Moving Real-Time Services to Web 3.0: Challenges and Opportunities

Web 3.0 is an emerging Internet paradigm based predominantly on the blockchain technology. Because Web 3.0 applications are designed to operate over trustless and permissionless networks, they can have significant advantages, such as decentralized control structures and transparency. Hence, existing web applications are being reproduced using Web 3.0 technologies. In contrast, real-time services are still implemented with the Web 2.0 architecture. In particular, implementing Web 3.0 media streaming requires modifications to the service architecture of existing media streaming systems because some technical difficulties exist. For example, as data moves from centralized data centers to distributed storage, the user's quality of experience may be severely degraded. In addition, the software components comprising the Web 3.0 stack, such as interplanetary file system, cryptocurrency wallets, and the Ethereum JavaScript API are not compatible with various combinations of OSs, media players, and browsers. Therefore, in this study, we propose an end-to-end system architecture designed for Web 3.0 real-time services, which prevents degradation of service quality. Further, we present a media NFT marketplace named Retriever (https://retriever.live) fully developed using Web 3.0 technologies. Retriever allows users to enjoy watching video content and further to directly trade their content without intermediaries by ensuring the privacy of the data and managing digital intellectual property. In particular, Retriever does not sacrifice the user experience and is compatible with multiple mobile devices.