BurntFinance blockchain team burned a painting artwork "Moron" by British artist Bansky in a live broadcast. Before that, they had just taken this 2006 work for $95,000 and made it into an NFT collection. Then, they destroyed the work in the live broadcast room.

Such crazy behavior has allowed them to obtain considerable returns-the NFT backup of "Idiot" was sold for 4 times more than the original price on the Opensea platform. Burn a Volvo and earn a Maybach with tears.

"moron" burned by live broadcast | Source: Internet

In BurntFinace's manifesto for "burning paintings", they explained this seemingly crazy behavior this way: "If (a work of art) has both an NFT and a physical part, the value will be mainly in the physical part. By removing Physical attributes, leaving only the NFT, can ensure the contractual validity of the blockchain...and then move the physical value to the NFT.”

As those of us who have received an education in thinking, similar scenes are not unfamiliar. In a capitalist society, producers often actively annihilate the commodity itself (use value) in order to maintain the price of the commodity as a whole (exchange value ) . We are most familiar with the events that occurred during the Great Economic Crisis of 1929, when American farmers dumped milk to maintain overall commodity prices. That photo is still in our textbooks to this day.

Source: Network

And "burning pictures" is the "pour milk" in the era of web3.0. The two of them are similar in nature, but "burning pictures" presents a very unique madness that can only be found in the context of web 3.0.

If you look back at the current situation of the collapse of the blockchain today and look at it with hindsight, this behavior of "burning pictures" is just like "pouring milk", which to some extent heralds the bursting of the web3 bubble:

(1) The currency energy of web3 has reached a climax, the pricing model has lost its rationality, and the property rights model has also been separated from the real world;

(2) The "aggressiveness" of radical web3 players is officially presented to everyone - they believe that web3 and the physical world are not "complementary", but have a clear-cut value opposition and value competition;

(3) Like all capitalism, they are cold-blooded and rude about things themselves, based on monetary value. If you want to choose a picture to depict cyber capitalism under web3, "burning pictures" must be an iconic scene.

But just "burning pictures" is obviously not enough to show the full picture of web3's capitalism. In the following, we will gradually illustrate the combination of capitalism and technology in the context of web3 from three aspects.

Cyber Rights and the Birth of Whales

In "web3: A Game of Concepts", we mentioned web3 by Eshita et al. as a revolutionary web that is "ownable". Correspondingly, "property rights" has logically become the first important concept in web3.

Whether it is currency or NFT, they are in fact using web3 technology to redefine property rights in the digital world. How is this form achieved? We can think of the blockchain as a huge spreadsheet, with each column recording the corresponding asset, transaction records, and the wallet to which the asset currently belongs. This is probably like the "life and death book" of Lord Yama, which comprehensively records the profit and loss of the "good news" in each private account.

What the two have in common is that for each microscopic individual, this "book of life and death" is a "transcendental" existence. We can't tamper with this form, but can only try to change a small column on the grid that belongs to us - "burning incense" in Yan Wangye, and paying Gas (which can be understood as a handling fee) in web3 .

The difference between the two is that only gods can read the life and death book of Lord Yan, but in web3, this form is public, and everyone can download and view these forms. Therefore, there are also views that the underlying world of web3 is essentially a reconciliation system. Originally, the reconciliation system itself could not be established independently of the entity, but the whole set of visions of web3 actually gave the reconciliation system vitality.

Taking NFT as an example, in fact, a unique pixel address (usually an address blessed by blockchain technology such as IFPS) is introduced into the entire accounting system . In web2's view, NFTs are pixels that can be copied at will. However, in the view of web3, in the two superimposed blockchain systems, this pixel has exclusivity, and then becomes the property rights of only one person.

In the eyes of outsiders, this "property rights" logic is an unreasonable game. But when enough people believe this logic, within a certain group of people, this accounting system has "legitimacy". So within a certain range, the exclusive pixel addresses in these systems naturally have value. Therefore, for the "macro world", the future of web3 should be a monopoly and interconnected super watch - we can allow Buddha, Bodhisattva and Arhat at the same time, they are compatible with each other, in the form of "cross-chain" etc. form a unified world.

But if we have Yama, Buddha, God, and Allah at the same time, then it is actually an atheistic country. This is also why in the eyes of the public chain believers, the alliance chain is a pagan existence, because the former actually damages the monopoly vision of the latter. But for "micro-individuals", this table means "decentralized" properties, so that our assets do not have to depend on some specific entities to exist. In the eyes of technologists,

The "decentralized" property rights system means countless "good words" : transparent and open, the table means that the assets are transparent and verifiable; decentralization means liberalism and democracy. Some people even compare web2 and web3 to capitalism and communism, respectively, to emphasize the superiority of this "decentralization" ability, and describe a beautiful vision of "the world is united".

But there is often a huge gap between vision and results. This is reflected in at least three properties of web3 finance: First, although assets are traceable, wallets are actually anonymous. From the perspective of the blockchain, there has never been the so-called "equality of all beings", only the "wallet" is equal. Wallets cannot be annihilated, and keys cannot be modified. In theory, as long as anyone knows the key of a wallet, it is equivalent to permanently owning the wallet.

Therefore, it is almost difficult for regulation to land under such primitive technical conditions. Who can censor a key that doesn't even know where it exists and if anyone remembers it. This makes web3's DeFi (Decentralized Finance) market the most opaque block trading market in the world. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, how many wallets and how many coins he has. And such "pseudo-name culture" is actually very popular among early web3 entrants.

After all, "making a fortune in silence" can help them avoid many risks in public opinion, policy and taxation. Secondly, since the essence of the chain is a set of accounting systems. So theoretically, digital assets can enter the ledger in any way and in any form. It can be an NFT in any form of audio and video, or it can be a company's stock equity, or a membership card of some brands, etc.

Its form can be a package of several assets, or an infinitely divided share of an asset (the "equity" of web3 projects is often presented in the form of tokens) . Of course, the premise is that these products are supported by "legality" - for example, these brands must recognize the existence of blockchain membership cards, or within a specific range of funds, everyone agrees that NFTs and coins have exclusive value.

Finally, since it is an undifferentiated digital asset, it also gives these assets great liquidity. The dual attributes of decentralization and digitization have actually opened the ceiling of digital asset transactions. In the physical world, commodity delivery requires the support of complex systems such as matching and logistics.

When it comes to web2, the purchased content often needs to be used on a specific content platform. For example, the obvious “digital collection” of vinyl records you purchased can only be played on a certain head platform. For stocks and futures, it is necessary to rely on the business hours of the exchange to trade.

However, because web3 is an undifferentiated accounting system, any content on the chain can actually be "decentralized" - transacted with anyone at any time and on any occasion. In addition, as an asset, it can also be split in advance to promote liquidity; "anonymity" can also bypass supervision, eliminating the need for complex compliance reporting and tax filing.

Source: pexels

Liquidity is an important concept that essentially represents the "power" of capital holders. It can be said that in web3, what we can see is a vision of capital flow that is infinitely close to absolute freedom. And as Sartre said, absolute freedom brings absolute power. What would happen if the vision of web3 really covered real world economic rights?

Based on the above three attributes, we can make up an investment case in the web3 scenario:

Suppose we are an LP investor who has invested in the global early stage fund of the global web3 and metaverse giant "Byte and Move". So, how long do you need to wait to get the capital return after the split and listing of the world's most successful Dapp "Bodiyin"? In real life, you may never get the money.

Because early-stage funds may lose their gains in the new consumption track; even if there is no loss, the long review of cross-border capital flows is very troublesome. Perhaps the best way to quickly cash out is to sell your fund shares in a package. But in the world of web3, it is essentially a bookkeeping game. We just need to count the corresponding shares and put them in your wallet. Even the listing of "Bodiyin" itself is a false proposition, because web3 may have eliminated the exchange, leaving the project in the so-called "listed" state all the time.

We can think about a second example:

In the capital world of web2, Musk had trouble extracting funds when he bought Twitter. So what would happen if Zhang Sanming, the chairman of "Byte and Move", wanted to acquire the web3 social media "Twitters"? We will presumably see some (or possibly none) volatility in asset prices for both Twitters and ByteDance .

Careful people will find that a batch of wallets that have not been touched very much have begun to sell bytes, and a batch of new wallets have begun to buy Twitters. But in the vast web3 world, few people connect the two. Then the next blockchain vote found that Elona Musk had finally managed to become the chairman of Twitters. Of course, what people never know is that the person standing behind Elona is actually Zhang Sanming.

Elona has become one of Elon's countless official stalks that are widely circulated | Source: Internet

In web3, people who hold super coins are called "whales". They are lurking in the ocean, huge in size, and ready to blast a giant splash in the market at any time. This is an interesting metaphor. In fact, currency in the real world is like water, with various complex forms. It has both flowing rivers (primary and secondary markets) , lakes (banks, funds) , and a considerable part is fixed in the soil (companies & industries) . Due to the sovereign system, taxation mechanism, market supervision and many other restrictions, the owner of the land actually owns water in name, but cannot easily strip off the "water".

The advantage of such an institutional arrangement is that it ensures that most of the "water" is dedicated to building productivity and cultivating food for human society. Otherwise, if water flows freely, there will be a shortage of water in the soil (industry) . But in web3, capitalists and capital have become ghosts, and ghosts are truly free. Human society may appear for the first time, and only through a few virtual wallets, as a direct natural person, all the wealth of human society can be mastered.

They can walk between different shares without having to pay high management effort, face complex market competition, or even pay taxes. Today, in the DeFi miracle, invisible rich people with tens of billions of wealth have been born. There seems to be no upper limit to this wealth centralization of web3. People often say that money is "things outside the body", and web3 will turn capital into "things inside the body" in a sense. This is a bit like the rich people in "Time Planning Bureau", their "wealth" is directly reflected on their wrists.

Source: "Time Planning Bureau"

web3 technologism factually circumvents regulation, transforms the liquidity of assets, and constructs a new capitalist world. It is not a human continent where men and women weave, but an ocean... If it is said that on the land, organizations, civilizations and empires will be born; then in the ocean, whales will be born. But what humans need is tissue, and only whales need whales.

Tokenism and Potential Human Alienation

As mentioned above, the blockchain technology behind web3 has had anxiety about the source of "legitimacy" since its inception. This anxiety continues to this day—as a bookkeeping system that is too good to be accounted for by anything of real-world value.

This is of course directly related to the centralized power relationship of traditional assets. Especially when web3 becomes a corner that cannot be covered by regulation, it is difficult for the traditional system to achieve compliance in it, and it is difficult to derive the benefits of efficiency necessity in it. And web3's solution to this is: invent digital assets by yourself to make the blockchain system work. We try to "learn" how the web sequence is defined ("read-only" and "writable") , and also divide this web3 progress into three stages like the web sequence number:

1.0 period: The blockchain currency represented by Bitcoin is almost an asset born purely for this system, and it was born almost at the same time as blockchain technology;

2.0 period: The content assets represented by NFT, the "on-chain" of books, audio, video and paintings.

These assets are much like when the web was just developing. After all, whether 30 years ago or today, content is the most cost-effective asset - their unit price ceiling is high, and the migration cost is very low. Especially those "read-only" "boutique content", even more so. But obviously, the "legitimacy" crisis of the blockchain has not been resolved at this stage.

Even in the "base camp" of the United States, despite Zuckerberg's resignation on Libra's landing plan, the government still firmly rejected the stablecoin project. This means that Congress has great doubts about the risks of this financial method - too much supervision is the armor of web3, and it is also the soft underbelly of web3.

web3 must find new scenarios to further extend its "legitimacy". One of the most famous conceptual attempts is the "metaverse". Compared with coins and NFTs, the future edge computing and decentralization scenarios of the Metaverse are more ambitious. It will solve once and for all the legitimacy crisis of web3 and build a new world that grows independently beyond regulation. But after all, the metaverse is too far away, we can regard this 3.0 period as the on-chain (“writable”) of scene and behavior data for the time being .

The most intuitive attempt is actually X2E (X to earn) , which allows web3 to create a scene that is unique to itself. Users generate data on Dapp in exchange for corresponding tokens, and then complete the "monetization" of their own behavior data and scene data. We can see the digitalization process of web3, which is almost equivalent to the tokenization process.

People try to make web3 transformation (on-chain) of all the assets that were once centralized, and then sell the corresponding tokens. In theory, all assets that can be digitized can be tokenized; and all items that can be quantitatively described can be digitized. If the process of digitization is turbulent, then the token will be like the mouse lying on the digitized cow in the zodiac racing story.

So whether it is the metaverse, or real life merged with the web. We can all make an ongoing judgment about the future based on the above-mentioned development logic of web3: · Any asset with "private property value" and "digitalization" will be on the chain and will have its own token. These assets include, but are not limited to, our valuable behavioral data, health data, and even privacy data; all virtual assets in the metaverse, including but not limited to real estate, clothing, avatars, vehicles in games, etc.

We might as well call this expectation "tokenism" - in the web3 world, everything can be tokenized.

Source: unsplash

This dual-track merger of digitization and monetization may bring about an "alienation" of human society. The most intuitive is the change of item attributes. For example, in real life, objects are firstly "supplies" and secondly "commodities".

The existence of "commodities" in items is actually very short-lived, often only from a few days to a few months from the factory to the cashier; and once an item reflects the value of "goods", its "commodity" attribute is quickly wasted. However, in the web3 world, there is no concept of "depreciation", and the centralized "circulation pattern" has also ended.

All tokens can present indistinguishable commodity forms at any time. In other words, in the web3 world, items are "commodities" first and "supplies" second. The effects of such swapping of item attributes can be complex.

For example, in such an environment, all commodities will show a certain "investment attribute", and then the prices of scarce products will rise rapidly. This actually has corresponding cases in real life, such as the transaction of basketball trendy shoes and medieval women's bags. In order to maximize the protection of the commodity value of the sneakers, the participants will not wear shoes even once.

Historically, the ancient governments focused on controlling items with similar properties, such as salt, iron, silver, etc. Because if there is no good market supervision system, it will almost certainly attract a few people to monopolize the commodity market - when there is no risk of discounting the commodity, the benefits of price monopoly will become more attractive. This kind of change in the attributes of objects will inevitably promote the overall alienation of people in different dimensions.

We don't want to talk about the impact of so-called "screen traffic", "mobile phone", etc. on the human brain. This article focuses on the discussion of cybercapitalism, so we temporarily return to Marx's classic "labor alienation" theory. In Marx's view, alienation has at least two aspects.

On the one hand, alienation makes human labor a commodity. The most typical expression is Henry Ford's famous saying, "We obviously only want to hire a pair of hands, why did one come here". Secondly, the labor results brought about by alienation are not only "alien", but also become a kind of force that opposes oneself. According to Marx, under the framework of capitalism, "the appreciation of the world of things is proportional to the depreciation of the world of men".

The harder the workers work as a group, the cheaper the single product of their labor becomes. He himself will become a cheap commodity, and the poorer he will be. In fact, in some third world countries, worker labor has become so cheap that it takes several jobs to barely cover household expenses. For the middle class, people forget about this kind of "exploitation" when they get cheap goods and services, and then think about it when they buy a house or when their kids go to school or the elderly go to the doctor.

So we can ask a new question along this logic: if tokenism digitizes and monetizes people’s data pervasively, will the exploitation brought about by capitalism also become pervasive? If everything we have is tokenized, then everything of the people at the bottom will also enter the category of digital exploitation.

Ford needs your hands, Gates may need your eyes, Musk may need your legs. When people sleep, there may be a large pharmaceutical company, equipment manufacturer, or insurance company that needs your sleep data. Can web3 in the future be able to "legally" obtain the data and labor of a large number of proletarians under the guise of tokens at extremely cheap prices - just like they contract a womb for $300 in the third world? Then web3 will only protect the data security of people in the middle class and above, and effectively and deeply exploit the data ownership of the proletariat.

Exploitation in the web3 world has already occurred in third world countries, currently in the form of X2N. For example, in the Philippines and Argentina, the "PLAY TO EARN" blockchain game "Axie Infinity" has become the work of some young people. They breed pets, earn points through battles, or sell pets to obtain blockchain currency, forming a set of "breeding industry" on web3.

On the StepN platform, high rewards allow some people to buy expensive virtual shoes on the platform, and then hire takeaway riders and couriers to "wear" the shoes, thereby obtaining cash flow - this has become a classic labor exploitation scene, Someone owns the "means of production" and buys labor to get money.

But compared to the industrial agglomeration advantages of different countries, web3 is actually global in theory. This means that as long as the rules allow, African farmers and American workers will directly participate in StepN's "running competition", and the industrial worker barriers established between regions will no longer exist. The kind of situation created by capitalism that continuously transfers value to the outside for the stability of the domestic system, and thus maintains the relative "welfare society" of the country, will also face challenges. The proletarians of the world, the world is equally hot and cold.

We should be glad that running can't really make money, otherwise someone will die in virtual shoes. We should also be glad that washing dishes will not make money, otherwise there will be people washing dishes at home every day. But that doesn't mean that we won't play the man who is constantly washing dishes or running in designs like X to eran in the future. We may not yet know what the form of exploitation will look like in the future, but this kind of use of digitization to monetize human life and then market it requires vigilance.

This may be a slightly strange thing. Compared with people 100 years ago who were alienated in machines and became a component of machines, our generation may be alienated in "life". In the final analysis, Token will become a kind of auxiliary capital. In terms of the breadth of regions and the depth of life of workers, it will be an unprecedentedly efficient tool of exploitation. And this kind of tool, with the support of the structure of super capitalists and super monopolies, will become more powerful.

People in Black Mirror earn money by riding bicycles

super monopoly capitalism

All web3 proponents will tell you that web3 is true equality, the light of freedom and democracy. The reason why technocrats are often misjudged in the big technology outlook is that technocrats often think from the standpoint of the petty bourgeoisie. They get a part of the capital dividend and simply worship the free market, but it is easier to ignore the systemic problems brought about by the unbundling of capital.

This isn't the first time the IT elite has touted the "equal rights" of new technology, and it probably won't be the last. However, in the absence of fundamental changes in the basic social production relations system, almost all human "technical equality" ultimately brings about a larger scale of "economic centralization": · web1.0, people believe that the Internet will bring about Free flow of information, personal websites can eliminate the information monopoly of traditional media;

· web2.0, the era of social media has exploded, Twitter and Weibo have become new Internet squares; LBS-based identity social networking and takeaways are believed to break the hegemony of geographic locations. But what about the end result? The overlord of web 1.0 is one level larger than the market value of traditional media;

The overlord of web2.0 has expanded one level from the scale ceiling of the web1.0 era. · Yahoo's market value in 2000 reached a maximum of 120 billion US dollars, equivalent to Thailand's GDP that year, ranking 32nd among the world's sovereign countries. Apple’s market value in 2022 will exceed US$3 trillion, equivalent to the UK’s GDP last year, ranking fifth among the world’s sovereign countries.

实际上，web3的发展趋势其实比web2时期更加恶劣。以比特币为例，它存在人工痕迹极强的、针对早期矿工的垄断性保护设计。比特币实际上是一个只保护相对先入者的挖矿游戏，其总量只有2100万个。

早期挖矿者可以拿个人PC就挖出很多比特币，而后期挖矿者承包一整个水电站，也达不到当年一台PC的产量。在现实世界中，稀缺性会带来价格升高，其结果往往是资产的流动性会受到影响。

但比特币这类资产事实上可以无限分割。在2011年，比特币大会确定了其最小单位是1聪，而1聪等于1亿比特币。换言之，如果你是早期矿工，你事实上享受2100万的总量保护；但是如果你是后入者，货币的实际总量最高会达到2100万亿。

这实际上就是先入者依靠其自身的垄断地位，对后入者的一次击鼓传花式的经典割韭菜。而这种“发币”带来的“事实性垄断”，实际上被应用在了很多其他场景。比特币强大的示范效应，让发币成为了web3项目吸引早期资金投入的利器。如DAO、X2E等玩法，都有类似的尝试。

但仅仅聊DeFi，显然无法概括web3中潜在的垄断性倾向。因为许多web3拥趸坚持认为，DeFi只是web3早期混乱的阵痛，当web3进入到场景中去，发展Dapp时，才会真正体现出web3“去中心化”，相比于web2的优势。但结果可能同样事与愿违。

图源：unsplash

我们认为web3实际上至少会产生有三个方向的垄断者：

●货币垄断（如上所述）

●矿机和底层架构

算力效率是高度内卷的、场景单一的。如果需求长期确认，其头部属性必然远高于公有云市场，进而产生从芯片、能源、算力维护一体化的超级矿场。

●场景应用（Dapp）

在《web3:一场概念的游戏》中，我们认为web3其实与web2并没有直接的逻辑承接关系。实际上，web3与web其实更像是两种平行形态的互联网。在交互逻辑上，web3与web其实是相似的，web3并没有比web2有根本性的变化。因为web2带来的交互极限，本质并不是web技术决定的，而是由人脑带宽和社会结构决定的。

首先，人脑带宽在过去数千年时间并没有大幅飞越，这意味着我们依然需要一个中心化、聚合式的平台来帮助我们筛选信息；其次，人类高度分工的生产关系结构也不会改变，我们依然会选择在分工中最优秀的产品和内容来喂养自己；web3的支持者认为，由于数据归属权回到用户手上，所以用户可以随时用脚投票，让平台多元化。

但这是一种消费社会常犯的谬误，决定消费者内容的永远是生产端。在web2已经有很多垄断性质的产品，根本不依靠用户数据积累而产生壁垒。如外卖、团购、电商、游戏，越是低用户数据壁垒的平台，越是会产生运营效率极强的巨头。资本不会允许用户流失。

如果一个平台做不到，资本就会换一个新的平台。最终的结果不会是平台的多元化，而更可能是一个运转效率更高、更不会犯错、对员工和服务商更苛刻的平台巨头，成为一套方法论成熟的“卷王中的卷王”。

UBER创始人卡兰尼克 | 图源：网络

但web3显然不会是web2模式的简单重演。相反，web3的巨大货币影响力，实际上带来了web2从来没有过的两个资本特征，这可能让web3体系内的垄断性比web2更甚：首先，web3头部玩家正在前所未有地拥抱政治，尤其是第三世界政权。

一些国家政权正在为一些私人进行外交背书，甚至进行利益间的融合：如备受争议的孙宇晨，目前是格林纳达常驻WTO（世界贸易组织）代表、特命全权大使。这些头衔可以帮助他获得“外交豁免权”，从而事实性地避免了因为洗钱等嫌疑被刑事调查或起诉的潜在风险。

萨尔瓦多将比特币直接确定为了法定货币，拿国库去购买比特币；其总统布克尔不仅与很多web3大佬建立了私教，还致力于将自己打造成全球的web3网红。其每天发推特的频率，一点不亚于马斯克。

近期斯里兰卡国家破产，也有很多web3人士希望用DeFi去改造国家金融系统，希望将web3打造成一种解决第三世界问题的方案。这些深度合作，可以帮助web3这些“无国界资金”绕开中、美、欧等强势主权监管的地区，并在第三世界事实性地获取主权级别的战略合作。

萨尔瓦多总统在社交媒体晒联合国自拍照其次，web3的平台链与开发者关系也是前所未有。你无法想象有一天谷歌安、苹果、微软会投资市面上大部分的开发者，但是在web3世界中却能成为现实。链、币、开发者的关系实际上非常暧昧，在很多时候甚至是三位一体的。这种结合方式可能是复杂的：

链的实控基金有大量币，他们需要有人来做大蛋糕，因此会拿币去吸引大量Dapp；

而开发者如果足够成功，它会下场自己造一个链或者发一个币（比如Solana是由加密货币交易所 FTX 创始人创立的）

DAO直接绕过这一切，让全世界开发者联合起来，自己玩自己的币和生态；

此外还有一些与web2逻辑类似的风险投资，同时链接平台和开发者，两头都喝一碗汤；

Therefore, you may find that under the vision of web3, whether it is Dapps, miners, platform chains, DAOs, whales, they may be the same group of people. They are linked to each other through tokens, with the token price as the form of distribution. web3 has never belonged to the world, it belongs to "them". The so-called dragon slayer can always become a new dragon.

Source: Game of Thrones

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Cyber Web3, what do you think ?

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