Remember your first username? If you were anything like me in the early 2000sâtoo young to surf the web but excited about the possibilities of connecting with the rest of the worldâyour username probably makes you cringe today.
When blockchain technology was first introduced a decade and a half ago, it made the possibility of a decentralized web seem viable to a mass audience. Since then, blockchains have proven themselves to be a poor solution to the majority of data storage problems outside of bearer assets - i.e. Bitcoin - because blockchains grow continuously without any ability to delete data, which just doesnât make sense for things like personal data. But âblockchainâ isnât synonymous with decentralization, and just because a blockchain isnât the best solution for personal data storage doesnât mean your app canât be decentralized.
As we wrap up our very first self-hosted hackathon, we're thrilled to announce that out of 1,681 participants we have our top 8. These three hackathons have been a great learning experience, and an amazing opportunity to see what unique projects developers can build with Web5. In hopes of keeping the Hackathon open we came up with 6 categories, FinTech, Health, Music and Arts, Personal Data,and Empowerment & Enablement applications. Join us in celebrating our top 3 and best application per category.đ
It's winner announcement time! We're thrilled to have been a part of DevCareer's first-ever hackathon. DevCareer's mission is to cultivate new talent and make a difference in Africa through tech, and having that talent play around with our Web5.js sdk was an invaluable experience. The level of creativity resulted in us having not 3 but 5 winning projects! đ
The results are in! Out of 418 participants we have our top 3 projects! We were honored to sponor a Web5 challenge with DIF Foundation. DIF (Decentralized Identity Foundation) is an engineering-driven organization focused on developing the foundational elements necessary to establish an open and interoperable ecosystem for decentralized identity. The challenge given was to build a decentralized web app utilizing Web5.js and Decentralized Web Nodes.
Web5 prescribes that users maintain control of their content by decoupling their identity and data from the applications that they use. I'm frequently asked why major companies, who have made billions of dollars off of our data, would buy into this model.
Web5 introduces a paradigm shift in the way we build applications. App-centric logins and data storage are replaced with decentralized identity and personal data stores.
While Web5 abstracts away a lot of the complexity of building decentralized apps, it would be nice to have a helping hand to answer all of your Web5 questions.
That's why we've created a Web5 Assistant in the form of a ChatGPT plugin. The Web5 Assistant is built on GPT-4 and was trained on all of our available documentation.
The Decentralized Identity Foundation organized did:hack, a decentralized identity hackathon designed for people to learn, collaborate, and think creatively about how decentralized identity technology can be leveraged to improve digital interactions in the future.
The 4-day virtual event included sessions from TBD, SpruceID, Dock.io, Aviary Tech, Trinsic, and Danube Tech - all providing educational sessions on ecosystem tools that enable decentralized identity and verifiable credentials.
You may know what a decentralized identifier (DID) is or even how to generate one, but you may be wondering: whatâs the point of yet ANOTHER way to identify myself? To get a better sense of the why behind decentralized identifiers, weâll discuss the real problems society faces today when it comes to identity, and why DIDs are an enormous practical solution to a pervasive set of problems.
The United Statesâ potential ban of TikTok is the latest and loudest warning sign of our increasing need for a decentralized internet. Consumers are quickly wondering where theyâll go for their short form video content if TikTok is taken away. Creators are faced with the reality that their income could immediately dry up if the most viral social media platform to date disappears. Lastly, businesses could potentially watch one of their most powerful distribution channels go up in flames overnight.