From the memorable — and partially traumatizing — sound of old school dial-up to the modern Web2 we know and love today, the journey itself is surprisingly similar for blockchain technology.
Beginning from humble isolated computers, the internet began its expanse through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, and continued to develop into its current complex infrastructure. Fashioned from a system to routers, switches and full networks the internet’s evolution mirrors the potential of blockchain technology, often referred to as Web3.
The four evolutionary stages of Web2
The developmental progress of the internet can be summed up into four distinct phases that reflect fundamental stages of evolution to what we use across all fields of industry today.
Single computers and isolated networks
At first, computers were isolated machines without connectivity to any full functioning network — simply fragmented systems running alone. To establish communication between computers at this primary stage, the use of physical media formats was required, such as data transfers via tapes or floppy disks.
P2P Networking
Gone were the days that required physical transfer of data, the P2P network overcame that first stage, allowing computers direct connection to other computers. This network was established by the earliest of internet adopters through dial-up connections which facilitated the sharing of files and messages crucial for the next evolutionary step.
Routers and Switches
Forget dial-up and forget P2P connections (for now), enter the more structured network of routers and switches. These mediums for internet connectivity enabled efficient data routing, inter-network connection between operating systems, and gave rise to modern internet infrastructure.
Full Networks and TCP/IP Protocols
The fourth and final stage of the internet’s evolution was the introduce of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. These TCP and IP addresses enabled — and still enable — communication across different networks to create a global unified internet network. This allowed disparate system to communicate through an abstraction layer that simplified networking.
Web3’s Journey Into Modernity
So far, like it’s Web2 predecessor, Web3 began with a selection of isolated blockchain, offering significant progress in functionality and capability, but lacking in connectivity. Operating independently at first, these disconnected blockchains welcomes connectivity in the form of bridges — comparable to the early stages of P2P networking in Web2.
Unfortunately, unlike the smooth transition experienced by the internet with the introduction of P2P networks, bridges brought both a solution and a plethora of hurdles and challenges. These include technical complexity, a lack of standardization, poor composability and liquidity issues.
The Tokenization Trend
Tokenization in the Web3 space opened the path to huge potential in the financial markets, enabling the digitization of assets to easily transfer them and utilize them across multiple platforms. However, this advancement came with some drawbacks, one in particular — composability.
Composability is the ability for starkly different components and systems to function without bottlenecks or hindrance. A lack of this composability makes connectivity significantly more difficult as different asset and asset classes struggle to interconnect. For example, wrapped assets — used in cross-chain transactions — have the tendency to break composability due to their nature.
Without alignment perfectly fitting to their native chain counterparts, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) moved in a wrapped form quickly hit barriers to connectivity on non-native blockchains.
Abstraction and Bridging
Web3 must develop dependable bridging solution like the third evolutionary stage of the internet’s routers and switches. Such bridges have to be secure to prevent malicious intervention, reliability to avoid functionality failures, and standardization to keep communication smooth and interconnected.
Despite the significant role that bridges play in connecting blockchains, Web3 is still lacking in that four evolutionary mirroring stage of its predecessor — a TCP/IP equivalent abstraction layer to overcome complexity and connectivity roadbumps.
Sumer: The Fourth Stage of Web3 Evolution
Sumer.money is an omnichain synthetic asset and money market protocol that addresses the array of problems facing Web3 today. From composability challenges to liquidity access and transactional issues, Sumer offers a solution.
Sumer.money’s risk engine intelligently underwrites user assets with liabilities based upon correlations to maximize capital efficiency. This ensures that every dollar locked into Sumer’s innovative system can potentially lock two dollars for partners, three dollars for the blockchain, and create two dollars of liquidity.
This omnichain marvel acts as an asset abstraction layer, functioning similar to TCP/IP addresses to simplify all complexity for developers and users alike through synthetic assets. The creation of synthetic assets like synthetic USD, Ether (ETH), and Bitcoin (BTC) facilitate effortless transitioning across multiple supported blockchains without the need for bridges or similar cumbersome solutions.
Synthetic assets offer up to 99% capital efficiency when users mint them with correlated collateral, substantially boosting the liquidity and utility of assets throughout the connected Web3 ecosystem. More importantly, the breaking of the liquidity ‘fourth wall’ enables cross-chain smart contract communication to optimize all decentralized finance (DeFi) activities.
As an omnichain asset creating solution, Sumer.money ensures the focus on asset fungiblity remains the highest priority, creating the potential for blockchain technology to reach the level of everyday debit card payment solutions.
The Web3 of Tomorrow
To reach it’s true potential, Web3 must competently achieve its evolutionary fourth stage equivalent of its Web2 predecessor — establishing TCP/IP’s limited Web3 edition. The creation of this abstraction layer will enable a standardized method of communication and interaction across blockchains.
With approaches like Sumer.money’s synthetic assets making huge strides in the area of abstraction, omnichain assets are quickly looking much like the first moments of TCP/IP integration. With protocols like Sumer.money continued to push forward to innovate today, the Web3 of tomorrow, the true potential of Web3 blockchain technology could be unlocked faster than we imagine.