Subject: Science and Technology

The concept of Web3, also called Web 3.0, used to describe a potential next phase of the internet, created quite a buzz in 2021.

What is Web3?

• The model, a decentralized internet to be run on blockchain technology, would be different from the versions in use, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
• In web3, users will have ownership stakes in platforms and applications unlike now where tech giants control the platforms.

Previous versions of Web

To understand web3, we should start with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

[1] Web 1

• Web 1.0 is the world wide web or the internet that was invented in 1989. It became popular from 1993.
• The internet in the Web 1.0 days was mostly static web pages where users would go to a website and then read and interact with the static information.
• Even though there were e-commerce websites in the initial days it was still a closed environment and the users themselves could not create any content or post reviews on the internet.
• Web 1.0 lasted until 1999.

[2] Web 2

• Web 2.0 started in some form in the late 1990s itself though 2004 was when most of its features were fully available. It is still the age of Web 2.0 now.
• The differentiating characteristic of Web 2.0 compared to Web 1.0 is that users can create content.
• They can interact and contribute in the form of comments, registering likes, sharing and uploading their photos or videos and perform other such activities.
• Primarily, a social media kind of interaction is the differentiating trait of Web 2.0.

What are some of the concerns?

• In Web 2.0, most of the data in the internet and the internet traffic are owned or handled by very few behemoth companies ex. Google.
• This has created issues related to data privacy, data security and abuse of such data.
• There is a sense of disappointment that the original purpose of the internet has been distorted.
• It is in this context that the buzz around Web3 is significant.

Dawn of Web3

• Gavin Wood, founder of Ethereum, a block chain technology company, used the term Web3 first in 2014 and in the past few years many others have added to the idea of Web3.
• In 2021, owing to the popularity of crypto-currency, more discussions happened on Web3.

How will Web3 address the problems of data monopoly?

Web3 will deliver decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data.

• Currently if a seller has to make a business to the buyer, both the buyer and seller need to be registered on a “shop” or “platform” like Amazon or Ebay or any such e-commerce portal.
• What this “platform” currently does is that it authenticates that the buyer and seller are genuine parties for the transaction.
• Web3 would try to remove the role of the “platform”.
• For the buyer to be authenticated, the usual proofs aided by block chain technology will be used. The same goes for the seller.

How is blockchain technology used here?

• With block chain, the time and place of the transaction are recorded permanently.
• Thus, Web3 enables peer to peer (seller to buyer) transaction by eliminating the role of the intermediary. This concept can be extended to other transactions also.
• Consider a social media application where you want to share pictures with your followers.
• It could be a broadcast operation from you aided by blockchain and you don’t need social media accounts for all the participants to be able to perform this.

Another key feature: Decentralized Autonomous Organization

• The key concepts in Web3 seen so far are peer to peer transaction and block chain.
• The spirit of Web3 is Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).
• DAO is all about the business rules and governing rules in any transaction are transparently available for anyone to see and software will be written conforming to these rules.
• Crypto-currency and block chain are technologies that follow the DAO principle.
• With DAO, there is no need for a central authority to authenticate or validate.

Will it take off?

• We don’t know yet if Web3 will become the dominant mode of handling the internet but the questions it raises are relevant.
• Web3 is in its very initial days and there is no consensus if it will take off like Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 did.
• There is much skepticism from top tech brains in the industry and the academic community that Web3 does not solve the problems it purports to solve.

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Bitcoin prices are rising these days and so will be its mining. As cryptocurrency will become mainstream, its carbon footprint cannot be ignored.

What are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrency

Global crypto market

• In 2019, the global cryptocurrency market was approximately $793 million.
• It’s now expected to reach nearly $5.2 billion by 2026, according to a report by the market research organization Facts and Factors.
• In just one year—between July 2020 and June 2021—the global adoption of cryptocurrency surged by more than 880 percent.

Carbon footprints of Bitcoins

• Increasing popularity of cryptocurrency has environmentalists on edge, as the digital “mining” of it creates a massive carbon footprint due to the staggering amount of energy it requires.
• A/c to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin is equivalent to that of New Zealand.
• Both emit nearly 37 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

What is Mining?

• Mining is a process in which computational puzzles are solved in order to verify transactions between users, which are then added to the blockchain.
• In simpler terms, the works are created, or “minted,” through a process called proof-of-work (PoW), which establishes its unique identity.

How do cryptocurrencies create such a footprint?

• Unlike mainstream traditional currencies, bitcoin is virtual and not made from paper or plastic, or even metal.
• Bitcoin is virtual but power-hungry as it is created using high-powered computers around the globe.
• Bitcoin is created when high-powered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles.
• This is an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, the dirtiest of them all.

Conclusion

• What this means is that, unlike traditional currency or gold, Bitcoin is not solely a settlement layer, not solely a store of value, and not solely a medium of exchange.
• This makes Bitcoin’s relative energy consumption productive in comparison to comparative sectors, given its robust potential uses.
• The promise of such an endeavor offers hope for a more sustainable cryptocurrency future.
• Whether this will make much difference to the climate crisis in light of government and industrial inaction remains to be seen.

Back2Basics: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Recent work by researchers at the National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, has thrown light on what stimulates the synapses (connection of nerve cells) to form.

What are Synapses?

• Neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain connect by means of junctions known as synapses through which they transmit signals.
• There are two types of synapses – chemical and electrical:

(1) Chemical Synapse

• In this, there is a space of about 20 nanometres between two neurons, and the way they communicate is this: One neuron converts electrical signal into chemical signals.
• This chemical is released into the synaptic space and the receiving neuron converts the chemical signal back into an electrical signal.

(2) Electrical synapse

• In these synapses, the two neurons have a physical connection and the conversion of electrical to chemical need not occur, and they communicate directly.
• Electrical synapses are like a physical wire, communication is faster but they are also fewer in number.

Observing these synapses

• Researchers from TIFR-National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, have chosen Zebrafish as a model organism to study this process.
• Zebrafish are transparent and neuron development in larval zebrafish can be observed from day to day by injecting a dye or by engineering the fish to express fluorescent proteins.
• It was observed that electrical synapses are formed before chemical synapses, they are like a blueprint in which neurons make a handshake. This results in the making of chemical synapses.
• Research on organisms such as leeches showed that if you remove electrical synapses, the chemical synapses do not form.
• However, the mechanism of how it happens in higher organisms such as vertebrates was not known.

What induces these synapses?

• The group observed that knocking out a particular protein known as the gap junction delta 2b (gjd2b) in the cerebellum of zebrafish affected levels of the enzyme CaMKII.
• Levels of CaMKII were seen to increase in the Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum.
• These neurons and the cerebellum itself control coordination of movements in the organism.

Why study this?

• In humans for example, excess abuse of alcohol leads to damage of these cells, which results in lack of coordination in movement.
• The cerebellum shows an evolutionary continuity in all vertebrates, so, too, the Purkinje neurons.
• Even though fish and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 500 million years ago, the cerebellum has been evolutionarily conserved.
• While zebrafish have about 300-400 Purkinje neurons, humans have thousands of these.

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