October 14th
The day we launched our alpha testnet, and Point Network went level up. It went from a pipe dream to an idea to a prototype running locally, to a grueling development phase, and now finally the first alpha with real users, still buggy but already working on other people’s computers. And we can even see them registering and see their posts and comments on Point Social and reply.
All previous projects, while they have laid important work, were useful stepping stones, and produced various web3 tools, were (and still are) part of web2. Uniswap.org can be taken away from Uniswap team at any moment right now, or its contents can be modified without the team’s knowledge (like when bitcoin.org was hacked recently) and you would never know it. Same is true with protonmail.com and others, you never know what files will be served to you the next moment and whether they will be served at all.
Before, when people ask you where web3 is, you would be hard-pressed to find any boundaries that are non-vague. Now, for the first time, we have a completely isolated virtual space that has the right to be called “web 3.0” and “decentralized internet” — decentralized domains, decentralized websites, decentralized storage, decentralized identities, all combined together, with no centralized server to shut down, no censorship capability, no mass surveillance, as “free speech”-free as physics allowing people to speak words into air, with no middleman deciding whether and when to take away this ability.
Web 3.0 has started now. And you are the first users to set a foot in this isolated virtual space today. Big heartwarming welcome and congratulations! Let’s see what awesome things we, together as a community, can now do from this point on.
It’s a cause for celebration, but not for slacking off. There’s a lot of things we will have to improve in the coming days, and especially as we get more users soon. But we will always remember today as a major turning point, and will probably celebrate every Point anniversary on this day, and host yearly PointCon around this time.
Thanks everyone, both to first alpha users, and people who are just on the sideline rooting for us! Let’s make this journey we’re starting together as positively impactful on the world as possible.
~ Serge