Web 3.0 new engine: Layer3 middle layer

Web 3.0 wave and the development status of dApp

Web 3.0 is a recent concept frequently mentioned in the blockchain industry. Simply put, Web 3.0 means the development of the Internet into a user-centric network of trust based on blockchain technology.

If we do a summary of the evolutionary process of Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, the following chart may be a better elaboration.

Web 1.0 Generation

To achieve content presentation and connection, but most of the functions are static and read-only, in the Web 1.0 system common applications are mainly Yahoo and other portals and Email mailboxes.

Web 2.0 Generation

Web 2.0 mainly realized an interaction between users and the Web — a dynamic interactive network, the rich content and information interaction provided by Web 2.0 cultivated a large number of massive network users, the prosperity of the Web 2.0 era is mainly due to some phenomenal applications: such as FaceBook, YouTube, Linkedin, the achievement of a number of great The era of Web 2.0 saw the rise of Internet giants.

Web 3.0 Generation

A highly transparent and equitable decentralized network, interconnected and trustworthy, generates network effects through trusted network protocols, and thus emerges collective intelligence.

In the Web 2.0 era, we have seen numerous problems of information centering and user data misuse. Giants like Facebook and Google store user data in a centralized way, and user privacy is not protected and data is misused or leaked. In this case, network trust and decentralization become extremely important.

The prosperity of Web 2.0 was caused by interactive centralized APPs such as Facebook and WeChat, then the prosperity of Web 3.0 based on blockchain must be promoted by dApps (decentralized applications), and a prosperous Dapp ecosystem can truly support the grand vision of Web 3.0.

Blockchain technology has been proposed for many years, but it has not yet moved to mainstream large-scale applications. Therefore, we have been discussing that the biggest obstacle lies in the extremely poor underlying infrastructure of blockchain, and in the past few years, we have seen numerous public chain infrastructures developed, and the investment based on public chain infrastructure has accounted for a large proportion of the past venture capital, but blockchain applications have still not moved to the mainstream. Which should be developed first, dApp or infrastructure? According to the historical perspective, the development of technology and application is an iterative evolutionary iterative process, the infrastructure promotes the development of dapps, and the development of dapps promotes the development of infrastructure.

Web 3.0 Layer3 Middleware

Layer 3 middleware is defined in the Web 3.0 technology stack as a technology that helps developers use the underlying protocols more easily, thus lowering the barrier for developers and improving efficiency, allowing developers to focus more on their core business.

If we compare the Web 3.0 Layer 3 middleware layer to all the software and tools developed and delivered by dapp and the mature cloud computing infrastructure of Web 2.0, the Layer 3 middleware layer of Web 3.0 still seems very thin.

In Web 2.0, AWS, Microsoft, and Google provide powerful and flexible computing, storage, networking, and a wealth of developer tools for businesses and developers around the world.

In contrast, the developer ecosystem of Web 3.0 based on the underlying blockchain technology is not yet very friendly, especially in terms of network performance, low throughput and instability. The reason for these is because the Layer 1 consensus protocols represented by Ether and Bitcoin sacrifice performance in order to ensure decentralization and security. In order to solve the performance problem, many Layer 2 solutions have been born, and well-known projects include: Plasma Raiden, LRC and other projects.

From the above Web 3.0 technology stack, we have been focusing on the Layer1/2 level of input, but less attention has been paid to the Layer3 layer. Compared to the Web 2.0 era, many leading IaaS and PaaS service vendors in the market, such as AliCloud, AWS, Google and other companies have developed extremely well and Mature middleware platform, thus helping developers and enterprises to easily access the underlying out facilities.

Now Web 3.0 technology stack, because the market does not have a unified product and middleware platform, so will Web 3.0 developers need to build their own Dapp by building complex non-core business solutions, and because many technologies in the perfection and development, so the compatibility and reuse effect is not ideal, which greatly hindered the development of the Web 3.0 industry, but also let This greatly hinders the development of the Web 3.0 industry and discourages many people. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop Web 3.0 Layer 3 middleware to lower the threshold of developers, improve their efficiency, and allow developers to focus more on their core business.

Layer 3 Middleware Market Analysis

From the middleware market of Web 2.0 we can see that in order to help developers improve development efficiency and reduce the threshold of developers, a large number of IaaS, Paas, Saas and other software companies, such as AWS, Google Cloud, ServiceNow and other companies, these companies are in the middleware market category, then compare to the Web 3.0 industry, there will certainly be similar platform-as-a-service companies, we currently see the following main categories.

Software development framework class

By establishing a series of standard development frameworks, development tools, languages and development libraries that allow developers to perform Web 3.0 app development at low cost, low threshold and high efficiency, these are mainly: OpenZeppelin, Truffle, Substrate, Cosmos-SDK, libp2p. This type of middleware, due to its specificity, so it is more difficult to commercialize.

Node Service Operator Naas

Reduce developer costs by deploying consensus nodes that allow developers to easily access the blockchain network with operators such as Infura, QuikNode, BlockDaemon, Alchemy, DAppNode, etc.

Data query service

Blockchain Data Query Service provides data analysis and query services to allow Dapp and developers to easily access data on the blockchain. Since events on the blockchain are not saved on the blockchain because they are triggered externally based on events, saving and analyzing them requires a lot of resources and effort. These service providers include: The Graph, Dune Analytics, Dfuse, Infura, etc.

API Aggregation Services

API are the standards and protocols used by applications to call each other, and they have played an important role in the Web 2.0 era, with the API economy generating significant revenue for the Web 2.0 giants.

Salesforce generates more than half of its $2.3 billion in annual revenue through APIs.

Google processes 5 billion transactions per day through APIs

Twitter processes 13 billion transactions per day through APIs

Amazon processes 1 trillion transactions per day through APIs

Web 3.0 itself emphasizes the interconnection of protocols, so APIs play a very important role in it and are the core of the blockchain economy. Service providers engaged in API aggregation include: API Protocol, The Graph, Infura, etc.

Write at the end

The Web 3.0 industry is in the early stages of building a new trust infrastructure, with significant room for growth in open source underlying protocols, development languages and frameworks, new technology stacks, and trusted network protocols. We see that the Web 3.0 industry infrastructure is maturing, and the perfect Layer 3 middleware market will attract more excellent developers to create excellent dApp applications, and these new Web 3.0 business paradigms will become the new form of future economic society and organization, and many revolutionary blockchain application cases will be converted into reality step by step.