Restoring trust in web3

The emergence of Web3 has ushered in a new era of possibilities and opportunities for creators. However, alongside its promise, Web3 has faced significant challenges, particularly in the realm of trust and security, and the people that suffer the most from it are emerging creators. 

In today's web3, success often requires established connections, a large marketing budget, or willingness to give up profit. This type of web3 is everything we despised about web2. It is not Gavin Wood's vision of a new internet that is not dominated and controlled by huge players. 

To achieve the vision of Web3, it is crucial to restore trust in it. This article explores VerifiedCreators' whitepaper by Shedrack Anuforo, highlighting a paradigm shift towards transparency and reliability in the Web3 revolution.

The Erosion of Trust in Web3

The advent of Web3 brought with it the promise of transparency, decentralization, and autonomy. These promises created a culture that laid the precedent for web3 to be abused by bad players. This web3 doesn't care about accountability as long as you have enough liquidity or can create enough hype to drive demand.

It was only about time before an ecosystem like this became a hotbed for scammers/fraudsters. The recurring issues of scams have turned the ecosystem into a casino town square and stifled true innovation and creativity.

VerifiedCreators' Vision: A New Dawn for Trust

Web3 users are cautious (safe bets) due to past scams. They either associate, invest, or collect from well-known sources or take a risk via gambling. The enormous centralization of revenue and influence is due to "safe bets," while gambling aids scammers. 

With this current ecosystem and culture, web3 will never reach mainstream adoption. We have to go back to the drawing board and establish trust for web3 to achieve its vision.

Users must feel safe and secure to prevent scams and exploitation. A secure web3 framework is essential for creativity and innovation. To achieve this, every web3 platform and community must prioritize accountability and authenticity over anonymity and hype.

Regardless of technology, VC-backer, funds raised, liquidity, or hype, a project or creator must be accountable or have proof of past accountability to be welcomed by the community.

An Identity Verification platform designed for web3: A Cornerstone of Trust

We believe that the most effective means of creating safety and trust is through a web3-specific identity verification platform. In the past, all attempts to restore trust have failed because they were not native or designed for Web3. Some of the top web3 platforms have employed verification methods such as form verification, Twitter verification, verification by association, and KYC verification, but they have proven highly ineffective.

The solution has to be designed with web3 tenets and primitives in mind. It has to be native, trustless, and interoperable with web3 primitives. 

Immutable transparency: Native and public

An identity verification built for web3 has to be built or integrated with decentralized blockchain technology. The immutable and public nature of the decentralized blockchain makes it easy to verify and track every transaction. Every action comes with an immutable certificate that everyone can see. 

Without third parties influence: Trustless

In the spirit of Web3, individuals, and entities should not rely on others to verify identities or project authenticity. KYC and blue checkmark verification cause more harm than good. Without access to KYC verification data, legitimacy cannot be confirmed. All information used to verify a user must be available to the general public for them to make their own decision. Trusting that a person or project is legit because there's a verification checkmark on their profile is inefficient. Most blue checkmark verification isn't available to everyone and creates a bad culture of elitism in the ecosystem.

Interoperability with web3 primitives: Crypto/Tokens, NFT, and DAO.

The beauty of using decentralized blockchain technology for identity verification is that it simplifies the processes of verifying ownership, creatorship, and tracking history. A big problem with the web3 community today is that it is hard to verify ownership of web3 primitives. It's easy for someone to steal artwork and pass it off as their own on the blockchain, scamming unsuspecting buyers.

Launching a new token, gaming the distribution, providing liquidity, and dumping on the market without getting caught is easy. An identity verification platform that interpolates with web3 primitives can solve this by making it easy to identify the creators/owners of any DAO, NFT, or tokens.

Conclusion

As Web3 strides forward with boundless opportunities, it also carries the weight of skepticism due to breaches of trust and security concerns. The impact of this erosion of trust is particularly felt by emerging creators, whose dreams and potential are stifled by an environment rife with scams and uncertainty.

The current state of Web3, where success often hinges on connections or market manipulation, contradicts the very essence of its foundational principles. It's a stark departure from Gavin Wood's vision of a decentralized internet free from domination by conglomerates. To truly manifest the promise of Web3, restoring trust becomes a non-negotiable imperative.

To explore more about the thoughts in this article, read the VerifiedCreators Whitepaper here: https://verifiedcreators.s3.amazonaws.com/Whitepaper.pdf

Our mission is to build a safe ecosystem where web3 creators, collectors, and investors can flourish. You can help us get our message out there by sharing this article.