One of the many historic moments that took place in the 1990s was the debut of the world’s first website and server at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. But unbeknown to many, it was also around the same time that Metanet—the Bitcoin project that will see the Internet become a sidechain—has gotten its start.

Metanet is essentially a commodity ledger, powered by Bitcoin SV (BSV), where the entire global system of online activity and data are connected commercially. With BSV, compressed data can be transferred on Metanet, paving the way for a reliable, semi-automated exchange of web page and other information.

Metanet and Bitcoin were roughly conceived “in the depths of the late 90s” from the concept of an economically incentivized Internet, according to nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig Wright.

In a new Medium post, Wright explained how, as a “young brash 20-something,” he thought the concept “would change the Internet for the better” by creating a system made secure by economic incentives. The problem, however, was that he “started at the wrong side of the problem.”

There has been a misconception that everybody can have their own coin, and this belief has resulted in a multi-coin system that the cryptocurrency sector is seeing right now. But this is a system that is less effective than barter, because as Wright points out, “Money is best when universal. If every site has their own form of tradable currency, the reality is that no site has currency. To be money, it needs to be universal.”

The Metanet is a value network, one that will enable new methods of distributing web content as well as facilitating ecommerce business models using Bitcoin microtransactions, which means companies can earn instantly for clicks, content, and data. Potential fraud incidents will also be reduced, thanks to the higher data quality and integrity provided by blockchain-backed data storage. Security also isn’t a problem, as the IPv6 protocol can be integrated directly into Bitcoin, which has been reborn in BSV. Wright explains:

“Metanet creates an immutable Internet. It allows the right to be forgotten through key dis-allocation, whilst maintaining a copy of all material ever posted to the Internet. From an attacker point of view, it is the worst invention ever. Not only would attackers be required to pay money for the use of a site as they attack it, an immutable record of all the changes and the attack itself would be created.”

Read Dr. Craig Wright’s Medium post, The start of Metanet, here.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.