KEYTAKEAWAYS
- Web3 shifts the internet from platform-controlled Web2 toward user-owned systems, with Blockchain enabling decentralization and transparent coordination.
- Blockchain + tokens add native payments, programmable incentives, and verifiable ownership—making Web3 economies more viable beyond simple transactions.
- Through permissionless access and trust-minimized design, Web3 reduces reliance on intermediaries and strengthens censorship resistance compared with Web2.
CONTENT
How Web3 differs from Web2 and why Blockchain powers decentralization, permissionless access, trust-minimized systems, digital ownership, and native payments shaping the next internet.
INTRODUCTION
Digital assets can be an integral part of Web3—a new vision for the internet that aims to address some of the biggest problems of today’s web, such as power being concentrated in a few centralized social media platforms and the widespread exploitation of users’ personal data. The decentralized and permissionless nature of Blockchain helps distribute communication power across participants, rather than placing it in the hands of a single central authority.
While digital assets bring native digital payments to Web3, their role extends far beyond payments. When issued as tokens, digital assets can support a wide range of functions inside a digital economic system—representing access, participation, incentives, or rights. In this sense, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies can act as the economic layer that makes Web3 viable and self-sustaining.
In addition, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies can make Web3 more community-centric through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). With DAOs, coordination and resource allocation can be shaped by community participation rather than being controlled entirely by a traditional organization. In other words, Web3 is not only about upgrading technology—it also explores new ways to structure digital ownership, incentives, and governance on the internet.
>>> More to read: What is Blockchain and How Does It Work?
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WEB3 AND WEB2?
The internet is often described as evolving through 3 major phases: Web1, Web2, and Web3—each defined by how people create content, interact online, and control data.
📌 Web1: Read-only internet
In the Web1 era, users couldn’t easily edit online information or upload their own content to the sites they visited. The internet was largely made up of static HTML pages, designed for simple one-way experiences—like reading forum posts or browsing information pages. Web1 mostly enabled “reading” with only limited interaction.
📌 Web2: Interactive platforms and user-generated content
Over time, Web2 emerged as a more interactive internet where users could create, publish, and share their own content. Social media platforms became the main drivers of online interaction, and the rise of centralized tech giants largely took shape during the Web2 phase.
➤ Why Web2 started to feel outdated
As the Web2 ecosystem matured, more weaknesses became visible. Internet users grew increasingly concerned about issues like data tracking, ownership, and censorship. Centralized companies gained enough power to ban certain users and organizations, and their control over online access became a key point of public attention.
At the same time, many Web2 businesses rely heavily on user data to keep people on their platforms and to serve targeted advertising for third-party interests. This kind of economic incentive can make it difficult for these companies to consistently prioritize what’s best for users.
📌 Web3: The next vision for the internet
The vision of Web3 is often framed as the next step toward a better internet. Its core promise includes building platforms that are more decentralized, trust-minimized, and permissionless. Web3 also aims to make features like digital ownership, native digital payments, and censorship resistance more common—potentially setting a new standard for how online products and services work.
➤ Why Blockchain matters for Web3
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are widely seen as foundational technologies for Web3, because they are inherently decentralized and allow anyone to record information on-chain, tokenize assets, and create digital identities. In this sense, Blockchain provides key building blocks that help Web3 move beyond the limitations of Web2 and explore new models for ownership, participation, and online coordination.
>>> More to read: What Is Web3: The Next Evolution of The Internet
HOW DO BLOCKCHAIN & CRYPTO PUT THE SPIRIT OF WEB3 INTO PRACTICE?
When people talk about the “spirit” of Web3, they’re usually pointing to a shift in how the internet is structured: less platform control, more user agency, and systems that don’t rely on a single gatekeeper. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are often used to express that spirit in practical, technical ways.
✅Decentralization
One of the biggest issues in Web2 is that power and data are concentrated in a small number of major players. Blockchain and crypto can support a more decentralized form of Web3 by helping distribute information and control more broadly. In practice, Web3 can rely on blockchain-based public distributed ledgers to improve transparency and reduce dependence on a central operator.
✅Permissionless access
Many blockchain-based projects replace proprietary systems with open code. Applications built on Blockchain are permissionless by nature, meaning people around the world can access and interact with them without needing approval or facing arbitrary restrictions. This is a key Web3 idea: participation is open by default.
✅Trust-minimized systems
With Blockchain and crypto, users don’t need to place trust in third parties like banks or individual intermediaries. In Web3, users can transact without relying on an entity outside the network itself—rules are executed through the system, rather than enforced by a middleman.
✅Native payment rails
Cryptocurrencies can act as a digital-native payment foundation for Web3. Digital assets may improve parts of Web2 payments that are often expensive and heavy, because their borderless nature reduces the need for intermediaries and can make value transfer more direct.
✅Ownership and self-custody
Crypto has already introduced tools like self-custodial wallets, allowing users to store funds without intermediaries. Users can connect wallets to decentralized applications to use their assets in different ways—or to display digital items they own. Because ownership is recorded on a transparent public ledger, anyone can verify who owns certain funds or digital assets, which aligns closely with the Web3 concept of user-owned identity and property.
✅Censorship resistance
Blockchain is designed with censorship resistance in mind, meaning no single party can unilaterally alter transaction records. Once data is added to a blockchain, it becomes extremely difficult to remove. This property can help protect expression by reducing the ability of governments or corporations to selectively rewrite or erase records—another core value often associated with Web3.
>>> More to read: 6 Common Types of Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms
SUMMARY
Web3 is often positioned as a response to some of the internet’s biggest modern problems—especially the outsized influence of major tech platforms and the way power and data tend to accumulate in a few hands. In theory, Web3 could reduce that concentration and shift the balance closer to users. That said, it’s still a highly ambitious vision, and turning it into something truly mainstream will take time. The important point is that many of the technologies that could support the next iteration of the web are already actively developing.
Among them, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are widely viewed as some of the most likely candidates to drive a Web3 shift, because they are built to enable decentralization, permissionless access, and trust-minimized interaction. At the same time, Blockchain and digital assets aren’t competing with other major pillars of future internet development—such as AR, VR, and the Internet of Things. In many scenarios, they’re more powerful as complements: when combined, these technologies may be most capable of producing practical and promising solutions for the next generation of the web.
