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I Didn’t Believe in Web3 — Until I Saw This

My Journey to Seeing Web3 As the New Digital Future

I’ll admit it — when I first heard about blockchain I was a bit confused. It was early 2018 and I was watching John Oliver on  Last Week Tonight, who himself was quite skeptical. That was seven years ago.  Both blockchain and I have come a long way since then.

Even my connection or interest in Web3 and blockchain is a bit odd.  You see, by training I was a lawyer in the financial services industry and then went back to graduate school and picked up a PhD in American History at Johns Hopkins. A historian with an outlook to the future.

When I first heard people talking about NFTs, back in the days when that meant projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Kitties, it sounded like a mix of video game tokens and speculative nonsense. Cartoon monkey and kitten pictures selling for six figures? A digital coin that’s somehow “money”? None of it seemed real, or at least not serious.

Given my background as a historian and my initial disbelief at what felt like popular culture heading in the wrong direction, a path towards studying, writing, and consulting on these topics  seemed like a natural direction to take my life, right?

But here’s what changed for me: I stopped focusing on the noise and started paying attention to the pattern. I learned to see the possibilities.  Underneath the pomp and circumstance, the critiques of volatile crypto markets, and implosions of sketchy meme coins I realized something important is happening.

The First Time It Felt Real

I started thinking about Web3 more intently in early 2022. For me, the real shift came late that fall when I attended a Web3 For Business conference in San Diego. I saw entrepreneurs who already were innovating, finding success, and using this opportunity to create change. I also began to see examples of major companies quietly building Web3 into things I already use.

Nike launched NFT sneakers — not as a gimmick, but as a way to build deeper relationships with their most loyal customers. Starbucks launched Odyssey, a blockchain-based rewards program. Ticketmaster began experimenting with NFT-based tickets that unlock perks and prevent fraud.  Coke, Prada, Visa, these are all brands getting into the Web3 space.

It wasn’t just that they were experimenting with new tech — it was that they were handing back a piece of control to their customers. Suddenly, the conversation wasn’t about cartoon apes anymore. It was about access, identity, and ownership.

That’s when it hit me: Web3 is not a product. It’s a new layer of the internet — one where we can actually own our digital stuff, not just rent space on someone else’s platform.

From Skeptic to Student

The more I looked, the more I found examples that felt both practical and powerful:

  • A music artist issuing NFTs that give fans backstage access or early demos.

  • A teacher receiving a verifiable digital certificate — no transcripts needed, no fakes possible.

  • A person in a developing country using a wallet to store stablecoins and protect their savings from inflation.

These weren’t just fringe experiments. They were glimpses of what’s next — and they were working.

Why This Series Matters

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t want to live on Discord, collect digital dragons, or spend your weekends learning about blockchains. That’s fair, however I do spend parts of my weekend learning about blockchains.

But what you should want is to understand the next version of the internet before it becomes your default — before your bank, your job, your favorite brands, and your digital life all shift underneath you the same way they did for many of us in the late 1990s when Web1 emerged.

That’s what this 5-part Web3 Starter Series is about. Not convincing you to invest in tokens or join a DAO (both great ideas) — but giving you the clarity and control to make smart decisions about the future.

Because this isn’t just tech for tech people anymore.
It’s tech for you. For all of us.

Stay Curious

Thanks for being here.
Next week, we’ll break down how money is changing — and how decentralized finance (DeFi) is quietly reinventing banking as we know it.

Until then, stay curious — and open.

Scott Kasten
Founder & Editor, Hashed Out

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