Decentralization at a Turning Point

- Decentralization remains a key feature for the future and has further to go

- Web3 is the re-decentralization of Ethereum and AI will give new momentum to usability

- “In a few days, it’s going to become legal to be a blockchain company in the US”

Joseph Lubin Co-Founder of Ethereum and the Founder and CEO of Consensys told CfC St. Moritz delegates that decentralization is in some ways about building the undercarriage of infrastructure for all of society.

Decentralization as the cornerstone of the blockchain industry’s vision came about through long hours and a lot of work incrementally, Lubin said as he reflected on his journey from feeling hopeless about the economy to discovering Bitcoin and eventually contributing to the decentralized financial system.

“If we look at it just from the perspective of the internet, the internet started as protocols, open specifications, open-source software, and it was available to everybody to build on the Web,” he noted.

“One comes along, adds a few things, HTTP, HTML, spotter, protocols, open protocols, open source, open specifications, and everybody was collaborating and building a play,” he added.
The dotcom boom and the ensuing greed led to more closed sources even in the building of the web with walled gardens, silos, boats and eventually platforms, he explained. Even with rapid globalization, decentralization remains key, he said.

“So we’re at this point now where we need to build web3, the natural evolution of the WorldWide Web on decentralized protocols and web3 is the re-decentralization of Ethereum,” Lubin noted.

Scalability too remains important with features such as the number of transactions per second, latency transactions, the roll up centric roadmap, all a big part of the equation. “It’s usable now and we have had great usability breakthroughs, and with AI, we’re going to have tremendous usability coming soon. And it’s going to be, I think, in a few days, legal in the United States of America, to be a blockchain company,” Lubin said.

The way society has progressed from monarchies to nation states and beyond suggests further progress ahead as well.