Web inventor Berners-Lee calls crypto dangerous and compares it to gambling

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Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989. But he is unhappy with how his original vision of the web came to fruition.

Rita Franca | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and compared it to gambling in an episode of CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley” podcast released last Friday.

Discussing the future of the web, Berners-Lee said digital currencies are “only speculative” and compared it to the dotcom bubble, in which internet stocks, often without solid activity behind them, were heavily inflated.

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“It’s just speculative. Obviously, it’s really dangerous,” Berners-Lee told CNBC. “[It’s] if you want to have fun with the game, basically.”

“Investing in certain things, which is purely speculative, is not what I want to spend my time on,” he added.

Berners-Lee said, however, that digital currencies could be useful for remittances if they are immediately converted back into fiat currency when received.

The British computer scientist is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989. But Berners-Lee isn’t happy with how his original vision of the web came to fruition. Alongside John Bruce, Berners-Lee is looking to reshape the future of the internet through his startup Inrupt, with the aim of giving people more control over their data. The two spoke to CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley” in a high-profile interview about the future of the internet.

The future of Web3

Many proponents have spoken of the future of the Internet in terms of Web3, a catch-all phrase with no clear meaning. But proponents often say that this version of the internet runs on blockchain technology that originated with the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Web3, some say, is a decentralized internet that takes some power away from giants like Facebook and Google.

But Berners-Lee said the future of the internet is “Web 3.0”, which he distinguishes from Web3. Web 3.0 is its own proposal to reshape the Internet.

“It’s not blockchain,” Berners-Lee said, suggesting the technology isn’t fast or secure enough.

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