6G and Onward to Next G

CHAPTER 6Web3 and Token Engineering

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems ‐ the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.”

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESBritain's Most Famous 20th‐Century Economist (1883–1946)

6.1 Emerging Web3 Token Economy

In Chapter 1, we have briefly described the evolution of the Internet economy from the original read‐only Web1 information economy and today's read‐write Web2 platform economy to the emerging read‐write‐execute Web3 token economy based on decentralized blockchain technologies, as illustrated in Figure 1.2. The Web3 will enable the token economy where anyone's contribution is compensated with a token, as opposed to today's Web2 platform economy that exploits users' free data for targeted advertising.

The exploration of tokens, in particular different types and roles, is still in the very early stages. The understanding of how to apply these tokens is still vague, especially the important problem of token engineering, which is an emerging term defined as the theory, practice, and tools to analyze, design, and verify tokenized ecosystems. One of the most comprehensive and up‐to‐date references on the token economy is Shermin Voshmgir's second edition of her widely cited book titled “Token Economy: How the Web3 reinvents the Internet,” which attempts to summarize the ...