【New Standards For Judging the Quality of Web 3.0 Projects】Influence and White Paper Trust

New Standards For Judging the Quality of Web 3.0 Projects

3. Influence and White Paper Trust           

Introduction

Web 3.0 is also called Web3. There is a difference between the two concepts in the eyes of professionals, and this article does not make a distinction. As for the difference between Web3 and web2 projects, simply put, Web3 has more data ownership than Web2. Most Web3 projects are open-source and lack patent protection, making them easy to imitate. It is very common for dozens of imitation projects to appear at once. For example, after the Bitcoin BRC20 protocol came out, thousands of issuance projects suddenly emerged using this open-source protocol. These projects are a dazzling mix of good and evil.

Web3's coin issuance projects generally issue coins and circulate them in the early stages. The circulation of coins is equivalent to listing. As professional investors, it isn't easy to judge the value of earlier projects. So, how should ordinary retail investors evaluate this? Is there a relatively simple way?

The competitive environments of Web3 and Web2 are similar but also different. In this competitive environment, new judgment criteria are also needed in addition to the commonly used project judgment criteria of Web2.

Web3 emphasizes trustlessness, which does not mean that trust is not required but that it places higher requirements on trust, such as machine-level trust. In a world where the devil and hope coexist, obtaining trust is obviously a vital issue, leading to a new trust judgment mechanism that web2 does not have. This article describes the unique trust mechanism of Web3 from four perspectives: initiative trust, community trust, influence trust, and white paper trust.

1. Original trust

Influence trust

Web3 emphasizes democracy. It's ridiculous that celebrities and celebrity teams are more influential than Web2. It doesn't seem democratic. The reason is that Web3 is still in its early stages, and many projects are equivalent to seed rounds of venture capital. According to venture capital rules, the seed round looks at people, and the A round looks at people and models. The main thing is still looking at people. The only mature projects of Web3 are Bitcoin and those Bitcoin imitations. When a project with huge uncertainty issues coins, it is equivalent to a stock listing. How do you judge the quality of the project? Traditional venture capital and stock market valuation methods and data are insufficient to reflect the value of the project, leaving retail investors even more unable to judge. For retail investors, it is still easy to judge a person. It is trust in influence. Influence trust is a judgment of people, with six observation points:

1. Recommendations from celebrities. It is equivalent to an endorsement. The star will lose value if the project does not go well.

2. Whether celebrities or institutions invest and whether they are locked in for a long time. Investment in real money is more reliable than endorsement.

3. What is the purpose of the celebrity endorsement.? What is his relationship to the project? Technology gurus and product gurus are also considered celebrities. Are they in name only? Or participate or lead?

4. Endorsements from celebrities outside the circle can attract attention but have a limited impact on the project's development.

5. Analytical reports from professional celebrities.

6. Objective evaluation by a third-party organization.

The above evaluation criteria are very detrimental to grassroots entrepreneurship. It must be pointed out that from the perspective of venture capital, venture capital projects are divided into seed rounds, angel rounds, round A and round B, etc. Cryptocurrency projects should not raise external funds during the seed round. Even for investment institutions, as an external financing project, it must be at least Series A, the business model must be transparent, and the corresponding plan can be launched. Observing the composition and past performance of institutional investors is definitely helpful for retail investors. The threshold for starting a business in Web3 projects is already very high. The era of making money by just issuing a coin has passed. Old retail investors who can stay in cryptocurrency have definitely been trained to become investment experts.

White paper trust

A white paper is like a campaign platform. Whoever wants to govern has to publish a campaign platform for actions. The white paper is not for the public but for experts. Experts use their influence and judgment to endorse the project. Even so, these projects are still early-stage projects, and endorsement does not guarantee success and carries the risk of zeroing out. Because experts only comment on the white paper's logic, various problems can lead to failure when the same project is executed.

The Bitcoin created by Satoshi Nakamoto is an innovation in productivity and production relations. Therefore, besides technology and products, the Web3 project faces the innovation problem of a new production relations structure. You can't start a business just by understanding the technology; you must also understand what suits your project. "Production relations," such as motivating and governing innovation. The success of Bitcoin is the success of comprehensive capabilities. If it were just a purely technical white paper, it would be challenging to develop it at present.

Suppose a project does not have a white paper. In that case, this type of project does not comply with the principles of cryptocurrency transparency, and retail investors investing in such projects are like gambling. It is a scientific research project, and the research is done as far as it goes. Scientific research is also very important. What if it succeeds? However, retail investors should be mentally prepared to do charity when investing. From a product perspective, mature technologies must be used as much as possible, and cryptocurrency is no exception. Even if a scientific research product is successful, it often takes a long time before it succeeds in the market.

The white paper is actually not enough as a project document. Back then, Hal Finney asked Satoshi Nakamoto to provide detailed specifications for the project, but Satoshi Nakamoto never offered it, which caused regret to the entire cryptocurrency. A white paper is not a high requirement. If you cannot write a white paper well, this project would be child's play.

Summary

Due to coin issuance, once a project becomes popular in the market, the price will be high, forming capital and user barriers. It is called first-mover advantage.

Trust in original trust in community governance, trust in influence, and trust in white papers generate first-mover advantages. The above five points are different from the competition threshold of Web2. The most important thing is originality. Projects without originality have little value. The chainless platform embodies originality in many aspects.

Cryptocurrency has shown strong vitality in community governance, and there are future pioneering opportunities for community governance. There are also opportunities for applying product innovation and innovation in incentive methods.

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