Technology and Transactions Team Chair Melissa Koch in Orlando participated in the Imagination in Action Web3 Summit held at MIT Media Lab on June 30, where engineers, entrepreneurs and other professionals designing the future of the internet gathered to discuss a range of topics, including NFTs, Decentralized Finance, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Metaverse, protocols, and more. In an article for Medium, Koch shared what she took away from the event and what it left her thinking about. Specifically, the use of privacy, security, and data ownership in the era of Web3.
Koch wrote, "There are no central banks standing behind cryptocurrencies to help protect against loss or fraud. No built-in check and balance systems for DAOs. No delete button for those permanent, immutable records. In some ways, the current state of Web3 is that it’s an internet without a safety net. Exciting, but also a little scary. A good part of the conference conversation was about taking the learnings from Web1 and Web2 to help de-risk Web 3, make it a better place — one where people can feel safe and have more autonomy. Which led to recurring themes that, as a veteran technology lawyer, I hold near and dear: privacy, security, and data ownership. My hope is that as we move further into the era of Web3, we become much clearer and precise in the usage of these terms."