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Author: Charles Wayn, CoinDesk, CoinDesk; Compiled by: Deng Tong, Bitchain Vision
The development of Web3 is completely unpredictable.From the humble beginnings of Bitcoin, to the ICO boom, the emergence of Ethereum, to DeFi and NFT, technicians have always firmly believed in the power of blockchain technology to drive future innovation.
However, the decentralized nature of Web3, often seen as its greatest advantage, has become a source of complexity in recent years.The current status of the blockchain industry, characterized by the surge in independent networks, unique decentralized applications and layer-dependent crypto projects, has formed a fragmented ecosystem.
With each new platform or chain born, they will eventually form an ever-expanding, siloed data network.These information blocks are usually inaccessible and not connected to each other, and are called information islands.
For experienced developers and blockchain newbies, these silos make it difficult for them to have a clear and comprehensive understanding of the Web3 market.But there is still hope.By using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, pioneers at the forefront of decentralization have the opportunity to break information silos and create a more connected and user-friendly ecosystem.
Information Island in Web3
In traditional centralized systems, data is stored and managed in one place.This allows machines running on the system to easily access information.
On the other hand, a major aspect of blockchain technology is to store data and records through distributed networks, which means that blockchains have the potential to operate independently – each blockchain has its own network, rules and data.
But this separation can lead to data being orphaned: scattered across various platforms and chains without an easy way to connect them.
To illustrate this disconnect, assume that you are a casual trader (if you are reading this, you are likely to be a casual trader).Since you hold various types of assets on various chains, you can regularly view the token price on one platform, view analytics on some other platforms, and even more on project updates.
Most importantly, you need to manage multiple wallets, interact with various governance protocols, and track fees and token economies, all scattered across different networks.Understanding this fragmentation can be overwhelming.
The consequences of fragmentation
Of course, information islands are more than just a simple inconvenience.They can have a real impact on users and the industry as a whole.
One of the major impacts of information silos on Web3 is the raising of the barriers to entry into decentralized spaces.Web3 has been considered difficult to understand, especially for the average consumer and cryptocurrency newbies.Information silos will only make the learning curve steeper, forcing users to take into account multiple platforms, wallets and tokens from the start.
Information silos can also cause users at all levels to miss out on opportunities.Since a large amount of information is scattered across different platforms, it is easy to miss out on key trends or investment opportunities.If information from multiple sources is not possible quickly, even the most experienced traders may miss the window to take action on promising new projects or market shifts.
In addition, isolated information may increase the risk of fraud by users, thus having harmful effects.
For off-chain consumers, often including on-chain consumers, Web3 is notorious for hacking and scams.Obtaining reliable, integrated information is crucial to avoiding these pitfalls.But because data is distributed across multiple chains and platforms, it is difficult to verify the legitimacy of new projects, creating dangerous blind spots in a rapidly changing market.
If the goal of Web3 is to make decentralized technologies easier to use, we need to reduce this complexity rather than increase it.
Break the information island
As Web3 (surge-driven) scalability paradigm continues to evolve, the need for better interoperability is becoming increasingly important.With the emergence of L1, L2 and even now L3 “solutions”, ready to improve the functionality of already wide-ranging blockchain systems, users and developers have found transactions increasingly difficult.
So far, measures such as bridging and chain abstraction seem to be expected to alleviate the challenges of a decentralized blockchain environment.But recently, artificial intelligence has become a potential measure to combat the ever-stacking information silos in Web3.
In our current technology field, which focuses on ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has found a foothold in a range of different industries.Although there is still a lot of controversy in the creative field, it is often favored by project development or automatic trading in the cryptocurrency field.
However, given that AI’s main function is to automate and perfect data aggregation, it may have a place in its efforts to break down barriers between siloed information.
Web3 AI cases in the island
More specifically, consider the role that big data (a collection of data that is too large for traditional methods to process) plays in providing information to AI capabilities.Now imagine that this relationship is flipped, and AI is the first to become a non-traditional way to analyze huge and often different data sets.
Applied to information silos in Web3, we can envision a tool that brings together information from various blockchains, dApps and exchanges into one interface.And taking this interface a step further, why not prompt such an AI aggregator to use this data to provide actionable insights to users?
For traders looking to monitor market trends, such an AI interface can reduce the risk of users suffering from scams and the above missed opportunities faced by many.In addition, for newcomers, artificial intelligence can make the Web3 landscape more approachable and effectively reduce the barriers to entry brought by a scattered ecosystem.
Necessary doubts about the role of AI in Web3
While the above tools seem to be hypothetical, the fact is that an artificial intelligence interface used to combat information silos already exists.
Furthermore, we have begun to see the impact of AI adoption in Web3, with numerous platforms competing for AI’s dominance in security, defragmentation and analysis.Even at the most basic user level, AI-powered dashboards help aggregate data on multiple chains, allowing users to have a more comprehensive understanding of the market.
However, while Web3 seems to advocate for AI, it is important to be reserved for its potential for change.We have witnessed many worrying events in AI hallucinations, if not harmful – a recent search crash in Google AI is perfectly proved.
On paper, AI has certainly the ability to create a more seamless and user-friendly Web3 ecosystem.Especially when used in conjunction with concepts such as chain abstraction, artificial intelligence could be the key to the massive adoption of decentralized maximist dreams.
However, while advances in AI may show promising advancements in the ability to help defragment, like anything in Web3, this is for DYOR to treat any potential automation revolution early and healthy skepticism toCrucial.
