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Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has been blocked on Twitter — the social network he co-founded — by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen amid a growing tiff over the trendy crypto concept of “Web3”.
Dorsey — who stepped down from the helm of Twitter last month to run his payments company Block, formerly known as Square, full-time –posted a screenshot on Wednesday showing that he had been blocked by Andreessen, the co-founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
“I’m officially banned from web3,” Dorsey quipped.
It was the latest development in an escalating feud between tech titans like Dorsey and Elon Musk and a cadre of Silicon Valley investors like Andreessen, who claim they are looking to disrupt the internet.
Proponents of Web3 say it is a vision in which blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will give individual users co-ownership of the internet — reducing the ability of tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter to control speech and squash competition.
But critics of Web3 including Dorsey and Elon Musk say the term is just a marketing ploy designed to take power away from some rich tech investors and give it to other rich tech investors.
“You don’t own ‘web3.’ The VCs and their LPs do,” Dorsey tweeted earlier this week in reference to venture capitalists and their funders. “It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.”
In another post on Thursday, Dorsey — an NYU dropout who was known for taking meditation retreats while leading Twitter — continued to slam venture capitalists and criticized the cryptocurrency Ethereum, which has been embraced by many Web3 boosters.
“I’m anti-centralized, VC-owned, single point of failure, and corporate controlled lies,” wrote Dorsey, who is worth an estimated $9.4 billion. “If your goal is anti establishment, I promise you it isn’t ethereum. Don’t believe or trust me! Just look at the fundamentals.”
Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dorsey’s taunts.
Elsewhere this week, Dorsey was heckling Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz who had tweeted a “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you” quote that has commonly been misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi in a tweet promoting Web3.
“You’re a fund determined to be a media empire that can’t be ignored…not Gandhi,” Dorsey replied.
Dorsey also made fun of Andreessen Horowitz in an exchange with Elon Musk, who asked on Twitter whether any followers had seen Web3.
“It’s somewhere between a and z,” Dorsey replied.
Shortly afterward, Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen blocked Dorsey on Twitter, according to a screenshot shared by Dorsey.
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