Foreword by Lex Sokolin xForeword by Syed Musheer Ahmed xiiPreface xviiiAcknowledgments xxiii01 Background 1The Birth of Web2 2Web2 Business Models 4Monetizing Users 902 The Future is Web3 20What Kind of Web Do We Want? 22Trust at the Core 22Economic Model Implications 2503 Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the OwnershipEconomy 38A Brief History 39Economic Model Elements 47More Than Just Digital Art 5704 Decentralized Finance (DeFi) 59Decentralization—Utopia or Dystopia? 64Use Cases of Distributed Finance 70Roadblocks for DeFi 8005 GameFi—Experiential Pillar of the Metaverse 86The Rise of Online Gaming: A Look Back 87The GameFi Ecosystem 92Web2 vs Web3 Gaming Economies 95Economic Models 10106 The Metaverse 108Get a Horse 108What is the Metaverse? 110Is it “a Metaverse” or “the Metaverse”? IllMetaverse Use Cases 121Technology Advances 131The Journey Continues 13507 The Metaverse Economic Models 136Attention 137Acquisition 139Activation and Retention 142Revenue 143Referral 149Summary 15008 The Metaverse Convergence 151A Summary of Friction Points 152SocialFi Models 155Design Principles 158The Metaverse Convergence 160What About the Big Techs? 163The Best is Yet to Come 16809 Community 169Community is the New Commodity 170Unlocking New Opportunities For Impact 172Drivers and Enablers 177The Fuel Powering Communities 181Sustaining Communities 18510 The Capital Ecosystem 187The Rise of Digital Money 187The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Episode of 2017/18 189Did the Crypto Market Learn? 190The Crypto Shadow Lending Economy 193Stakeholders Within the Crypto Capital Ecosystem 195What Is in It for the Metaverse? 20211 Looking Beyond the Hype 203The Cogs 204What Needs to Work? 212The Opening Act 219Notes 221Glossary 241 Index 248