What Is Web3?

The future of the web and apps.

Image of Donald McIntyre

By Donald McIntyre

October 28th, 2022

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An explanation of what are web1, web2, and web3.


You can watch this educational content here:


In this Emerald Educational post we explain what was web1, what is web2, and what will web3 be in the future when the components are built using blockchain technology.

Let’s Start by Understanding What Was Web1

When the web started to get popular in the 1990s and the first browser based apps were widely used, they were simple text and image static pages usually.

Some of these pages were Yahoo.com, AOL.com, and the typical corporate brochure like websites such as McDonalds.com.

This simpler technology is now called the web1.

Web1.

And, What Is Web2?

The next generation of more interactive and communicational websites included mainly user generated text, threaded comments, images, podcasting, and video, amongst other things.

This gave rise to what we call social media and also the mobile revolution.

However, both web1 and web2 were and are totally centralized and corporate controlled applications.

Web2.

What Is Web3?

Web3 is not here yet, but the building blocks are already being created.

The main innovation of the web3 will be a total decentralization of websites and applications, where no corporation or government will be able to manage or control them.

The base technology of web3 are blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic.

These new technologies add sound money to the internet and the ability to create decentralized programs called smart contracts.

Web3.

How Do Websites Work Today?

To put it simply, websites have three large components that make them work:

  1. The logic software code (PHP, JS, CSS, HTML, etc.)

  2. The database (MySQL, SQL, Db2, RDS, etc.)

  3. The image, sound, and video files (jpg, png, mov, mp3, mp4, etc.)

In the current paradigm all these are stored inside the servers of large corporations or cloud services.

Web today.

How Will Websites Work With Web3?

When the web 3 components that are being built are fully developed and operational all the parts of websites and applications will be decentralized.

This will include the logic files, the data, images, videos, sound, and even the money, which will be cryptocurrencies inside blockchains.

This totally decentralized paradigm is called “Web3”.

Web in the future.

Will Emerald Support Web3?

Yes, Emerald will support web3 via an in-app dapp browser, connectivity with dapps, distribution agreements, and full support in our backend infrastructure of all the coins, stablecoins, and blockchains that will power it.


Thank you for reading this post!

Please remember to download Emerald here:

https://emerald.cash/download