The dream of adoption has haunted a certain segment of the Web3 community for quite a while, probably even before it rallied around this moniker in the first place. As to what this adoption actually looks like, though, there’s hardly much unison. For some, it’s the opportunity to buy and HODL ether (Ethereum) from the comfort of your banking app, while others would probably point at El Salvador’s bitcoin village.
I would not say that either fits the bill, though. Without judging those who seek comfort — people do want to access crypto through banks, after all — the idea of diminishing crypto to nothing but another speculative asset flies in the face of its original purpose and potential. And as much as we may want it, it’s hard to imagine entire economies moving to crypto as the baseline unit of exchange soon.
To me, true adoption is the point where millions of people are interacting with blockchain without even realizing it, much as it happens today with Web2 backbones handling micro-payments. This is also already happening: I am, for example, aware of a few traditional fintechs that use blockchain, but don’t really talk about it.
The next step here is for companies to start using the Web3 stack to offer a decentralized alternative to Web2 apps for ride-hailing, deliveries, electric vehicle charging, VPN, telecom, and anything. Such projects are also gaining momentum, and I expect even more of them to pop up in the coming months as leading Web3 investors realize their disruptive potential. But here’s the crux — these projects all leverage hardware, which oftentimes requires a controller to connect with blockchain in the first place.
And that’s where the humble Raspberry Pi comes in — so let’s get bakin’.
The one controller to rule them all
Back before the switch to remote-first, we had Raspberry Pis lying all around the office. I am sure anyone working in the Internet of Things space can relate to that — the mini-computers are the industry’s go-to workhorses for anything from testing to working as microcontrollers for the widest array of devices. They’re powerful enough to run some pretty sophisticated code (I once took a zoom call with one the other day just to make a point), and their open-source nature enables virtually unlimited customizability. Besides, they are pretty affordable, even in the era of supply chain woes.
The features that make mini-computers a great testing tool for the Web2 industry are also pretty aligned with the values and vision of the Web3 movement. The blockchain world lives and breathes everything open-source, with boundaries between the project team and community growing thinner and thinner.
Besides, affordability means low barriers to entry, which is important due to crypto’s popularity in the developing world. As innovators around the world build platforms for decentralized solar power grids, Web3 ride-hailing services, or Web access points, Raspberries and similar devices provide the bridge between physical infrastructure and the blockchain.
In more specific terms, it can be anything. A counter controlling how much excess energy from the solar panel on your rooftop has been sold to the nearby workshop. A portable validator authenticating the rider and signing off the end of the ride. A relay between your EV charger and the digital marketplace where anyone can buy charging services from it at your designated time slots. Raspberries enable an entire host of services and applications putting the power in the hands of the community and promoting user ownership and sovereignty.
That’s not to say that all of the above is easy, of course. Connecting anything to the blockchain through a mini-computer is a time-consuming task. Still, it helps with prototyping custom hardware geared for running on Web3 rails and for building entire networks and ecosystems of physical infrastructure deployed by users, for users. That’s why we’ve already added support for Raspberries to peaq control, a decentralized application for connecting devices with peaq network, and offer rewards to those who link theirs with the testnet. The demand from builders is already there, and so are the plans for the first use cases leveraging connected computers.
For too long, crypto has been living as a closed-off ecosystem. We’ve had enough of trading jpegs and hearing the next coin that will take everyone to the Moon in a golden lambo. It’s time for Web3 to go real-world, and devices like Raspberry Pis are the gate that takes it there.