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Web5: the web, even more decentralized

When it seems that what is known as Web3 is still in its infancy, a few months ago we began to hear about Web5. Nothing less than in the mouth of Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitterwhich earlier this year 2022 announced that, from a subsidiary of its company Block (formerly Square), he was going to dedicate himself to the development of Web5. And he did so after openly criticizing Web3, which he accuses of also being very centralized, like Web2, and very hostile towards the general objectives that it sought to achieve at the beginning of its development.

Dorsey, who does not hide his interest in everything related to Bitcoin, did not only criticize Web3. He also proposed solutions to the problems that are being generated during its development and implementation, with Web5, which will develop through TBDone of five Block subsidiaries (the other four are Square, Cash App, Spiral and Tidal).

The name of TBD comes from the acronym “to be determined”, that is, “to be determined”, which was used to identify the entire company, when it did not yet have a name, and in the end, it stayed with it. Last June, TBD announced its intention to develop Web5 as a decentralized web platform (DWP), although there are still not many details about how it will finally be.

A change of focus

The web has been undergoing constant changes and evolutions practically since its inception. In the 1990s it started as web 1.0 and began to evolve to the dominant version today: web 2.0, which arrived in the mid-2000s.

Not long ago, the term Web3, driven by the movement related to technology and the Blockchain movement, has also been heard strongly. It refers to the development of a new iteration of the internet on decentralized and public blockchain networks. But these decentralized networks are not to the taste of all Internet experts, with Dorsey leading the way. That is why they propose to create Web5.

For critics of Web3, developing the web directly on Blockchain technology is not the solution to create a decentralized web as its followers claim.

That’s why Web5 developers work with a different design approach. Most of Web5 will not be built on Blockchain technology. They will only use a public Blockchain network, which in its current concrete implementation is the Bitcoin Blockchain, when strictly necessary.

Why have you jumped from Web3 to Web5?

So far we have talked about web 2, 3 and 5. But not once about Web4. This is because the promoters of Web5 have directly skipped number 4. The reasons why they have done so are not clear. However, some believe that Web4 already exists, and is the one that has been used in the mobile age. In other words, it is the prevalence of mobile phones in Internet use that defines Web 4.

jack dorsey

Also, Web5 is not a new term. it is not Jack Dorsey who has named him. As early as 209, Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the web, was referring to it to name what he called the “emotional web” in one of his talks.

The basics of Web5

The basic concepts that lay the foundations of Web5 are four: Decentralized Web Nodes (DWNs), Decentralized Web Apps (DWAs), Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs).

The decentralized web nodes they are the ones that lay the foundations of the distributed network of web nodes that make up the peer-to-peer network of Web5. These nodes are operated by Web5 users themselves, and serve as a data storage mechanism and a trusted point for messaging. In this way, other participants in the Web5 can pass, share and identify information with each other.

These nodes, therefore, are controlled by users, and are distributed with each of them. Thus, from a network of nodes, they form a data storage mesh. Hence its name. They store data and facilitate communication between users.

The second of the elements the decentralized web apps, are very similar to those known as progressive web apps. These are the typical apps used by web service providers like Twitter or Telegram. Those of Web5 are its decentralized version, and are like a page that houses all the functions of a native app. More or less a hybrid version between a web and a mobile application.

Since they are decentralized, unlike progressive web apps, they can work without a server. No data is stored with them. These are in the decentralized web nodes, as we have just seen. Decentralized apps are responsible for requesting data from the nodes. Of course, these apps can only request data from a node if they have the user’s address.

By being in control of their own node, a user can choose whether or not to make the data that is stored on it available. If the data is private, the node owner must grant an application access to the data in order to use it. In case the data is public, the application can directly access it.

The third leg of Web5 are the decentralized identifiers. They are the only components of Web5 that are related to a public Blockchain, and are nothing more than user-generated and self-regulating unique identifiers. The users who create them can identify themselves with them at any time, without the need to depend on any centralized actor. They work, therefore, as a kind of decentralized identity card, which gives rise to having their own online identity.

A decentralized identifier can achieve credentials that can be verified, and represent not only the identity. They can also be proof of professional or academic training, for example. This gives credibility to the identifier, and by rebound, to the digital identity of a user.

If they continue to evolve, they can even be used in the future as a basis for creating a identity or verifiable credentials for the digital world.

Differences between Web3 and Web5

The goal of Web5, from what we’ve seen so far, is pretty much the same as Web3. But it has some differences. With Web3 applications, smart contracts are deployed on top of a public Blockchain, such as Ethereum. This is why Web3 applications are known as decentralized applications, since the backend of their code is on a decentralized network that is basically a public Blockchain.

In Web 5 there are decentralized web applications that are not developed based on a Blockchain and that can interact with decentralized web nodes that make up a peer-to-peer network independent of any public Blockchain. Web apps can communicate with nodes, and the nodes in turn communicate with each other. Also, this communication does not depend on any Blockchain-based transaction.

Blockchain Will Generate Over $10.6 Billion In Revenue By 2023

This is the difference from Web3. Through decentralized apps, users can communicate with smart contracts on the Blockchain, and every step they take is recorded as a transaction on the public Blockchain. This leads to every action needing a transaction that happens on a public Blockchain. Ownership of each unique asset is secured through tokens, fungible or not. This is done in a completely different way in Web5, since there is no concept of a token in it.

Another difference between Web3 and Web5 is that with the latter, the data is stored with the users themselves, as we have mentioned, in decentralized web nodes. In Web3, they are stored in dedicated decentralized solutions, or distributed file systems, such as IPFS. They are responsible for saving the information and distributing it through a peer-to-peer network

On the other hand, the decentralized identifiers used in Web5 are connected and anchored to Blockchain technology. Specifically, to the Bitcoin Blockchain. But its anchoring is not done directly in Bitcoin. To do this, a second network layer identifier is used in it, called ION and initially developed by Microsoft. ION runs on top of Bitcoin, storing identifiersand is a decentralized alternative to DNS for identity identifiers.

Of course, for now the Blockchain that is used to anchor the identifiers is that of Bitcoin, but the development of these and of ION is modular enough so that they can be separated from it and anchored to another Blockchain solution if it is considered necessary in a given moment.

What’s your objective?

At present, web users do not own our data nor do we control our online identity. With Web5 this is expected to change. Its foundation is to break out of an Internet in which web user data is held captive by various application silos.

By changing this model, Web5 hopes that users can own their data and control, by default, their online identity. Also, because of how your data will be hosted, you’ll be able to jump from app to app taking it with you.

In this way it will not be necessary to identify yourself several times to access several applications. The application will ask what it needs to know to the relevant data of a user that is in a decentralized web node. Thus, jumping for example from Facebook to Twitter on the Web5 will not imply identifying yourself once on each site. You already prove who you are when accessing, without having to enter credentials manually.

Have personal data in a decentralized web node it also has other advantages. Due to the real property that this system offers, a user not only You have more control over your datas, but these are not in a centralized hub that attracts attackers who want to steal them. Therefore, it is safer.

In addition, a user can save their preferences and settings in one of these nodes, and different apps can access the relevant information to offer them a personalized experience according to them.

So, Web5 is intended to be a truly decentralized web. Or at least that is what Jack Dorsey assures that they will achieve with his development. Of course, it is not yet known when we will be able to see the fruits of his work, so we will have to wait to see if they fulfill what was promised.

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