Photo: James Martin/CNET

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he invested “a little bit” in crypto. However, Schmidt said that in the world of blockchain, he is most interested in the future of Web3.

Former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt said he has invested “a little bit” in cryptocurrencies, but for him the most interesting part of the blockchain is Web3. “A new model [of the internet] where you as an individual [can] control your identity, and where you don’t have a centralized manager, is very powerful. It's very seductive and it's very decentralized,” Schmidt told CNBC Make It. “I remember that feeling when I was 25 that decentralized would be everything.”

The idea of ​​Web3 is to build a system where it will be much more difficult for a few companies like Google to control the large amounts of the internet’s data and content. Schmidt said that if he were just starting out today as a software engineer, he would like to work on AI algorithms or Web3.

His interest in Web3 stems from a concept called “tokenomics,” which refers to the specific supply and demand characteristics of cryptocurrencies. Schmidt also notes that Web3 can offer new content ownership models and new ways to reward people. “[Web3′s] economics are interesting. The platforms are interesting and the use patterns are interesting,” he said. “[It] doesn’t work yet, but it will.”

Schmidt suggests that part of the problem with today's blockchain technology—citing Bitcoin as an example—is that most of the time people spend on these systems is in “making sure that nobody's attacking them... they're incredibly wasteful.” The former Google CEO also said that he started investing in cryptocurrencies, although he did not name specific ones.

© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.

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