Blockchain, NFTs, and Web 3.0

[viscousmemories]

There has been some discussion of blockchain, NFTs and "Web 3.0" in Bitcoin thrad and Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany, but I think it's time we had a thread dedicated to these things. Not because I have anything intelligent or even interesting to say about them, but because I want to learn more about why it's all dangerous nonsense but I don't know who to trust for techocriticism anymore. I've always found cryptocurrency interesting but not enough to get into it, and I now view it as straight up gambling (with worse odds than casinos) that has a massively negative impact on the climate. NFTs just strike me as mind-bogglingly stupid, and what the hell even is "Web 3.0"?