Every so often an event occurs that is so startling in its economic implications that it may reasonably be considered a water-shed in the way we do business. By watershed we mean an abrupt and irrevocable turning point, one that signals a shift in historical direction by obliterating an established set of business practices and replacing them with a new commercial paradigm. We are in the initial stages of such a watershed now, with the meteoric rise to prominence of the third web (web3).

The advent of web3 is an event only comparable to the initial rise of the internet, an event that has already begun to set us on a path that will radically alter how we interact not only online, but with one another in the physical space, with institutions both private and public, and with business associates and customers around the globe.

In the online world of the very near future, a blockchain will link every home, every business, every government agency, and every distributed database together in a complex weave of information exchange. We will inhabit a world where distance no longer matters, and where communication and data transfer will be virtually instantaneous. This will so thoroughly transform the way that transactions are conducted that doing business without it will become unthinkable.

The Internet did the same thing. Now, with the coming of the blockchain as a catalyst for change, the speed with which it is reaching watershed magnitude gives it a possibly unique status in economic history. We're not speaking about the speed of data transmission — as it is not one of its rightful claims to fame — but the speed with which businesses have picked up on web3's potential, have adopted its technology, and are staking successful claims on this economic frontier.

That speed is causing investment counselors who were scoffing at blockchain businesses only two or three years ago to call them the current miracles of the world's financial exchange. No previous watershed has elicited such a rush to approval.

Although the concept of cryptography as a vehicle for decentralized exchange has been around for decades, its business potential was arguably only reached recently with the advent of monetary blockchains, non-fungible tokens and decentralized enterprises. That's only a few years ago and yet web3 has already made a quantum leap from a technological curiosity to the story of the century.

Thus the crypto movement is presenting itself as a watershed with virtually no lag time. It seems to have sprung, like Athena, from some cybergod's brow, fully clothed and fully armed. That perception is somewhat illusory, but it's a perception that has to be dealt with as if it were true, because it is generating a mind-boggling market revolution that is already dividing the world into “Degens" and “Right-click Savers".

While venture capitalists continue to favor more traditional recipients—especially firms in the communications and general software sectors— web3 is fast becoming an arena of high drama. Beginning from a smidgen of support in recent years, “crypto” business is currently commanding the narrative as the future of venture capital.

So the growth of web3 business is improving, but it's got a long way to go. We are sitting, right now, on the edge of a vast gold-field, and the riches it will one day surrender are only beginning to be revealed.

We're using the goldfield analogy for a double purpose. It should make you justifiably excited—but also cautious. For while millions are there for the making in the field of DAOs, NFTs and Social Tokens; they are certainly not there for the taking, like picking nuggets off the ground. Anyone contemplating doing business on web3 might profit from remembering the lessons of that classic gold-hunting story The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

In John Huston's great film, the novice prospector Fred C. Dobbs