Blockchain tech has come a long way. It wasn’t that long ago that crypto remained at the fringes, evangelized by a vocal minority. The narrative shifted once the COVID-19 pandemic pushed people into their homes with plenty of time to dive into new interests. Crypto benefited from the increased attention, entering everyday conversations among friends, family and colleagues.
Even so, it’s still early in crypto. Widespread adoption remains elusive and traditional tech gatekeepers maintain their grip on the digital economy. To loosen that grip, those of us building the decentralized internet, or Web 3.0, have to do a better job at defining the narrative about what’s at stake if we continue along with the status quo.
Doug Petkanics is a co-founder at Livepeer, where the team is building a decentralized live video broadcast platform to enable the next generation of video streaming. Prior to Livepeer, Doug was co-founder and CEO of Wildcard, a mobile browser. He also co-founded Hyperpublic, which was acquired by Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). He was the VP of Engineering at both.