How blockchain developers can influence the future of Web3

Being in the blockchain space feels like swinging between dizzying whirlwinds of confusion and vomit-inducing neck snap.

If this is not it your first vomit-inducing blockchain rodeoand you keep coming back for more like a crazy maniac…

You’re probably addicted to the sweet dopamine rush of the potential satisfaction of harnessing a bunch of innovative, cutting-edge technologies that most people don’t quite understand yet.

Of most peopleI also include those in the blockchain industry.

Yes, I’m talking about industry leaders and people who invented the technology here.

So if you’re a muggle living a fairly mundane life like most people, you have even less chance of understanding any of it.

Now, if you’re a blockchain developer who’s constantly learning and building cool tools and projects, you probably have a much better chance of predicting the future than your average street psychic.

But remember what the brilliant physicist Niels Bohr once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it is about the future.”

This is not it about developers getting the future of blockchain right.

Rather, this is more about how developers can get the future of blockchain wrong, and what they can do to minimize this possibility.

It is about identifying the most important factors that will shape the future and how developers can take advantage of them influence the development of blockchain and web3.

You see…

History is full of endless examples and case studies of the most qualified experts getting exactly what their expertise deserves prevent them from being wrong, dead wrong.

You may not remember, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once told the world that it existed “no chance the iPhone is going to gain any significant market share.”

Ballmer was one of the most famous developer evangelists, but he couldn’t even see the iPhone coming.

Blockchain is like the iPhone in that it’s a new paradigm for looking at the world, and if you’re too attached to existing traditions like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, you’re going to be left behind.

To add to the challenge, most people, even within the blockchain community, have a hard time keeping track of all the latest developments.

This includes developers.

Many developers are exhausted, overworked, myopic for their technology stack, and of course, underappreciated.

Throw a number of psychological biases into the mix such as the over-awareness effect etc and developers are now at a higher risk of not being able to think clearly about the future.

Before you know it, we’re all trapped inside a filter bubble, curated by dusty, passionate supercomputers without even realizing it.

In addition, per the sunk cost fallacyrather than admitting mistakes or cutting losses, people are also prone to doubling down on a losing idea or project, or technology stack, until it’s too late.

To give you a historical example…

Edison may have invented the phonograph, but few people know about Eldridge Reeves Johnson, a self-taught engineer who actually realized the phonograph’s potential.

Edison may have invented the phonograph, but Johnson did something far more significant: he invented the record industry.

The lesson here is:

Just because you are an expert or an inventor of a technology do not believe they are the ones who will make it successful or bring it to the masses.

In other words…

Be careful listening to or following experts, including in the blockchain space because…

It is impossible for experts to predict new behavior

The truth is…

Most predictions about the future (and blockchain) will be wrong.

The only constant in the universe is change.

At the heart of what drives all this change is a mysterious phenomenon known as emergence.

Emergence happens when a multitude of small things – neurons, bacteria, individuals — show characteristics beyond the ability of a single individual.

This happens simply by making some basic, binary choices such as: “Left or Right?” “Buy or sell?” Solidity or cosmism? Ethereum or Cosmos? Taylor Swift or Doja Cat?

Even though we are not aware of it, it is happening within us, around us and throughout the cosmos…at all times.

Ant colonies are a classic example of emergence in action, since the collective intelligence of the colony is exponentially greater than any individual ant.

The colony can detect food, know when to take evasive action, and even know the exact number of ants to deploy to obtain food or ward off an attack.

The human brain is another example.

Each neuron is not conscious or intelligent on its own, but when connected, the collective intelligence is so powerful and conscious that a person can even think about thinking!

The development of blockchain technology is also driven by the emergence

The governance, security, and financial model, the consensus algorithm, the community’s collective values, and all the binary decisions made by everyone, including every developer and community member, all help catalyze emergent behavior.

Any system that exhibits these properties is known as an emergent system.

Which again are systems that start with simple parts making simple choices, which eventually grow into a complex whole that is exponentially more complicated than the sum of all the simple parts that originally started it all.

And here’s the mysterious part about it:

The trajectory of emergent systems is virtually impossible to predict because they are immutable and changing, constant and fluctuating, persistent and changing, inevitable and unpredictable at the same time!

Such behavior is essentially analogous to a freeze-frame of how blockchain ecosystems have evolved, will evolve, and are currently evolving right before our eyes.

Emergence is one of the main reasons why many experts, including Ken Olsen, Steve Ballmer and even Thomas Edison, got the future wrong.

So…

If you are a developer interested in improving your chances of predicting the future of blockchain…

Pay attention and uncover all the new features and characteristics of the system you are interacting with and see how you can influence them.

Because all your “unimportant” binary decisions, like what technologies you use, what you build with those technologies, and who you go with, will definitely degenerate into something completely different and unpredictable as time goes on.

Since it is impossible to predict how emerging technologies will mature…

The most important variable a blockchain developer should consider is whether their personal values ​​and future vision align with the people, communities, and technologies they decide to work with.

So if you are a developer, my advice is to identify your personal values ​​and future vision and never deviate from it.

It is not complicated like engineering; Therefore, there is always a danger that people underestimate such simple advice.

Don’t underestimate it because it doesn’t involve code or because it sounds simple.

Simple doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful, in fact many of the most powerful ideas in our world are conceptually simple.

Here’s the thing…

If emergence is virtually impossible to predict and you are inherently working with technologies with emergent behavior, the most critical factor is whose you work and adapt to, not your technology stack.

If you are with the right people and the right ecosystem, the technological changes will matter far less as long as your values ​​and visions are constant.

Remember:

Developers now have unprecedented power to not only partner with communities and ecosystems that align with their values…

They literally can encode their values into the very fabric of the technology they build.

As an architect for Web3, this is how you influence the future on an individual level.

So use that power wisely 😉