Writing in Web3

March 31st, 2022

Why Now?

What can you learn about Web3 as a budding investor in six months if you dedicate your entire time to it? From my experience, not much :)

Web3 is cryptic…foundational knowledge in the space is guarded closely by gatekeepers who tend not to engage with anyone who joined Web3 after the 2020 bull market - but, I can see why that would happen.

Suppose you didn’t hold crypto before 2020. In that case, you are viewed as someone following the newest, shiniest object at the cost of the true ethos of what Web3 represents: inclusivity, interoperability, and transparency. Perhaps I am projecting my own experience a bit here, but that ethos has been shrinking precipitously, as new entrants who want to contribute to Web3 for the long term face an uphill battle of onboarding themselves with limited guidance.

There are tremendous alternative resources for learning about Web3 from those who have spent years in the space, ranging from Bankless to Nat Eliason and others. Still, without a first-principled approach to understanding the building blocks of crypto, these well-explained terms and concepts fail to convey their intended meaning. Web3’s baseline requirements of knowledge have become muddled. Crypto teachers today assume that baseline of knowledge, at the cost of the next majority of adopters feeling overburdened and left behind.

This newsletter aims to bridge Web3 foundational knowledge and the Web3 ethos. A journey, no matter how arduous, is better experienced with friends :)

Purpose

My goal with writing is to break down Web3 into its atomic components and expand upon them. Much of the “learning” we are recognized for in life comes from surface-level understanding: passively reading an article or book, listening to a podcast, or briefly mentioning it in a conversation to appear in vogue (hint, speaking from experience). Proper depth of knowledge comes from being able to understand, explain, and, most importantly, teach others. In other words, I am selfishly using you, the reader, as a way for me to learn more deeply about the things that I foolishly assume I “know.”

I prescribe to the assessment of Roman poet Publius Terentius, “Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.” I mention this as my work is not original. I made crypto my full-time job after ten years of industry validation from others who were ridiculed. I am standing on the shoulders of giants, leveraging the ideas, thoughts, and learnings of the past and repackaging them in the hopes that reframing these concepts may help people see things they did not prior.

That is not to say that this journey and willingness to share what I’ve learned is not without its fair share of fear, but in light of this fear, I believe there is no better way to increase your surface area of luck than to gain leverage on your ideas. The internet has made the flow of information and ideas more accessible, and who are you, to deny yourself the opportunity to see how far your ideas can go?

Topics

There are a few topics that I hope to cover through this medium:

• First-principle, Web3 concepts and explanations

• Crypto investment thesis and its evolution over time

• Investment memos on Web3 investments

Conclusion

I hope you join me on this journey of confidence building in Web3, starting from first principles. :)