a16z partner Chris Dixon: Web 3 infrastructure will continue to iterate, and NFT games will emerge

Original Title: 《a16z Partner Chris Dixon Talks About the Next Steps for Web3.0: More NFT Games Coming, Infrastructure Continues to Improve》
Written by: Chris Dixon, a16z Partner
Translated by: Kyle

What Are the Next Steps for Web3.0?

First, where does Web3.0 stand today? Let’s start with some anecdotes.

a16z has a fantastic gaming team led by @Tocelot, who invest in founders from top gaming studios like Riot, Epic, and Blizzard. Almost 100% of the project founders they’ve recently encountered are exploring NFTs in some way or are already building NFTs into their gaming products.

I regularly receive emails like this from Web2 founders; for example, this was a text from a top Web2.0 project founder a few days ago: “Hey, Chris, hope all is well. I’m diving deeper into crypto and now understand why it’s so exciting.”

I expect to see a similar wave of new talent entering Web3.

Last week, I sent a half-joking tweet and received over 250 job applications for Web2 to Web3 positions.

Our portfolio companies report a similar rise in resumes from people hoping to transition from Web2 to Web3.

This can be reflected in some numbers. Coinbase has 68 million verified users.

They recently announced a new NFT product, and there are already 2.4 million users on the waitlist.

Despite being blocked by all Web2 app stores, including Google and Apple’s mobile stores, Axie Infinity still reported 1.8 million daily active users in August, with total sales of $2.6 billion since launch.

MetaMask is a popular Ethereum wallet with over 10 million monthly active users.

OpenSea's GMV from NFT sales this year has exceeded $9 billion.

In comparison, YouTube has paid a total of $30 billion to all creators on its platform over the past three years.

So What Are the Next Steps for Web3.0?

Many NFT-based games are expected to be launched, developed by founders with backgrounds in top gaming studios. Some of these will launch next month, while others will take longer.

We can expect more creators to embrace NFTs within their own communities as they find that selling digital goods directly to fans allows for better monetization compared to banner ads and other Web2 monetization methods.

Given better interest rates and user experiences, new Web3 users earning tokens through games and NFTs may choose to keep these tokens in DeFi protocols rather than banks, thereby increasing the number of DeFi users.

With the ongoing improvements and growth of non-Ethereum L1 and Ethereum L2, Web3.0 infrastructure will continue to improve. The Ethereum merge is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2022. This will enhance network performance and eliminate objections to using Ethereum due to environmental concerns.

We can look forward to more experiments with DAOs, social tokens, decentralized social networks, Web3.0 media, and other emerging categories. Some of these may break through like NFTs and Web3 games did earlier this year.