I spent time over the past few days with several entrepreneurs who are building crypto or "web 3" applications well outside of the financial space. One of the takeaways for me was of the important role that digital "bearer" assets will play in creating new experiences in web 3.

By bearer assets, I mean that you just show up with them, and they are respected sight unseen by whatever applications are expecting them. Every time I start thinking about this concept, I am reminded of the bearer bonds in the movie Die Hard:

For example: a device that has Helium data credits loaded on it can present itself anywhere on the Helium Network, and it will start working. No user account, no credit card, no contract -- just show up holding the token and it will "just work".

Or, take a subscription that is issued as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain using the Unlock protocol. I show up with a compatible key and I can see the content. If I give (or sell) the key to you, you can see it.

Or, imagine decrypting content in a Zcash-based application using a Zcash viewing key. Anyone who has a key can see the content, whether it's a blog post, an email, or a private message.

And of course, this is how it is with Bitcoin. He/she who has the keys (and can sign the transaction) has the assets. No account required.

I think of all of this as a shift from account-based experiences (web2) to digital signature based experiences (web3).

Digital signatures create bearer digital assets. They travel around freely, are transferable, and they are not tied to traditional web2 accounts. Rather than the account (as represented by a login, or a credit card, or a contract) have permissions, digital assets (secured by digital signatures and private keys) have permissions.

I believe that this will enable vastly superior user experiences over time.

I spent the morning today at MTA headquarters, judging the "Accessibility" category of the NYC Transit Tech Lab competition, organized by the Partnership for NYC. Here is the view from the 20th floor of MTA HQ at Bowling Green:

Ostensibly, the theme of the day was accessibility in the sense of things that could improve the transit experience for people with disabilities and impairments of various kinds. This is, of course, a critical goal for every piece of public infrastructure, and is particularly important when it comes to transportation.

But what I quickly realized is that nearly every company that presented was not just increasing accessibility in that sense, but rather in a much broader sense -- making the system more sensible, legible and usable for everyone.

Specifically, there was a single theme that came through from nearly every team: taking an invisible or analog signal, and making it digital. As simple as that.

I can't link to the actual companies yet, as they haven't been announced, but the kinds of signals that were being turned digital included: electrical signals emanating from infrastructure like elevators and escalators to monitor conditions & outages; voice announcements sent over the PA system; and contextual and wayfinding information from signs and other physical objects, such as buses and trains.

In each case, there is a valuable signal -- valuable for people with disabilities yes, but really everyone -- that is not at all captured digitally. And in each case, a system that manages to capture that signal and provide it in digital form. Once it's digital, it can be used for anything: apps, alerts & notifications, analytics, compliance, etc. Once it's digital, it's accessible.

A major part of USV's Thesis 3.0 is "Broadening Access" and this can come in many forms. What I realized today is that the simple act of capturing an analog or real-world signal and making it digital is a powerful act of broadening access in and of itself.

As I make my way through the various predictions & reflections that accompany the new year, one stands out: the EFF's 2019 Year In Review, entitled "Dodging Bullets on the Path to a Decentralized Future". I have long been disappointed that there have seemed to be two separate and parallel conversations going on: the "traditional" digital rights / internet freedom community talking about "re-decentralizing the web" and the blockchain/crypto community working on the same thing. I like the EFF's recent work because they are connecting the two conversations, and their year in review is a good place to start on that.

A key link in the EFF review is to Cory Doctorow's work on Adversarial Interoperability, which studies the history of interoperability of technical systems and all of the commercial, legal and policy battles that haven ensued because of it.

In this post in the Adversarial Interoperability series, Cory details the different kinds of interoperability and the dynamics around them. His mantra is "Fix the Internet, not the Tech Companies" and I couldn't agree more.

I believe, and we have said at USV many times, that driving interoperability is the best and most effective way to limit the power of big tech companies, and that in today's environment we should focus on "breaking up the data, not the companies.".

When I talk to regulators, lawmakers and policymakers, I often use this diagram (credit to Placeholder for the underlying graphic):

Which shows that from a historical perspective, these "open" or "interoperability" technologies have been the driver in breaking up each era's dominant monopoly.

It's the same today, and Cory's and EFF's excellent work on the subject adds a lot of depth to the analysis.