So yeh. In June 2023, I sat down with Maciej from Osom Studio for what turned into a 76-minute conversation about Web3—the philosophy, the building blocks, the challenges, and where it’s all heading. This was one of those conversations where we had time to go deep, to get past the surface-level takes and really explore what’s happening.
The interview is available as both a podcast episode and on YouTube, but I wanted to capture the key themes here because this represents a fairly complete picture of how I think about Web3, particularly in mid-2023 after the FTX implosion and during what many called “crypto winter.”
How I Got Here
Maciej asked about my journey into crypto, and honestly, it started the way a lot of these things do—noticing something interesting and then falling down the rabbit hole.
Around 2017 or so, I had a developer at Pragmatic (my WordPress agency at the time) who was mining Ethereum on the side. I remember thinking it was curious but didn’t dig deeper then. But by 2020, I’d started an 18-month deep dive into blockchain fundamentals. Not just “how do I buy coins” but the actual technology, the cryptographic principles, the game theory, the philosophy.
By the time Automattic was looking for someone to lead Web3 initiatives, I’d spent enough time understanding the space to have opinions about what made sense and what was hype. That intersection—WordPress, open source values, and decentralized technologies—felt like exactly where I should be.
What Web3 Actually Means
Early in the conversation, I referenced Chris Dixon’s framework: read, write, own. It’s become a bit of shorthand in the space, but I think it’s useful:
- Web1 (roughly 1990s-2000s): You could read content. Static websites, information retrieval.
- Web2 (2000s-present): You could write content. Social media, user-generated content, but on platforms owned by others.
- Web3: You can own your digital assets and identity. You participate in networks without intermediaries.
But I emphasized to Maciej that for me, Web3 is fundamentally about participation and permissionless access. It’s about being able to engage directly with networks, to transact with anyone globally, to create and own digital things without needing permission from a gatekeeper.
That’s the philosophical core, and it aligns pretty cleanly with open source values—which makes sense when you consider how many people came to crypto through that world.
Open Source vs. Open State
One of the concepts I’m most interested in is the distinction between open source and open state. I used this analogy in the interview:
> “Open source is the recipe for cake. Open state is watching the cake being built.”
With open source, you can see the code, fork it, modify it, but each instance runs separately. WordPress.org and WordPress.com both run WordPress, but they’re separate installations with separate databases.
With blockchain—with open state—everyone’s watching the same cake being built, in real time. There’s a shared runtime where all participants can verify they’re seeing the same version of reality. That’s powerful and weird and novel.
It means you can build applications where the state (who owns what, who did what) is globally verifiable without trusting a central authority. That’s not just philosophically interesting; it enables entirely new kinds of coordination.
The Building Blocks
Maciej wanted to understand the core primitives of Web3, so I walked through what I think of as the five essential building blocks:
1. Identity
On-chain addresses serve as identity. These aren’t necessarily tied to your legal identity (though they can be), but they represent you in the system. You control them with private keys, and that control is what matters.
2. Transactions
Shared ledger changes. Every transaction is recorded, ordered, and verified by the network. This creates an immutable history that everyone can inspect.
3. Smart Contracts
These are programs that run on the blockchain. They’re public, auditable, and execute exactly as written. No one can stop them, no one can modify them once deployed (unless that capability is built in), and everyone can verify what they do.
4. Tokens
Both fungible (like currency) and non-fungible (unique items). Tokens represent value or ownership or membership, and they’re programmable. You can attach logic to them, make them do things, compose them with other systems.
5. DeFi
Decentralized Finance—permissionless exchange, lending, derivatives. You can lend money to a smart contract, earn interest, borrow against collateral, swap assets, all without intermediaries taking cuts or requiring approval.
These five things compose in interesting ways. Identity + tokens = membership systems. Smart contracts + DeFi = automated market makers. Tokens + identity = reputation systems.
Addressing FTX and Corporate Failures
By June 2023, FTX had collapsed spectacularly a few months earlier. Maciej asked about it, and I wanted to be clear about what the failure represented.
FTX was a centralized corporation. It was subject to regulations (or should have been), it had executives making decisions, it had opaque internal processes. The problem wasn’t “crypto failed.” The problem was misuse by people running a traditional company badly, allegedly fraudulently.
The protocols themselves—Ethereum, Bitcoin, the actual blockchain networks—kept running without issue. No one could shut them down. No one misappropriated funds held in smart contracts that users controlled.
This distinction matters. When a centralized exchange fails, that’s a corporate governance problem. When a protocol fails, that’s a technology problem. FTX was the former, not the latter.
But I also acknowledged: this kind of thing damages trust. It makes people skeptical. And rightfully so. If you’re new to this space and FTX is your first exposure, you’re going to think the whole thing is a scam. We have to rebuild that trust through transparency and better systems.
WordPress and Web3
Maciej was curious about what Automattic was exploring in the Web3 space, which I was happy to discuss.
The key areas we were looking at:
Better Payments
Cryptocurrency enables global, permissionless payments with lower fees than traditional payment processors. For WooCommerce merchants, this could mean accepting payments from anywhere without geographical restrictions or high credit card fees. Stablecoins (crypto tied to dollar value) make this more practical for everyday commerce.
Portable Identity
Imagine logging into WordPress sites with your Ethereum address. Your identity, your reputation, your history—portable across sites. You own it, not WordPress.com, not anyone else.
Token-Gated Content
Creators can gate access to content based on token ownership. Own this NFT? You get access to this membership area. Hold 100 of these tokens? You unlock this tier. It’s programmable access control without needing to build your own payment and verification system.
Creator Attribution
Timestamping content on-chain to prove when you created something, that you created it. Useful for copyright, for provenance, for building reputation.
The goal in all of this, I emphasized, is that decentralization should remove friction, not add it. If we’re asking users to jump through hoops, manage 12-word seed phrases, and pay gas fees just to leave a comment, we’ve failed. The technology should fade into the background.
Digital Sovereignty and the Future
Toward the end of the conversation, Maciej asked about my vision for where this is all heading.
I think we’re going to see a swing back toward sovereignty. For the last 15-20 years, we’ve handed our digital lives to a handful of corporations. Google has your email, your calendar, your photos. Facebook has your social graph. Apple has your identity. Amazon has your purchase history.
That was convenient. But the costs—in terms of privacy, autonomy, censorship resistance—are becoming clearer.
I expect over the next decade, people will increasingly want to regain control. Not everyone, not all at once, but enough people that it creates viable alternatives. And Web3 technologies provide tools for that: self-sovereign identity, censorship-resistant publishing, permissionless financial rails.
The integration will become invisible to most users. They’ll experience benefits—cheaper payments, portable identity, access to global markets—without necessarily knowing or caring that blockchain is involved. Just like you use TCP/IP every day without thinking about it.
That’s the future I’m interested in building toward: one where the technology disappears, but the sovereignty remains.
Why This Interview Matters
Looking back from late 2025, this June 2023 conversation captures a specific moment. We were in the aftermath of FTX, at the bottom of a market cycle, with a lot of skepticism in the air.
But the conversation wasn’t defensive. It was exploratory, philosophical, practical. We talked about fundamentals, not prices. We addressed failures honestly. We explored what these technologies enable, not what they might be worth.
It’s a 76-minute deep dive, and if you’re trying to understand my thinking on Web3—the principles, the building blocks, the challenges, the vision—this is one of the most complete articulations.
The full interview is available on the Osom to Know podcast and on YouTube. Maciej asked great questions, gave me room to think through complex ideas, and created space for nuance. Highly recommend giving it a listen.
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Related Content:
- Web3 & Ecommerce – Payfast 2023
- WCEU 2022 – WordPress & Web3 Trends
- WP Tavern Podcast – Web3 & WordPress
Sources:
- Osom Studio Blog: Web3 Present and Future – Interview with Dave Lockie
- Osom to Know Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube)