Web3: Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier

A WALL STREET JOURNAL AND GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER

An essential introduction and guide to navigating the next Internet revolution—everything from the metaverse and NFTs to DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity—from the co-author of the international bestseller Blockchain Revolution.

The Web, and with it the Internet, are entering a new age. We’ve moved from the “Read-only Web,” which had little functionality for interacting with content, to the “Read-Write Web,” which offered seemingly endless collaborative opportunities, from sharing with our favorite people to shopping at our favorite brands. But the profusion of cyberattacks, data hacks, and online profiling have left many of us to view digital life as a Faustian bargain in need of a major rethink.

That rethink is Web3, the “Read-Write-Own Web”—a decentralized Internet where individuals own their own identities and can securely trade assets like money, securities, intellectual property, and art peer to peer. Made possible by blockchains, the foundational technology of bitcoin, Web3 promises the biggest shake up of business since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping in the Middle Ages. It is the Internet’s new frontier.

In Web3, award-winning author and technology investor Alex Tapscott provides a cutting-edge guide to the Internet’s next era. Covering everything from the metaverse and non-fungible tokens to DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity, this indispensable, forward-thinking book describes the building blocks and often hidden technologies that will be foundational to our cultural and economic progress.

This essential guide provides a clear blueprint for the ownership web and the next era of the internet:

• Blockchain Technology Explained: Understand the foundational tech behind Bitcoin and Web3, and why it represents the biggest business shakeup since double-entry bookkeeping.
• Digital Assets and Tokens: Explore how you can finally own your identity and securely trade everything from money and securities to art and intellectual property peer to peer.
• Decentralizing Finance (DeFi): Go beyond the headlines to see how a new, open financial system is being built to replace the gatekeepers of the old economy.
• The Open Metaverse and NFTs: Learn the difference between the closed corporate metaverses of Web2 and the user-owned virtual worlds made possible by non-fungible tokens.
• User-Owned Networks and DAOs: Discover how Decentralized Autonomous Organizations are creating new, internet-native models for business, community, and collaboration.

Alex Tapscott is an entrepreneur, business author, and seasoned capital markets professional focused on the impact of emerging technologies such as Web3, AI, VR/AR and the Metaverse on business, government, and society. Alex also runs the Digital Assets Group at Ninepoint Partners, a leading investment firm with $8 billion in assets under management and institutional contract, where he recently launched the Ninepoint Web3 Innovators ETF(TKN-TSX). His writing has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, TIME, Fortune, and many other publications. Alex is the co-author of the critically acclaimed bestseller, Blockchain Revolution, translated into more than 19 languages. His other books, Financial Services Revolution and Digital Asset Revolution were published in 2020 and 2022 respectively. His latest book, Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier, will be published September 19^th, 2023.