your web3 starter guide 🌚 🚀
Hey friends 👋
The audience of this guide is as follows…
Creators, artists, and students looking to learn more about how web3 can apply to their lives
Early career professionals working in tech, finance, consulting, design, and more who want to make a transition into web3
Senior executives, founders, and entrepreneurs who want to educate themselves on web3 to see how its applications can be embedded into their existing projects
The content shared below has been curated by people who are in the field and way smarter than me! Please DM me directly on LinkedIn or Twitter with any concerns or questions.
If you’re entirely new to Web3 and or the world of crypto, I hope this is a helpful start to your journey down the rabbit hole 🐇 🕳 .
💕 Jay
What is “Web3”?
It’s helpful to think about Web3 in the context of previous internet paradigms, Web1 and Web2:
Web3 analogs (from left to right): Showtime, Audius, Mirror, ___, Filecoin & Arweave, Livepeer, The Graph, Decentraland - Source
Why is Web3 important?
It’s easy for new entrants to not understand why web3 is important. There is a lot of noise, hype, and incentive-driven narratives that dominate the news…
“Some point to crypto’s shortcomings as evidence the entire effort is a scam, but this misses the point. Historically, when technological innovation has led to financial innovation ahead of regulation, we have seen world-changing innovation, then mania, fraud, a crash, a regulatory framework and then a slow build toward lasting value (see: early stock markets of 1600s Amsterdam). Crypto appears no different. There are tokens of dubious quality. There are pockets of over-hype. But as with all other technology revolutions, there will also be enduring companies created in this time.” - Source
For me, it’s been helpful to ground myself in the problems that currently exist for a broad swath of archetypes, and then think through how web3 can help solve those problems. By focusing on the problem, my hope is that you will have that “aha” moment many people feel as they learn more about this space. Below are a few of those examples:
Creators, artists, and musicians are able to monetize through alternative methods (e.g. NFTs, Tokens, DeSo)
Developers can build on open protocols leading to rapid product development (i.e. composability)
Businesses can find alternative revenue streams to supplement their existing business model (e.g. Adidas NFT launch, Reddit Karma points)
Governments can more clearly track economic activity within their jurisdictions
Community organizers can tie monetary incentives to increase the value of their groups (e.g. DAOs)
Individuals can own their own identity (e.g. wallets, ENS, NFTs)
I know I just used a ton of jargon and terminology that may not make sense. Let’s jump into that now. In the next section, my goal is to ground us in the correct language to allow you to get comfortable with how web3 operates.
How does Web3 operate?
Learning the language is the first step. I am still personally quite intimidated by the lingo that is used. Some of the ideas are so abstract that I question what is truly underneath them. Also, these phases can change in meaning over time. Below we will share some of the important concepts, slang, and products to be aware of:
Concepts
Slang
Products
Get into the rabbit hole
Many people will recommend reading the Bitcoin and Ethereum whitepaper as foundational pieces in web3. Honestly, a lot of the content in there didn’t make sense to me until months after starting to consume content in this space. I would recommend reading them after you have been crypto-pilled. Here are some other great places to start:
Podcasts & Youtube
Blogs, Articles & Twitter Threads
Twitter
Discords to Explore
Start playing around
There are many ways to get started. What I like to recommend for friends to do is to buy their first NFT or purchase their ENS name. Let’s walk through both of them below.
Buying an NFT
A lot of people buy NFTs to flip them and earn a return. I try to do this and haven’t seen much success monetarily yet - I literally spent $2k+ on this Koala which is now priced at ~$300. NGMI. As you are starting I would instead go support one of your favorite artists, check out the community on Twitter of the NFT you’re buying, or buy something that literally just looks pretty.
By doing this you get to interact and set up the products and platforms we’ve mentioned above. Follow the steps below and click through the associated links to help you if you run into any issues:
You have to buy some Etheruem in Coinbase (link)
You have to set up a Metamask (link)
You have to send Etheruem from Coinbase to Metamask (link)
You have to connect your Metamask to Opensea (link)
You can go to your Rainbow wallet and see your NFT (link)
Here’s a video going through this entire flow. Please do not spend any money that you do not have. Think about the money invested here as education rather than a financial investment.
Buying an ENS domain
ENS stands for Ethereum Name Service. Your ENS acts similarly to setting up a domain name. Instead of jaysingh.com, you can purchase rights to jaysingh.eth. Your ENS allows you to a.) transfer funds to a name instead of an address (e.g. you can send $ directly to jaysingh.eth, instead of a 12 digit numerical number) and b.) provides a proxy for your identity in web3 (e.g. you see many folks on Twitter changing their display name to their .eth addresses, this acts as a signal to demonstrate you are a part of the web3 community). Follow the steps below to purchase your ENS:
You have to buy some Etheruem in Coinbase (link)
You have to set up a Metamask (link)
You have to send Etheruem from Coinbase to Metamask (link)
You have to go to ens.domains and search the name you would like (link)
Connect your Metamask to ENS
If the name is available, register your ENS
You can go to your Rainbow wallet and see your ENS name (link)
Please do not spend any money that you do not have. Think about the money invested here as education rather than a financial investment.
Is this guide missing anything? Please DM me directly on LinkedIn or Twitter with any additional content.
*this is by far the best present I got from Santa this year ! Thx Jay and web3friends ! #WAGMI
*this is by far the best present I got from Santa this year ! Thx Jay and web3friends ! #WAGMI