California Marijuana

Early in the pandemic, Lincoln Barnett III began dabbling in cryptocurrency and got some exposure to early-stage non-fungible tokens (NFTs). “I went down the wormhole,” said Barnett, a cannabis industry veteran. “I was buying NFTs, being super-active on Discord channels, learning absolutely everything I could about Web 3.” Web 3—or, among the cognoscenti, web3—is a conceptualized third-generation internet predicated on a decentralized network using blockchain technologies and token economies. Barnett began his cannabis career as a teenager, cultivating with his father and moving weight around Southern California in the pre-recreational era. More recently, he played a foundational role in getting the trade show Hall of Flowers off the ground. While he was well-versed in face-to-face gatherings, chat rooms on the platform Discord—once the exclusive stomping ground of gamers—introduced Barnett to a global community of web3 enthusiasts who displayed the same camaraderie and thirst for kn...