Web3: Blockchain, the New Economy, and the Self-Sovereign Internet

Web3 is a new frontier of internet architecture emphasizing decentralization and user control. This text for MBA students and industry professionals explores key Web3 concepts, starting from foundational principles and moving to advanced topics like blockchain, smart contracts, tokenomics, and DeFi. The book takes a clear, practical approach to demystify the tech behind NFTs and DAOs as well as the complex regulatory landscape. It confronts challenges of blockchain scalability, a barrier to mainstream adoption of this transformative technology, and examines smart contracts and the growing ecosystem leveraging their potential. The book also explains the nuances of tokenomics, a vital element underpinning Web3's new economic model. This book is ideal for readers seeking to stay on top of emerging trends in the digital economy.

Ken Huang is an influential leader in Web3, AI, and cybersecurity. As Chair of the CSA GCR Blockchain Security Working Group, he shapes best practices globally. He is co-author of the book Blockchain and Web3 (2022) recommended as a 'must-read' by TechTarget. With over twenty years of experience across fintech, government, and startups, he provides Web3 and AI consulting as CEO of DistributedApps. He was a judge for major AI and blockchain startup contests by Google, Softbank, and Stanford in 2018. He has presented globally at Davos, ACM, IEEE, the World Bank, and the 2023 CSA AI Summit.

Youwei Yang is Chief Economist and Vice President of Mining at BIT Mining Limited (NYSE: BTCM). He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and specializes in financial economics, derivatives, and fintech, particularly crypto and blockchain. He has frequently appeared in Coindesk, CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, BlockWorks, The Block and KitCo. Before joining BTCM, he was Director of Financial Analytics at StoneX (Nasdaq: SNEX), a Fortune 100 company offering diverse financial services, where he managed commodity analysis, data modeling, crypto research, and institutional digital asset trading. He also teaches fintech courses to masters and MBA students at several top universities in China.

Fan Zhang is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Yale. His research interests include the security, privacy, and scalability of decentralized systems. His work has seen industry uptake and been featured in Forbes, MIT Tech Review, IEEE Spectrum, CoinDesk, and Bitcoin Magazine. He received an NSF SaTC Frontier grant (co-PI), three Ethereum Academic Grants, a Flashbots Research Grant, a Yale Roberts Innovation Award, and an IBM Ph.D. Fellowship. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell, advised by Professor Ari Juels. Additionally, he is a faculty advisor at Chainlink Labs.

Xi Chen is a full professor and Andre Meyer Fellow at NYU's Stern School of Business. His research focuses on machine learning and its applications to digital advertising, operations management, quantitative finance, tokenomics, and decentralized finance. His groundbreaking work earned him recognition on Forbes 30 Under 30, Poets & Quants' Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors, and faculty awards from Google, Facebook, Adobe, JP Morgan, and Bloomberg. He has spent two years as a principal scientist at Amazon Ads. He earned his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon and completed postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley under Professor Michael I. Jordan.

Feng Zhu is MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he leads the Platform Lab within the Digital, Data, and Design Institute and co-chairs the Harvard Business Analytics Program. Professor Zhu is an expert on platform strategy, digital innovation and transformation, competitive strategy, and business model innovation. His research has appeared in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Management Science, Marketing Science, Organization Science, the Strategic Management Journal, and Information Systems Research. It has been covered by the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.