In Brief:
- Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey bash Web3 in a series of tweets.
- Jack Dorset targeted a16z, the firm that has been pushing the Web3 concept the most.
- Tweet users branded Dorsey a hypocrite for accepting huge money from VCs to build his own firms.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Square, rushed to Twitter to take blows at Web3 and a16z, the venture capital firm which has done the most to push the Web3 concept.
Earlier in the day, when responding to a tweet from rapper Cardi B, who inquired if crypto could replace the dollar, Jack Dorsey set the stage for the argument. Dorsey replied that “Bitcoin will.”
Later Dorsey began ranting on Twitter when he targeted Web3, a phrase used by its supporters to describe a future era of the Internet in which big tech businesses will be replaced by a decentralized system of blockchains.
VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and its allies have been the strongest supporters of the vision, prompting Dorsey to post the following.
This year, Web3 has joined the ranks of NFTs and the Metaverse as a tech term that has gotten a considerable amount of publicity and financing.
Elon Musk also sparked the debate when he made a cryptic remark regarding Web3 on Twitter.
“It’s somewhere between a and z,” Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder, and Block platform CEO said of Web3, referring to a16z.
Chris Dixon, a general partner at a16z, said that venture capitalists “actually own very little of it,” but that didn’t relieve Dorsey’s concerns about future internet control.
Dixon tried the famous Gandhi phrase “first they ignore you” after Dorsey’s initial tweet, but Dorsey was just not having it and slammed him with replies.
Andreessen Horowitz’s allies and a lot of other Twitter users claimed he was blinded by a Bitcoin-only attitude.
Others banded him a hypocrite for taking large sums of money from venture capitalists to build his own businesses.
Dorsey replied to one similar tweet with an opposite viewpoint, saying, “We have bigger issues if a tweet stifles hopes and dreams. Currently, it’s not wrong. Critique can help fix, or divert energy to something more important.”
Other people chimed in with evidence suggesting that Web3 isn’t as decentralized as its supporters say. This includes a tweet quoting the research firm Messari, which demonstrates how VCs and other insiders hold a big part of the tokens related to some of Web3’s most popular projects.
Dorsey likewise sorted things over with a16z’s Dixon, tweeting, “I believe in you and your ability to understand systems. It’s critical we focus our energy on truly secure and resilient technologies owned by the mass of people, not individuals or institutions.”
Dorsey’s blow against Web3 could also be motivated by personal gain. Square and Twitter, both of which he started, reflect the Web2 age and may suffer extinction as a result of a more decentralized technology stack.
Just in December, the lightning development kit (LDK), a tool that allows developers to integrate instant bitcoin (BTC) payments into their apps, was demonstrated by Spiral, a payments firm run by Jack Dorsey.
