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If you've spent any time online over the past year or so, you've probably been unable to escape the hype around cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and so-called Web3 in general. Celebs like Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow have gotten on the bandwagon, and El Salvador recently became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender.

Equally unavoidable is the backlash. NFT projects from the likes of Lindsay Lohan and the estate of Stan Lee have been met with ridicule and vitriol. Word that Kickstarter planned to pivot its crowdfunding platform to be backed by the blockchain was received by many on social media with disappointment or even disgust.

Web3 fans believe that cryptocurrencies and NFTs are the harbingers of a movement in tech that can decentralize finance and commerce, putting more power into the hands of users and disrupting the likes of Google and Facebook. Skeptics believe the benefits of Web3 are unproven or unrealistic, as cryptocurrency scams run rampant and blockchains damage the environment through their power consumption.

Now tech-industry insiders say the debate over cryptocurrencies is coming home, as developers increasingly take sides on Web3. Twitter is full of anecdotal evidence of developers quitting when their employers embrace crypto, even as execs at companies like Amazon and Facebook take new jobs in the industry. Even leaders like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey vocal fans of bitcoin and crypto got pushback after suggesting Web3 is overhyped.

Importantly, insiders say, this growing rift has as much to do with politics as it does with technology, with interest in or skepticism of cryptocurrency taken as a statement of values that can pit a developer against their peers.

That's a real bigger-picture risk, some insiders say.

The more polarized the discussion becomes, and the more people who identify strongly with the pro- or anti-crypto camps, the harder it is to have an honest dialogue in the industry about the promise of the technology and to reckon with the harms of the rising tide of crypto scams and other bad behavior on the blockchain.

Some worry that this divide could be disastrous for tech in the long haul. If the Web3 movement shuns even mild or well-reasoned skepticism, insiders say, the dangers will only get bigger, scaling with its growth. And they say that, conversely, if Web3 skeptics aren't willing to assess the technology on its own merits in good faith, the industry could risk throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

"If it's going to be bad, then we need to know what it is so we can play defense," said Kelsey Hightower, a principal engineer at Google. "If it's going to be good, then we need to know how it works so we can actually get in on the action or play off it. But we can't have either of those options from a place of ignorance."

Fierce debates are common in the tech industry, where developers will endlessly argue the merits of Mac versus PC, or Android versus iPhone, or even whether to put a tab or a space after each new line of code.

The thing that sets the crypto debate apart is that cryptocurrency itself is an increasingly political issue in ways that don't break cleanly along party lines. Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic presidential nominee and secretary of state, has described what she sees as the dangers of bitcoin, while Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis crossed the aisle to work with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden to propose new tax rules around cryptocurrency.

Some in tech worry that this is bringing the intense polarization that saturates American politics into the heart of the software industry, making it difficult to hold any sort of good-faith discussion on the matter.

"It's so polarizing," said Tracy King, a software engineer at the startup Xplor. King said that adding ".eth" to her Twitter display name, signifying her support of the ethereum blockchain, solicited a surprising amount of blowback. "I've experienced people who I thought were friends start name-calling and block me for being a 'Web3 shill,'" she said.

Kelly Vaughn, a prominent software developer and cofounder of the gift-card startup Govalo, experienced a similar fallout after tweeting about an interest in learning more about Web3. "I know I have a large audience and with that always brings individuals with strong opinions on either side of the fence, but I definitely wasn't expecting the backlash right out the gate," Vaughn said.

"I feel like everything gets so politicized here," Anne Griffin, a product manager at the travel-booking website Priceline, told Insider. "It's putting people at a disadvantage to get in a technology that is going to change the world, like very early on."

On the other side, even optimistic skeptics of cryptocurrency are hesitant to voice anything like dissent, some insiders say. Liz Fong-Jones, a developer well known for her employee activism at Google, said she worried about losing potential clients or future investors by being critical of crypto.

"The instant you mention anything that is negative about cryptocurrency, there are going to immediately be people who nitpick what you have to say," Fong-Jones told Insider. "I wouldn't necessarily characterize the behavior as overtly harassing so much as it's sucking up the oxygen in the room."

Anil Dash, the CEO of the collaborative coding platform Glitch, said that if the pro-crypto camp doesn't take seriously the concerns about environmental damage, scams, hoaxes, and other dangers and risks that have come alongside the Web3 boom, it'll be that much harder to bridge the divide.

"The Web3 community has not had that moment of realizing they had empowered not just scammers and grifters but people that were going to twist this technology for really evil use," Dash said. "For all the good that it's done, there's been so much harm. And so I think there's anxiety and grief and residual culpability about that."

See more here:
Web3 Boom Is Bringing American Culture Wars to the Tech Industry - Business Insider