In the early days of the Web, people were quick to call it dead, the same is true of Web3

On November 25th, 2001 the New York Times made the call, dot com is dead, and by .COM they meant the concept of the World Wide Web, online shopping, the whole shabang. And they were right, for a while.

The popular obsession with the dot-com revolution, fading for more than a year, seems to have simply winked out since mid-September, as firemen and warriors have become the new heroes, and e-commerce’s whiz kids are consigned to the cultural boneyard. (Source — New York Times)

Fast-forward a year later, to November 2002 and guess what, eCommerce still wasn’t a thing, not even close. A year after that — nope.

What most mainstream media, and honestly most people missed, is while the death of dot com had been declared, it was in fact the opposite - the wheels were in motion, people were building, but like most things in life, it just took time.

I’m now seeing the same thing happen with Web3 as people, many of whom were never involved with Web3 in the first place, are quick to call it dead. Even before the bear market that we are in today, articles like this came out all the time.

To understand the latest incarnation of the colossal crypto grifts that continue to engulf the internet, I suppose we should start with all those bored apes, because how could we not? (Source — New York Times)

Today we find ourselves in what people are either calling our first bear market, or as many love to say — the death of Web3. When you look at the numbers though, it’s clear that we’re at the beginning of something big, not the end.

OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace has seen a massive revenue drop, but with that drop they’re still pulling in over $60M/mo in revenue. And Bored Apes, the NFT project that tends to catch quite a bit more attention than most, is astronomically higher than its mint price.

Rewind back to April of 2021, people were able to buy a Bored Ape for under $1,000 — today the cheapest Bored Ape you can buy is $42,000. Sorry but it’s just hard for me to see something that was worth $1,000 two years ago and is worth 42x today as a failure 🤷‍♂️

At the same time, the market is down — there was a time last year where the cheapest Bored Ape you could buy was over $400,000. But just because an investment is only 42x rather than 400x doesn’t mean that it failed - to me it just shows the difference between value in a bull and bear market.

And that’s what I find so interesting. In a bear market I honestly expected Bored Apes to go back down to under $1,000…but there’s enough market demand to keep them over $40,000 — that’s wild given how early we are.

Still, I get it — when a market goes way up, and then comes back down, it scares a lot of people away. What’s so interesting about the early days of Web3 that we’re all living today, is that huge companies are still investing and building in Web3.

Yes, it’s happening - in our first deep and painful bear market, adoption is increasing, people are building, and to me that truly shows this was never a bubble, these are the early days of a new market.

Web3 adoption is growing again, says Matt Moorut, director, analyst at Gartner, but not at the same pace as 12 to 18 months ago when metaverse hype was at its peak.

Recovery has been complicated by ongoing crypto volatility, as well as the onset of inflation, which has caused marketers to avoid investing in risky, untested channels.

“It’s not to say Web3 is dead,” Moorut said. Marketers are still interested, “but rather than rushing forwards with it, they’re being more sensible and trying to unpick those use cases where Web3 technologies are still valuable for the organization.” (Source — Business Insider)

The Internet is evolving, consumers are changing, and those silly monkey JPEGs that never made sense to you are still commanding over $40,000 in a bear market. Massive brands like Ralph Lauren are spending millions on buying islands in Fortnite, and companies like adidas and Nike are going deep into Web3 building out entire teams to keep them on the cutting edge.

At the same time, just like the early days of the Web, it’s going to take time. There’s a good chance you weren’t actively buying on eCommerce websites in 2001, 2002, or 2003. But today it’s a whole different story. Web3 is here to stay whether you understand it today or not. The question is no longer will Web3 survive, the question has shifted to — where will you land on the adoption curve.

For me, I’m absolutely loving being a part of the incredible community Bored Ape Yacht Club has built, excited for the future, and proud to continue to make Web3 a central part of my world. Web3 has already changed my life in so many positive ways, and I’m confident it will change yours too, but likely not for a while, and that’s okay.