What is the EU's Web4? Which sectors benefit?

Author: Loopy Lu, Planet Odaily

"Open and permissionless blockchains will play a key role in the open virtual world… We are at the beginning of a significant technological transformation, and Web 4.0 will fundamentally change people's daily lives."

------EU "Initiative" Document

On July 12, a piece of news from the policy front began circulating in the crypto world. Documents disclosed by the EU show that the European Commission has approved a new strategy regarding Web 4.0 and the virtual world. This strategy aims to guide the next technological transformation and ensure an open, secure, trustworthy, fair, and inclusive digital environment for EU citizens, businesses, and public administrations.

While the crypto world is still lingering in the narrative of Web 3.0, has the EU already moved on to Web 4.0? Finally, the traditional world is no longer a follower of the narrative and has taken a step ahead to open the next mainstream narrative for the crypto world.

Whether or not you have fully grasped Web 3.0, Odaily Planet Daily takes you a step ahead to quickly overview the EU's Web 4.0 plan.

What is Web 4.0?

Before looking ahead to Web 4.0, let's first review Web 3.0. The EU document also provides a relevant definition of Web 3.0: "The main characteristics of the third generation of the internet, Web 3.0, are openness, decentralization, and complete user sovereignty." It can be seen that the EU has embraced the decentralized Web 3.0 concept that the crypto world has been advocating for years.

As for the future Web 4.0, the EU's disclosed document explains, "Web 4.0 refers to the anticipated fourth generation of the World Wide Web." Specifically, this generation of the internet utilizes various advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and environmental intelligence, the Internet of Things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds, and XR capabilities.

In the fourth generation of the internet, digital entities, real-world entities, and environments will be fully integrated and able to communicate with each other, achieving a truly intuitive and immersive experience that seamlessly blends the physical and digital worlds.

It is worth mentioning that while the EU also lists blockchain as one of the technological cornerstones of Web 4.0, the wording in the initiative document refers to trusted blockchain rather than the trustless blockchain that is native to and supported by the crypto world.

Is Web 4.0 far from crypto?

As a long-term development strategy and future outlook, the technology of Web 4.0 seems too distant for the crypto market. Even though blockchain is one of its technological cornerstones, trusted blockchain and the crypto world are indeed far apart. Under such a strategic plan, what relevance do Web 4.0 and the crypto market have?

The Commission believes that this technological transformation is extremely important because its open and free ideals reflect the values, principles, and fundamental rights of the EU from the very beginning. The strategy aims to ensure that European citizens can safely and confidently use the virtual world and enable European businesses to develop world-leading applications.

"Web 4.0 should be driven by open technologies and standards to ensure interoperability between platforms and networks and safeguard users' freedom of choice."

This sounds compatible with the core spirit of the crypto world, but what about specific use cases and scenarios?

In terms of practical implementation, the EU has also provided some specific outlooks. For example, digital twins help test and optimize production processes, which is of great significance to the manufacturing industry. The virtual world offers new ways to create, promote, distribute content, and interact with audiences, which is crucial for the cultural and creative industries.

Unfortunately, these aspects are not closely related to the crypto market.

Which sectors of the crypto market are likely to benefit?

Although this strategy is too grand for us to immediately find focal points that benefit the crypto market, the Web 4.0 initiative still has extensive insights on crypto technology.

The EU believes that blockchain is key to realizing the virtual world, as its trustless characteristics can support a large number of individuals and organizations to permanently record relevant information without the need for trust and without requiring third-party authorities.

The initiative mentions that blockchain technology can be used to manage assets in the virtual world, such as virtual currencies or virtual real estate, and allows for secure and transparent transactions within the virtual world.

This may be a boon for sectors like the metaverse, as the "virtual world" is one of the main future directions of this initiative. Additionally, the initiative also mentions virtual real estate. (Perhaps future metaverse land will be deployed in the real world of Europe?)

NFTs are another area highlighted in this initiative. The document points out that NFTs are being widely used in various applications. "NFTs promote innovation in content creation and provide opportunities for artists (and creators). NFT platforms connect artists (and creators) directly with potential buyers and connect them directly at a lower cost." This part of the description seems overly clichéd, and its narrative was adopted in the previous bull market.

Fortunately, the EU still provides its insights on practical scenarios: "In fact, NFTs have already been introduced into new business models. NFTs can also be used in sales and event ticketing for specific use cases in sports, fashion, gaming, music, and more."

Currently, in terms of the integration of NFTs with traditional business, although its narrative is also quite outdated, at least its use case development is not yet complete, leaving room for further exploration in the future, which provides ample imaginative space for NFTs.

Finally, the importance of blockchain to Web 4.0 in terms of security and privacy protection, cross-border payments, and international trade is also mentioned, but not elaborated upon. This may bring potential growth points for the crypto market's popular zk technology and the yet-to-be-hot payment applications.

Fun fact: In the 113-page initiative document, "Blockchain" is mentioned 31 times, "Crypto" 7 times, "Bitcoin" and "Ethereum" both 0 times, but "NFT" is mentioned 40 times.