0:53Daveed BenjaminSo that’s what I’m excited about at the moment. I also, I love nature and I enjoy cooking and a lot of, a lot of probiotics, sauerkrauts and things like that. Those are fun to me as well. So, um, I’ve been spending most of my time building though on the Ordinals at the, at the moment.
3:07Kamal HubbardYou know, that’s awesome because it leads me to my very first question. What are Ordinals for everyone who doesn’t know out there?
3:16Daveed BenjaminOrdinals come from Ordinal Theory, which came out about a little bit more than 6 months ago. Casey Rodarmor is the guy who came up with this notion of an ordinal being an inscription, a piece of data that’s inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain. As it turns out, each Bitcoin is made up of 100 million satoshis. You can inscribe information on a satoshi, on this little satoshi, and it can take up to 4 megabytes of data. So an ordinal is one of these inscriptions on a Satoshi. An ordinal theory is about how you number these. So there’s going to be 2.1 quadrillion Satoshis. So that means there’s 2.1 quadrillion possible ordinals or inscriptions that can be made on the blockchain, on the Bitcoin blockchain. And Ordinal Theory is all about tracking those, and we’re trying to understand how these can be used to create a layer on top of Bitcoin that will make it really, really a valuable informational resource.
4:56Kamal HubbardWow. Yeah, that’s a lot. And I know this theory is very, very in-depth. And there’s a question I want to ask personally around this and the distinction between Ordinals and the type of information like NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain and Ethereum-style blockchains. What is really the difference between the two other than the network, Ordinals being on the Bitcoin blockchain?
5:27Daveed BenjaminWell, the big difference is that all of the information, when you do an Ordinal, when you ascribe information onto Bitcoin, onto a Satoshi, it is going to reside on chain. So all the information is on chain. And typically with the Ethereum NFTs, the NFT is simply a container of information with a pointer to the data. A lot of times the data lives on the Interplanetary File System, IPFS, which is, which is okay. But information has been lost off of IPFS. And there are instances where it’s not even on something that robust, something less robust. And there have been instances where people have went to their wallet to look at their NFTs and they see a 404 message, meaning that it can’t be found. So the link is no longer working. That will never happen with an Ordinal. So the Ordinals is super cool because in a sense it’s NFTs, but they don’t -- we actually call them digital artifacts because we want to separate them from the idea of NFTs because NFTs actually have been implemented in a way where they aren’t even necessarily permanent on the blockchain.
6:50Kamal HubbardThank you for that, because I mean, there’s a lot of, uh, interesting differences. And, and I mean, it even goes to even greater levels, I know, based on what you’re covering in your book. So, um, but before we get there, you mentioned IPFS and what that is, and, um, you know, some of the, the the drawbacks of IPFS, but, you know, how have you worked with IPFS in the past and how do you envision it in Web4?
7:26Daveed BenjaminI personally haven’t worked on a project that has used IPFS, but I’ve used, I’ve used products that have used IPFS as a backend and I haven’t ever had any problems with it, and I do have some NFTs that do point to IPFS. And with respect to Web4, I think that there’s going to be many different alternatives to store your personal data. So I certainly think that IPFS could certainly be a choice. if developers decide to create the interfaces that allow that to be possible. To me, you know, there’s drawbacks for everything. There’s pros and cons for everything. So I think the best thing, at least with respect to how I’ve been thinking about this collective design that’s happening around the Overweb, is, at least from my perspective, I want to make sure that it’s open enough that -- it can use, it can integrate and work with many different chains or any different chain and other platforms like, and technologies like IPFS. People who like the suite of pros and cons that it offers can decide to use that as their storage alternative.
9:01Kamal HubbardYou know, you said something just there that took me back a little bit because like you said, you’ve been at this for quite some time now, and you mentioned the Overweb. So, and I know you’ve been talking about that since 2017, or at least that’s the first time I heard you mention it. But, um, is there any difference between the metaweb and the Overweb? Or, and if so, what are the differences between the two?
9:30Daveed BenjaminWell, there’s a huge difference in that the metaweb is the entire space above the web page. This book about the metaweb is really to open people’s minds to, to think beyond this flat 2-dimensional web that we experience on the computer screen and to understand that it’s possible for there to be as many layers as we want. And these layers can show different information and they can have different people be visible to different people. So it’s, for me, The, the metaweb is just this, this almost infinite possibility about what can be above the web, and the overweb is simply the first full instantiation of that, which I and a number of other people are, are in the process of co-creating because it’s really just beginning.
9:30Daveed BenjaminBut there’s been a lot of thought that’s been going behind it, and there’s some experiments that have been, have been completed or underway. For example, Presence Browser is an Overweb experience -- excuse me, experiment. And, um, we’re, we’re looking with the Overweb to be that safe trust layer in the metaweb. So the metaweb is everything. There’s going to be -- it’s going to be the wild, wild west. It’s going to be whatever it wants to be. But with the Overweb, we’re wanting to create a trust layer where every person that you encounter is a real person and there’s no unidentified bots, there’s no scammers, there’s no, uh, serial abusers, etc.
9:30Daveed BenjaminSo it’s, it’s really just wanting to make a distinction between the, the environment that we want to create, which is the Overweb, and this, this zone that’s just full of possibility. That’s the, the metaweb.
11:38Kamal HubbardSo that is, uh, that’s very interesting because it falls in line once again with my next question. And, you know, you talked about the trusted layer in the overweb, and I think it might be helpful for those who are listening out there if you could explain the concept of decentralized identity and how this will be addressed in the Overweb.
12:07Daveed BenjaminGreat. Yeah, that actually even leads over to the Ordinals work as well. So a decentralized identity is an identity, digital identity that is owned by the person whose identity it is. Right now, almost all the different agencies or identities that we have, for example, the, the United States passport identity that I have, or the California driver’s license that I have, these are all mediated by some other entity. In this case, it’s the state and the federal government. And when we talk about decentralized identity, it’s an identity that’s actually controlled by me as opposed to one of these other entities. Because with these other entities, they can, they can shut off my passport, they can turn off my driver’s license, etc.
12:07Daveed BenjaminWith a decentralized identity, because it’s using cryptography and you own your own keys, you own your identity and no one can actually access information unless you are giving them permission. So you basically have to sign off on other people using aspects of your identity. And it means that we’re taking the control back and we’re looking to implement some decentralized identity system. And we haven’t fully decided which, but But the things that it will need to have that aren’t readily available right now, or at least not in the Web2 world, is basically a unique decentralized identity. Because in the Overweb, we want to make sure that you don’t have a situation where one person is controlling 100 different identities or accounts or bots, or 1,000 or 10,000 or even a million.
12:07Daveed Benjaminwhat’s happening on Facebook. By the way, do you have any idea how many fake, fake accounts Facebook took down last year?
14:32Kamal HubbardNot at all.
14:33Daveed BenjaminGuess.
14:34Kamal HubbardUh, 20 million?
14:39Daveed BenjaminNo, it’s higher.
14:41Kamal HubbardOh no, really? 100 million?
14:43Daveed BenjaminMuch higher.
14:45Kamal HubbardOh wow.
14:46Daveed Benjamin6 billion. Oh, what?
14:51Kamal HubbardYeah, so the entire, uh, population of the planet.
14:56Daveed BenjaminYeah, basically they’re able to take them down in maybe 5 or 6 days, probably. But it’s such that about 5% of the people on one of these Facebooks or other social networks, if not more, are fake. So these are basically accounts that are put there to manipulate you, whether it’s directly manipulating you, by mis -- mis -- um, misleading you as to who they are, or they’re creating virality that’s used to manipulate your attention. So with the Overweb, we think it’s really important that we make sure that everybody is a unique individual. So the decentralized ID identity solution that we’re looking like -- looking for has to be has to make sure that everybody is unique.
14:56Daveed BenjaminAnd what we’re looking at right now is like a 2-tier system where there’s a system where you’re essentially, you’re using perhaps a Bitcoin Ordinal as your identity, and that, or it could be one of these other systems out there like BrightID, Proof of Humanity. There’s a number of them, but there’d be one level where we know that you have a real digital identity, and then there’ll be another level where you go to a higher level of verification where you verify that you’re actually a unique person within the OverWeb ecosystem. And the difference between doing those 2 different -- having those different tiers would be your ability to fully express in the Overweb.
14:56Daveed BenjaminYou, to fully express, you would need to, you know, be verified that you’re actually a unique person. Now, we don’t need to know exactly who you are, but because it’s actually a decentralized identity that you will -- and you only have one of them, Because like I said, you’d be unique, right? It’ll be a unique one. You can’t get a new one and then just walk away from your old one. No, you have one unique decentralized ID for the Overworld, for everything you do for your life. When someone does something that’s outside the bounds of what the community finds acceptable, then the community would then in some way sanction them and The, the, the notion that I’m talking about, uh, here is that with, with this higher level, you’ll be able to do all the things, join all the communities, etc.
14:56Daveed BenjaminBut maybe with the lower level, there’ll be certain communities that might say, well, you know what, we want to make sure that everybody in our community is a real person and who’s unique, etc. So you actually have to have a verified unique to join this specific community. So, uh, I think there’s, there’s 2 different levels that, that make sense, and, um, people can make their choice on, on, you know, how they, how they want to move in, in this digital, uh, environment that the OverWeb is providing.
18:22Kamal HubbardYeah, I think they’re, they’re -- you have to give people a choice, and, or I think it’s good that people would have that kind of choice to be in a place that is safe, trusted, and has consequences for, you know, bad behavior. But, you know, the people who do want to get out there and then, you know, have things just less regulated, less sanctioned, you know, there’s a choice for that. Hopefully they choose things that are moral, but that might not necessarily be up to us. You know, we’ve spoken previously about the Internet Computer protocol, and you had some pretty interesting things to say, positive things, which was good. Recently, the Internet Computer has integrated the Bitcoin blockchain and all the things that you’ve discussed about Ordinals on the Bitcoin blockchain. Do you think that these things are possible using the Internet Computer to to do some of the Ordinals work that you have discussed?
19:30Daveed BenjaminThat’s interesting. I’m going to have to look a bit more into the Internet Computer. But one of the things that I’m interested in with respect to Ordinals that could be a bridge to the Internet Computer would be this notion of meta-Ordinals. So meta ordinals are essentially digital artifacts and locations. So they’re both a location or destination and a digital artifact that are defined relative to a digital artifact on Bitcoin. So a digital artifact on Bitcoin are Satoshis, there’s 100 million of those per Bitcoin. Then the inscriptions themselves, the Ordinals themselves, those digital artifacts, blocks are digital artifacts, epochs are digital artifacts. So there’s all these different digital artifacts that are happening on Bitcoin just by virtue of the Bitcoin digital machine working.
19:30Daveed BenjaminThen there’s other digital artifacts that are created on top of that. So on top of the Ordinals, you also now have Bitmaps, for example, and QuadKeys. And these are also digital artifacts on top of these. So any of these digital artifacts, MetaWeb theory says that when you have a digital artifact or location, there’s value to having a meta layer on top of it. And metaordinal theory says when you have a digital artifact on, for example, Bitcoin, there is value to having a meta artifact and location that’s defined relative to it. And so why would that be of value? What it means is When you, for example, go to an inscription -- so the inscription is one of these pieces of information that’s put on the Bitcoin blockchain.
19:30Daveed BenjaminThat could be, it could be a sentence about the news or even a news story. It could be an image. It could all, you know, they have token deployments, mints, transfers. There’s namespaces. All these things are put on the Bitcoin blockchain, and you’ve got these digital artifacts. Now, the thing that becomes possible when you have the meta artifact, the meta ordinal, for example, is it allows for you to attach information and interactions to the actual Ordinal. So with a particular meta inscription, so it would your inscription you have in for example the first inscription is a picture of a skull. It’s like a Día de los Muertos.
19:30Daveed BenjaminSo that’s inscription zero. You can have a meta inscription of 0.inscription.whatever that extension is. Maybe it’s MO for meta ordinal, for example. But once that’s established as the meta ordinal, whoever owns that can create some content on top of that meta ordinal. And what I was thinking was that content could potentially be sourced from the Internet Computer. So because the Internet Computer allows for web websites, web pages, web content to be stored on-chain, so I think it’s possible that basically you could have an Internet Computer sourced website that’s defined in relative to a specific digital artifact on the, on the, the Bitcoin blockchain. Does that make sense?
24:04Kamal HubbardIt does. It does. And that’s definitely, I think, worth exploring sometime in the future. But, you know, we’re getting close to the end here. I wanted to give you an opportunity, if there’s anything else about your upcoming book that you’d like people to know in terms of its content, where they could find it, when it’s going to be available, I’d love to have you share some of that with us now.
24:29Daveed BenjaminOkay. Yeah. So the name of the book is The MetaWeb: The Next Level of the Internet. It’s to be published October 9th by Taylor& Francis. It will be on preorder very shortly, actually tomorrow. So it’s available for preorder at a discount. book is over 300 pages with about 40 illustrations, and it looks at the -- where we are right now with computing. It looks at the past of computing, and it talks about where we can go and how we can really switch from a personal computing paradigm to a collective computing paradigm that allows us to collaborate on the world’s most gnarliest problems. There’s problems in the world that require, you know, a lot of us to be working together to solve them.
24:29Daveed BenjaminAnd we don’t really have the tools that we need to do that. So this book is about how we move from this very limited digital world and computing paradigm that, that we, we, we’re meshed in right now to something that’s more decentralized, more trustworthy, has more integrity, is easier to find things, and is much more collaborative. This book is going to be accompanied by an NFT. So there’ll be an NFT book that will allow you to not only read online, but you’ll be able to make notes and have conversations on pages of the book. So we’re going to have that NFT. We’re also going to be inviting you to check out OrdWeb.io, which is our parlay into the Ordinals world with this line of thinking, with this MetaWeb thinking.
24:29Daveed BenjaminThe MetaWeb thinking, as I was talking about earlier, directly supports the, the meta ordinals on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. And we’re gonna, from, from the website of the book, which is, uh, metawebbook.com, you’ll be able to plug into both those NFTs and also the Ord Web and the, the different work that we’re doing around meta ordinals. So there’ll be a lot of opportunities to check out with respect to this whole line of of work and thinking.
27:17Kamal HubbardDavid, thanks again for, uh, joining this episode and edition of Crypto with Kamal. And for everyone out there, I’d like to remind you, don’t just make it a good day, make it a great day with crypto. Crypto with Kamal, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
