Web3.0 will be a value Internet, and its openness, trust establishment and identity management are very different from Web2.0. The development of blockchain has just established the basic technical foundation for Web3.0 and will play a key role in Web3.0. In Web3.0, blockchain-related technologies include: peer-to-peer network technology, data storage and exchange systems, digital identities, blockchain-based financial networks, blockchain-based trust systems and smart contracts, etc.

Web 3.0 was originally called the Semantic Web by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW), and its goal is to become a more autonomous, intelligent and open Internet. The definition of Web 3.0 can be expanded as follows: Data will be interconnected in a decentralized manner, which will be a huge leap from our current Internet. In Web 2.0, data was mainly stored in centralized repositories. Additionally, users and machines will be able to interact with the data. To do this, the program needs to understand the information conceptually and contextually. With this in mind, two cornerstones of Web 3.0 are the Semantic Web and artificial intelligence (AI).

From the perspective of users (users), Web3.0 and Web2.0 will be improved in many aspects in terms of presentation and experience. The following features are some aspects that are relatively recognized by the industry:

At the same time, with the development of network capabilities, artificial intelligence, and the explosive growth of data, the construction of Web3.0 networks will be a disruptive development for Web2.0, which is reflected in Web3 .0 will inevitably be an open, trustless, permissionless network, thereby realizing the true vision of the Internet.

Web3.0 will be a value Internet, and its openness, trust establishment and identity management are very different from Web2.0. The development of blockchain has just established the basic technical foundation for Web3.0 and will play a key role in Web3.0. In Web3.0, blockchain-related technologies include: peer-to-peer network technology, data storage and exchange systems, digital identities, blockchain-based financial networks, blockchain-based trust systems and smart contracts, etc.

Point-to-point network system: P2P Networking

The network architecture adopted by Web1.0 and 2.0 revolves around the architecture of the core network, access network and local area network. Such a network is basically a star structure, with data exchanged from the end up through the access network to the core network, and then routed down to its destination address. Internet applications rely on relatively centralized computing and storage. Once the network fails or is overwhelmed, service failure will occur immediately. Service failures of Internet giants are common and have huge impacts.

The network of Web3.0 will be more flexible, and data communication will be more based on point-to-point networks. Point-to-point networks rely on the existing architecture of Web2.0 as infrastructure, and build virtual ones on top of it. P2P network layer. Each user node/terminal is connected to multiple terminal nodes at the same time, and network communication occurs through direct connections between terminals or through third-party relays. Such a connection has many benefits, such as: nodes can obtain information from multiple paths at the same time, so the data access speed can be more efficient; when there are multiple copies of data, information can be obtained from the nearest node, and network resource utilization is high ; The tolerance to network failures is greatly improved, and partial network failures will not affect the communication effect; the network links are abundant and the data transmission speed is very fast.

The peer-to-peer network is also the basis for ensuring other features of Web3.0, which we will describe in the following sections. LibP2P is currently a relatively mature peer-to-peer network technology. Networks including IPFS, Filecoin, Ethereum2.0 and other platforms that provide services for Web3.0 are all built on LibP2P.

Terminals using point-to-point networks need to continuously maintain and maintain a large number of network links, and can intelligently perceive network problems and resist malicious links and attacks. This brings challenges to the development of P2P networks. At the same time, the P2P network is built on the basis of the existing network and requires comprehensive support for existing network protocols. Affected by the network scale effect, the development of the P2P network will first start with the technical facilities related to the blockchain and gradually Expand to a wider area.

Data storage and exchange system - The Underlying File System

Web1.0 and Web2.0 are built on the HTTP protocol. The HTTP protocol provides a simple file access method through path (URL), and users can access files and web content through URL.

HTTP is a client/server communication protocol, which forms the basis for almost all data exchanges on the current Internet. The term client-server means that there is a requesting party (the client - usually a web browser) that requests information from the server (the computer that provides the information - usually a web page or part of a web page).

This protocol relies on Domain Name Server (DNS) servers to locate file paths. The DNS server itself is a large network that includes thirteen root servers, as well as numerous zone servers linked down. The DNS service network itself is a centralized network, and some attacks are directly targeted at the DNS network.

With Web 3.0, this mechanism is changing. The technology most likely to replace the current DNS system is called the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS for short. When HTTP is gradually replaced by IPFS, indeed, we may be inclined to call it Internet 3.0.

The IPFS network also needs to address files (content), but what is completely different from the HTTP protocol is that the IPFS addressing service no longer relies on centralized services like the DNS network, but is completely It is carried out through a decentralized distributed hash table (DHT: Decentralized Hash Table). The network layer of IPFS is LibP2P, so it can provide greater flexibility and fault tolerance. At the same time, IPFS draws on many technologies from peer-to-peer file systems to form a complete set of protocols, including: BitTorrent, Git, SFS, etc.

The implementation principle of IPFS's content addressing method is very simple, which is to perform a hash operation on the content to generate a unique content identification (CID: Content Identity) related to the content. The anti-collision feature of the Hash algorithm ensures the uniqueness of the identification, so this identification is also called a content fingerprint; the certainty of the Hash algorithm ensures that the same content will generate the same identification, so in the same storage network, it can Content is deduplicated to achieve higher storage efficiency.

The goal of IPFS is to establish a unified, decentralized storage platform that does not rely on a single entity, which is in line with the idea of ????blockchain. Compared with HTTP, IPFS has many advantages:

These characteristics of IPFS form the basis of Web3.0 data storage. Therefore, these characteristics of IPFS also become the characteristics of Web3.0. The IPFS network has been successfully operating for several years. As a public welfare, open, and open source network, its operation is very successful. However, for commercial operations, due to the lack of incentive layer and the difficulty in coordinating the service guarantee system of distributed nodes, there are still problems. There are many challenges, and these challenges are also what storage-related projects such as Filecoin hope to solve.

Digital identity based on cryptography - Digital Identities

Digital identity is another important technology brought about by the development of blockchain. It may become one of the most important features of Web 3.0. In today's internet, everything from identity theft to click fraud is rife, and it happens because the connection between two computers is not authenticated properly. In a Web 2.0 network, a server can never be sure that the client software accessing it is pretending to be a browser under the control of an identifiable human being. On the other side of the equation, the browser also doesn't know if the server and file it's accessing are the ones it intended to access.

However, it is much more difficult to commit fraud and deception if everything involved in this interaction has a verifiable identity. With digital IDs, each person has a verifiable identity because each identity must be linked to a unique credential. Likewise, organizations have a verifiable identity. As for everything else involved in the interaction between client and server (hardware and software), these things can be tied directly to a unique ID belonging to a person or organization. And, thanks to technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, it’s possible for any party to prove they are authentic without even revealing their identity.

Digital ID enables two important functions of Web 3.0:

The very important reason for this is that user identity authentication and behavior verification are unified, and encryption technology is applied to every message , greatly improving security. Of course, these also increase the cost of terminal use, and the truth is always higher than the magic. As computing technology advances, the strength and algorithms of encryption will evolve, and security also relies on users protecting their private keys.

Based on blockchain financial network - Decetralized Finance

So far, we have mentioned two technical foundations: distributed file system and digital identity, both of which are related to blockchain technology. Related. The importance of blockchain to Web3.0 is self-evident, but its most important contribution lies in its ability to create tokens and maintain the network through carefully designed economic models, including the use of such tokens for governance. The ability to make small payments.

In a blockchain-based Web3.0 network, the way finance operates is very different from traditional finance. Finance is more programmed and changes more quickly and quickly. There is no need for banks and institutions to endorse it. The financial market is also an algorithmic market.

Here, there are not only tokens with value storage that can store and transfer high amounts of value, but also small payment capabilities for fast transactions similar to the Lightning Network. Different tokens provide different functions. What is even more exciting is that the entire financial market is completely an algorithmic market and is not controlled by institutions. Therefore, algorithm-based equity trading, lending markets, non-stop real-time trading, insurance, futures, etc. can all be constructed. And continue to innovate.

Regarding the value of information, Web3.0 is completely different from Web2.0. Due to tokenization, the value of information can be directly reflected in transactions, realizing the unification of value flow and information flow. Unlike the free services in Web 2.0, which are full of illusions, service providers actually make profits through advertising and mining the value of users' data in a roundabout way.

Networks build trust - Trustless

One might argue that the most important contribution of blockchain is automated trust. This goes beyond the security that blockchain can provide through digital IDs by building a network of trust.

Some blockchains can create "smart contracts," programs that are attached to the blockchain and executed when specific blockchain events are triggered. The important thing about smart contracts is that the program code is the contract.

This makes smart contracts more deterministic than legal contracts. Legal contracts are enforced through legal systems, whose reliability varies from place to place but is never perfect. The outcome of challenging a legal contract is uncertain.

However, smart contracts can be 100% trusted. A simple example of a smart contract is given by the movement of goods in a supply chain. Items are shipped with an RFID tag that reports the location of the item when it is read. Smart contracts can automatically execute payments when goods arrive at a specific location - shipping, warehousing or import duties. Therefore, payments are predictable and can be happened with 100% confidence.

Naturally, smart contracts can be much more complex than this example. They can cover many situations that legal contracts currently cover, reducing the possibility of fraud.