My friends in Web3 are now AI experts building chatbots
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Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
11–20 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#12Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#13I was doing a lot of contract work a little over a year ago for about 3-4 different web3 clients. I’m back to working FT at a regular startup. The money isn’t there any more and that’s all that anyone who actually saw what was happening really cared about.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#14Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#15See Molly White's "Web 3 is Going Just Great"[1] She keeps a tally of all the scams. The total is now over $67 billion. [1] https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
> in August 2021 they were exploited for an (at the time) record-setting $611 million.
> Now, it's happened again, and some reports are throwing around even more massive numbers like $42 billion. In reality, the exploiters were able to mint massive quantities of tokens on multiple networks, with their wallet balances showing numbers in the billions. However, complete lack of liquidity for these tokens meant their "billions" are worth substantially less.
> According to crypto research firm Beosin, the attackers have so far cashed out around 5,196 ETH (~$10.1 million) in liquid assets. Poly Network suspended services shortly after the attack.
Unbelievable hahaha
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#16It's a cycle, I was in the last wave in 2018. At some point most developers would realise that chain-scaling issues would prevent profit. They either left to go work for FAANG, or transitioned to working directly on scaling. There are a multitude of grants and other funding from the Ethereum foundation, Gitcoin, DAOs, etc that facilitate a comfortable life for anyone who wants to work on these things.
Nearly all Web3 startups are fully remote, so once the CTO leaves they just sort of collapse of their own accord. CEO is usually a loony.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#17Pivoted to LLM I expect.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#18The only cash flows into the ecosystem have been from ICOs. The SEC is cracking down on such activities. Besides investment cash flow, I don't think there have been any revenue generating ventures that cater to customers outside the Web3 ecosystem. The true web3 players will be traditional finance companies upgrading their settlement systems. I am curious how people will answer your second question.
> The true web3 players will be traditional finance companies upgrading their settlement systems.
That happens in the US this month, but it has nothing to do with crypto. The Federal Reserve System is launching FedNow, a 24/7 instant settlement system which obsoletes middlemen such as Zelle, Paypal, and Venmo. This is like Pix in Brazil, SEPA in the EU, WePay in China, etc. - a fast payment system run by banks and settled through central banks.
It's much like FedWire, but faster, cheaper, and for smaller amounts. You buy houses with FedWire; you buy dinner with FedNow. It's an inter-bank system, like Visa; you have to have an account with a bank to use it. Chase and Wells Fargo are on board, but Bank of America is not.
This will bring the US up to date with the other countries that have national payment systems.
Anybody in the US involved in moving money around needs to get up to speed on FedNow. Fast.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#19The only cash flows into the ecosystem have been from ICOs. The SEC is cracking down on such activities. Besides investment cash flow, I don't think there have been any revenue generating ventures that cater to customers outside the Web3 ecosystem. The true web3 players will be traditional finance companies upgrading their settlement systems. I am curious how people will answer your second question.
> The true web3 players will be traditional finance companies upgrading their settlement systems. That happens in the US this month, but it has nothing to do with crypto. The Federal Reserve System is launching FedNow, a 24/7 instant settlement system which obsoletes middlemen such as Zelle, Paypal, and Venmo. This is like Pix in Brazil, SEPA in the EU, WePay in China, etc. - a fast payment system run by banks and se…
one of the really nice things about SEPA is the 0-fee instant transfer (ime 45-60 seconds). Will FedNow be able to do the same thing?
Re: Ask HN: What happened to Web3 startups?
#20My friends in Web3 are now AI experts building chatbots
I think everyone knew they’d move onto the next scam
Comparing web3 scams to this new wave of AI is unironically ignorant and delusional.
For one small example I literally get daily value from Copilot and happily pay for it, and there is much more beyond this. I've never once gotten meaningful value from web3.