What is the Difference Between Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0?

Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is a “big fan” of Tether (USDT), a stablecoin issuer. He said in a Dec. 11 interview with CNBC that he keeps their treasuries, which are now over $90 billion.

Cantor Fitzgerald has been helping manage Tether’s multi-billion dollar Treasury portfolio for several years, despite many Wall Street firms shying away from crypto businesses. A Feb. 10 report from the Wall Street Journal said the partnership between Cantor and Tether began in late 2021.

Cantor Fitzgerald is one of the few brokerage firms that can trade Treasury bonds, such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard. Wells Fargo, however, stopped processing Tether’s wire transfers as a correspondent for its Taiwanese accounts in 2017.

Tether continues to be called out for its lack of transparency regarding its reserves and recently performed poorly in S&P Global’s stablecoin stability assessment, receiving the second-lowest ranking out of eight U.S. Dollar-pegged stablecoins.

Despite this, Lutnick suggested Tether could be beneficial for currency-collapsing countries like Argentina, whose new Bitcoin-friendly president Javier Milei has pledged to abolish the country’s central bank and transition to the U.S. dollar. This idea was echoed by James Check, lead on-chain analyst at blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, who referred to Tether as “the CBDC” that will be controlled by the United States but could also be increasingly relied on by developing countries looking to dollarize.

The main differences between Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 are the levels of user interactivity, the use of multimedia, and the ability to access data. Web 1.0 was mostly static, while Web 2.0 allowed users to interact with each other and share information. Web 3.0 is a blockchain-based platform that allows users to interact with each other and access data securely.

Lutnick likes Bitcoin too

The CEO initially expressed his admiration for crypto, but then went further to specifically praise Bitcoin.

Lutnick referred to the halving cycles and its lack of a centralized entity as two of the main reasons why he thinks Bitcoin is valuable. “The only asset people could have held where no one could take it? Bitcoin […] it is uncontrollable,” Lutnick said. “With Tether, you can call Tether and they’ll freeze it. With Ethereum, you can call Joe Lublin.”

He highlighted the differences between web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, mentioning that investing in web 3.0 is possible. He also pointed out the main features of web 3.0 and the difference between all three versions.