Date Published: April 11, 2024
Comments Due:
Email Questions to:
Author(s)
Dylan Yaga (NIST), Peter Mell (NIST)
Announcement
Since its inception, the internet has constantly developed and improved, moving beyond simple text- and image-based informational websites to a fully interactive and powerful social, collaborative, and communication platform. However, the basis for much of the internet has remained rooted in a client/server-based paradigm, where organizations provide services and applications in exchange for ownership — partial or whole — of the user data posted to those systems.
A growing number of people are exploring what the internet could look like if it were a decentralized system in which users own, manage, and store their own data and collectively participate in hosting and running applications. Many have taken to calling this shift in internet paradigms “Web3.”
This publication:
- Provides a brief background on the internet
- Explores some of the concepts behind Web3
- Explores some of the proposed technologies that could be used
- Describes some security and privacy concerns that should be kept in mind as Web3 is explored
NIST requests feedback on the technical descriptions, proposed technologies, and security and privacy analyses of Web3. The public comment period is open through May 27, 2024. See the publication details for a copy of the draft and instructions for submitting comments.
NOTE: A call for patent claims is included on page ii of this draft. For additional information, see the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) Patent Policy – Inclusion of Patents in ITL Publications.
Web3 is a proposed vision for the future of the internet that is restructured to be more user-centric with an emphasis on decentralized data. Users would own and manage their personal data, and systems would be decentralized and distributed. Digital tokens would be used to represent assets, and web-native currencies (such as cryptocurrencies) would be used for payments. This document provides a high-level technical overview of Web3 and discusses the technologies that are proposed to implement it. The integration of these developing technologies may present novel security challenges, so this paper presents security considerations that should be addressed when considering Web3 technology and adoption.
Web3 is a proposed vision for the future of the internet that is restructured to be more user-centric with an emphasis on decentralized data. Users would own and manage their personal data, and systems would be decentralized and distributed. Digital tokens would be used to represent assets, and...
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Web3 is a proposed vision for the future of the internet that is restructured to be more user-centric with an emphasis on decentralized data. Users would own and manage their personal data, and systems would be decentralized and distributed. Digital tokens would be used to represent assets, and web-native currencies (such as cryptocurrencies) would be used for payments. This document provides a high-level technical overview of Web3 and discusses the technologies that are proposed to implement it. The integration of these developing technologies may present novel security challenges, so this paper presents security considerations that should be addressed when considering Web3 technology and adoption.
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Keywords
blockchain; cryptocurrency; data; decentralized; decentralized identity; non-fungible tokens; smart contracts; tokens; Web3
Control Families
None selected
