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A FEW weeks ago, a couple named Heather Morgan and Ilya 鈥淒utch鈥� Lichtenstein were arrested in New York, accused of laundering $4.5 billion in stolen bitcoin. Dubbed the 鈥渃rypto couple鈥�, their story quickly went viral. Not only was the scale of the pair鈥檚 alleged crime mind-boggling, but it soon emerged that Morgan makes bizarre rap videos under the name Razzlekhan, which feature her dancing on Wall Street and issuing advice like 鈥渂e a goat, not a sheep鈥�.

This is hardly the only weird news from the often shady world of crypto. There has been plenty of hype recently about non-fungible tokens (NFTs), unique cryptographic files that record ownership of digital objects, such as artworks. In mid-February, a scammer , collectively worth $2.9 million.

Meanwhile, a group of influencers who promoted the 鈥淪afeMoon token鈥�, a cryptocurrency, to their followers . The influencers are accused of artificially 鈥減umping鈥� the value of SafeMoon, getting a tonne of people to buy it and then selling all their tokens at peak price, 鈥渄umping鈥� their currency before its value plummeted.

What do these stories have in common, other than sounding like a season of Black Mirror? They are all dispatches from the frontier of Web3, a term that marketers and investors use to describe the next phase of the internet. In fact, they are just a tiny sample of hundreds of similar stories featured on , a blog that warns readers about the scammy side of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, blockchain applications and 鈥渕etaverse鈥� high jinks.

At the helm is software engineer , who has emerged over the past year as one of Web3鈥檚 smartest and best-informed critics.

If you are still wondering exactly what Web3 is, you certainly aren鈥檛 alone. The basic idea is that the next phase of the internet won鈥檛 be centralised, as it is now, dependent on a few big players like Meta. Instead, it will be decentralised, with payments and data stored on blockchains. The term was first introduced by Gavin Wood, who was the co-founder of popular blockchain project Ethereum.

Although it is a major buzzword in the tech industry, Web3 is still mostly a futuristic fantasy 鈥� think of it as the flying car of the internet, always just on the cusp of widespread adoption but never quite getting there. I asked White to help me puzzle out what Web3 promises to be, and the unsavoury reality of what it currently is.

鈥淎 lot of so-called Web3 projects fall apart quickly under any scrutiny,鈥� White told me by email. She first noticed this pattern in early 2021, when she was reading a lot of news about cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-related tech like NFTs. 鈥淚 started to come across just an enormous amount of scams,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 realized that this was happening constantly, but no one was really collecting it in one place.鈥�

Part of the appeal of Web3 Is Going Just Great is that it is simultaneously educational and hilarious. White analyses recent news about scams and catastrophes in the Web3 world, with key terms highlighted so you can look up what a 鈥渂itcoin wallet鈥� is, learn about NFT marketplaces or discover how a 鈥渃ryptocurrency blender鈥� works.

In the bottom-right corner of the page is a delightful feature called the Grift Counter. It is a text box surrounded by pixelated flames with a running total of the amount of money people have been swindled out of due to scams recorded on the site. At the time of writing, the total was $8.4 billion.

White said her work is partly a form of activism, because Web3 scammers use the complexity of the technology to prey on people who are still figuring out what a blockchain is. 鈥淓ven some of the biggest and most 鈥榣egitimate鈥� platforms in this space do very little to educate their customers鈥� and I think this is very intentional,鈥� said White. These firms 鈥渨ould probably have fewer customers if every one of them actually knew what an NFT was鈥�, she said.

White also wants to highlight how many ordinary people are becoming victims. She recalled a guy whose Bored Ape NFT was stolen last year. A few days later, the victim tweeted: 鈥淭his was my kids college. My mortgage.鈥� White said she couldn鈥檛 stop thinking about him.

Crucially, critics like White are also pushing back on the whole premise of Web3, pointing out that most of this so-called decentralised tech is actually centralised, in the hands of a bunch of shaky apps from start-ups and clueless influencers. And people are pouring their life savings into them.

So how is Web3 going? If you are a grifter, as White would put it, then it is going just great.