Jack’s Bitcoin-backed decentralized Web5

#web3
4 min readNov 13, 2022

TBD, Jack Dorsey’s Bitcoin-focused business arm and a subsidiary of Block Inc., revealed recently that it is developing a new decentralized web: Web5.

Web5 is predicated on the belief that Web3, the concept of creating a decentralized web utilizing blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, has good intentions but employs the wrong tools.

Web5 uses Bitcoin, the decentralized monetary network, plus a slew of excellent computer science technologies to establish a new ecosystem of decentralized identities, data storage, and apps in which the users have ownership over their personal data.

Decentralized innovations on the internet over the last several decades, such as BitTorrent, have shown that blockchain technology may not be required for decentralization. Rather, the blockchain has been believed necessary for: mitigating the double-spend issue in order to effectively transfer peer-to-peer money with Bitcoin.

Web5 from TBD is comprised of software components and services such as decentralized identifiers (DIDs), decentralized web nodes (DWNs), self-sovereign identity service (SSIS), and a self-sovereign identity software development kit (ssi-sdk). These components allow developers to concentrate on creating user experiences while allowing decentralized identification and data storage in apps more effortlessly.

What exactly is Web 5.0 (Web5)?

TBD, Jack Dorsey’s crypto company, recently announced the introduction of Web5. According to their official website, the objective is to create an additional decentralized web that puts you in control of your data and identity.

According to the official website:

“The web democratized the exchange of information, but it’s missing a key layer: identity. We struggle to secure personal data with hundreds of accounts and passwords we can’t remember. On the web today, identity and personal data have become the property of third parties.

Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to your applications. It lets devs focus on creating delightful user experiences while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.”

Web5’s mission is to produce a one-of-a-kind collection of tools built on Bitcoin that will transform the financial system as we know it. This would enable investors and people to preserve and own their data and maintain control over all of their relationships.

One of the primary differences between Web5 and Web3 platforms is that Web 3.0 platforms are often more centralized in terms of what users believe, despite marketing attempts to the contrary. According to Jack Dorsey, Web 3.0 technologies are built on single point of failure systems, citing Solana (SOL) and Ethereum as examples (ETH).

As a result, a system based on Bitcoin’s decentralized structure and absence of single points of failure may be more suited to the principles advanced by Web 3.0 enthusiasts.

Self-owned identities that allow decentralized identity authentication and routing, verifiable credentials as data formats and models for cryptographic presentation and claim verification, and decentralized web nodes are among the Web5 pillars.

The Pillars of Web5

It is too soon to consider Web5 replacing Web 3.0. Indeed, it may be long before we see the true consequences of what Web5 wants to accomplish. At present, this is only a notion and a proposal that might be supported and modify many of the things we thought were “normal,” such as centralized blockchain networks.

However, things are changing. Many concerns have harmed the bitcoin market’s reputation, including developing initiatives that advertised decentralized solutions but ended up being centralized platforms with single points of failure.

We are presently transitioning from Web2 to Web3. It may take some time before we witness a transition from Web3 to Web5. Web2 might possibly be divided into Web3 and Web5, providing new chances for developers, businesses, and people to choose which version of the internet would work best.

The Proposal of Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey’s TBD proposal is associated with a distinct approach to how Web3 should function. Rather than depending on many protocols and potentially controlled blockchain networks, we may be going toward Web5, which is built on Bitcoin and its immutability and decentralization.

One of the key features of Web5 is the use of decentralized identifiers (DIDs), which might depend only on the Bitcoin blockchain. There is no need to build a new network of validators or solutions; everything that is required can function on top of Bitcoin.

As a result, we can see that Jack Dorsey’s Web5 proposal is a true self-sovereignty solution that operates and depends on Bitcoin. There is no need for an extra consensus process or network.

A Bitcoin-centric Model for Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)

Jack Dorsey has always been a staunch advocate of Bitcoin. He has concentrated on making Bitcoin the internet’s money and is currently engaging with TBD to develop new solutions on top of Bitcoin (Web5). This is only one way to think about Web5: a Bitcoin-centric platform that depends solely on the world’s biggest and most secure network: Bitcoin.

By using Bitcoin’s architecture, it may be conceivable to see a new set of tools and solutions built on top of it, rendering Web3 obsolete. This development enters the market despite crypto enthusiasts criticizing Bitcoin for its lack of flexibility and programmability.

Nonetheless, Jack Dorsey and his team have launched on a road that entails Bitcoin becoming the standard and depending on it as one of the most crucial things for humanity to become self-sovereign.

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