If you want to thrive on Web3, get a step back and learn the fundamentals. First and foremost: the Blockchain.
I know, I know…
You are tired of trying to understand this technological madness.
Miners, proof of work, transactions, cryptography, decentralized network, consensus.
But if you are not a developer or a “technical guy/gal”, you don’t really need to understand HOW blockchain works under the hood.
Let’s focus on WHAT a blockchain is.
Blockchain is just a global public spreadsheet where anyone can edit the data (cells) following some rules (formulas).
And, importantly, once the data was stored in this spreadsheet, it will never again be deleted or changed. The historic data is immutable.
So, the Bitcoin Blockchain is a spreadsheet that stores users’ balances and transactions. There is just one formula in this Excel (send value from A to B). That’s all. Simple but very robust.
The Ethereum Blockchain (the main App Blockchain) is a spreadsheet where users can CREATE their own formulas, in addition to storing data.
Another way to think about the Ethereum Blockchain is as a global computer in the cloud, where everyone has root access to create files (store data) and run programs, assigning its ownership to themselves, and no one can stop it, delete it, or move it, besides you, the owner.
In addition, this kind of global spreadsheet also has natively, for each user, a digital bank account (address) enabled to receive and send payments globally.
For example, I’m the CEO of a Social Media company and want to store all my users’ posts and their followings/ers on a public spreadsheet. So I use Ethereum to store and create some formulas, like “A follows B”, “A likes post’s B”, etc.
But, Why is that a big deal?
Once all this data is on open and public infrastructure, the user OWNS the data, and apps just use them.
Think about Bitcoin. There are a ton of apps on top of this blockchain: wallets, exchanges, analytics, etc. All these apps share the same data (on the same spreadsheet, Bitcoin) that are owned by you.
If you don’t like that app, you can just change it, without needing exporting data (because, for christ, the data is on a shared public spreadsheet).
Think about Ethereum. You use the social media app. But the UX is terrible and are some posts being censored. That’s ok because already there is a competitor using the same data with better UX and censuring rules. And the user can just switch to it.
Now, stop for a second and think about all the crazy stuff and formulas and macros and charts and whatever you can do with Excel.
Yes. Now we have a GLOBAL SHARED PUBLIC IMMUTABLE excel to create whatever we want.
Got it?
All the NFTs, DeFi, Cryptos, and DAO stuff are downstream of these basic concepts.