Runes的火爆是加密技术发展的倒退-但也是Web3核心价值的最好体现

作者：@Web3Mario

引言：Yesterday, I accidentally learned from a friend that he had received a considerable investment return in the BTC inscription field, which deeply aroused my feelings of missing out, causing me to feel anxious for two consecutive days, which I feel ashamed of. Recalling the time when the Ordinals technical architecture was just released, I studied the related documents, but as a developer, I was not very convinced of this technological path. At the time, I just felt like it was a step backwards in encryption technology, as the design philosophy seemed to be similar to a distant altcoin project called Color Coin, which was about how to issue independent tokens using the BTC's technical architecture. But unlike Color Coin, Ordinals didn't develop a whole new chain, instead choosing to reuse the already widely accepted BTC network. Compared to the proposal of on-chain virtual machines (e.g. EVM or other WASM), this architecture has been proven to be somewhat rudimentary and lacking in scalability. Constrained by the fact that BTC does not have a Turing-complete execution environment, application layer development is relatively difficult, and expensive! Even after the so-called orthodox Runes technology was released, I was quite unimpressed after reading the related documentation, as it only establishes certain standards that make the so-called BRC-20 tokens appear less rudimentary, but this is hardly worth mentioning in the context of on-chain virtual machine solutions, as designing an ERC-20 is something a beginner Web3 developer can accomplish... However, in the face of tangible wealth effects, these judgments seem pale and laughable. After calming down, I'd like to share some related thoughts with you to explore the core value of Web3.

The tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.

----William James

无政府主义的后斯诺登Web3

Many of my friends were amazed at the appearance of Bitcoin, as if it was a genius product that was difficult to explain, but I do not agree with this view. I believe that the invention of Bitcoin was not accidental, but rather a necessary result in the network environment at the time.

In a previous introduction, we took a look back at the development history of the Web. In the classical liberal era of the internet, the open, inclusive, globalized, and neutral principles of internet protocol design were gradually formed. However, with the emergence of a large number of Web applications, the makeup of internet users underwent a great change, transitioning from the subculture of users who were coders to a mainstream cultural group encompassing different populations, with practicality that prioritized high efficiency and low cost taking precedence.

However, this does not mean that the open protocol principles have completely disappeared. Unlike political revolutions, technological evolution is non-violent, and therefore the evolution of ideology is a gentle and fusion process. In fact, a part of developers, which we can call the classical liberal remnants, have always been upholding the open protocol principles and carrying out the development of technology as well as the promotion of related concepts. We can easily find them, such as the Free Software Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, and other organizations. They have funded and promoted many interesting technical solutions, such as Tor, VPN, SSH, and others. They were also among the first users of Bitcoin, using Bitcoin for fundraising. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Bitcoin's design must have come from this group of people, with the initial purpose being to establish an unregulated, anonymous electronic cash system for payments.

With the tremendous success of Bitcoin, it piqued the interest of a part of computer experts, and I believe Vitalik and Gavin Wood are both part of this group. Leveraging Bitcoin's most important original technology, the POW consensus algorithm, to establish a decentralized, anonymous computer system and thus completely change the classic C/S Web development paradigm became a possibility.

With the sensational "PRISM event" outbreak, both the technological and political credibility saw a significant decline. This provided an excellent opportunity for the promotion of new concepts, and thus we can witness the emergence of the web with the latest semantics, the so-called Web3, and here it is necessary to quote the classic description once again:

Web 3.0, or as might be termed the "post-Snowden" web, is a re-imagination of the sorts of things we already use the web for, but with a fundamentally different model for the interactions between parties. Information that we assume to be public, we publish. Information we assume to be agreed upon, we place on a consensus ledger. Information that we assume to be private, we keep secret and never reveal. Communication always takes place over encrypted channels and only with pseudonymous identities as endpoints; never with anything traceable (such as IP addresses).

The core vision of this version of Web3 is to build a non-authoritarian, uncensored, and fully protect the privacy of individuals in the network world. This can be seen as a classic interpretation of anarchism in the network world, so I would like to refer to it as anarchist Web3. It is worth noting the significance of making such a clear distinction, as it helps us understand what principles should guide our application design and the construction of the network in order to best meet our demands.

Under this ideological guidance, the extreme pursuit of decentralization and privacy has given birth to a series of interesting Web3 projects. Successful cases in this category mainly focus on the underlying infrastructure. If we look back at the exquisite cryptography and consensus algorithms, I don't need to give specific examples, as you can find many widely known projects. However, in terms of the application layer and protocol layer, there aren't as many. Perhaps ENS is an exception.

Super-financialized Free Capitalism Web3

Since 2013, MasterCoin designed the ICO crowdfunding method, and the crowdfunding financing model with cryptocurrencies as the subject gradually began to become popular. With the perfection of protocols such as ERC20, it greatly reduced the issuance and participation thresholds. In 2017, ICO development reached its peak.