I became interested in Web3 technologies from podcasts I was listening to near the end of last year, so I am summarizing what I studied over several months.

First, many people probably want to ask what Web3 is and what it can do. I think the best way is to move your hands and get a feel for it. The worst thing is to feel like you understand it only through conceptual talk. This is limited to engineers who can read English, but the following materials are useful.

cryptozombies

#1 Solidity Tutorial & Ethereum Blockchain Programming Course | CryptoZombies _CryptoZombies is The Most Popular, Interactive Solidity Tutorial That Will Help You Learn Blockchain Programming on._cryptozombies.io

buildspace

buildspace _Start building cool web3 projects, earn NFTs, access secret work opportunities in crypto._buildspace.so

I did all of them, but if you do not have time, it may be good to do cryptozombies to understand Solidity and one buildspace project to understand how to build an overall application. Doing these things helps avoid falling into the simplistic understanding that NFT equals a system for buying and selling art.

After that, I think it is good to join a nice Discord community and get a feel for the atmosphere. Finding that nice Discord community is probably difficult, though.

The following is something I posted in a community, slightly modified and quoted here.

What is a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization?

To explain my background first, I once participated in Mt.Gox only from an investment perspective. After the incident, when the company collapsed due to theft, I lost hope and interest in blockchain as a tool for social change.

Because of that background, I am honestly skeptical about ideologies such as decentralization. I am interested in what remains after the hype cycle. I think there may be opportunity if we can speak about ideals from a more classical perspective, as an extension of governance and philosophy that humanity has accumulated. DAOs are interesting, but in the end it seems they will have to face problems such as free riders, mob rule, publicness, and the intellectual class. Still, I like them technically.

What is interesting?

What interests me most is that I feel the atmosphere of the internet’s rise in the 1990s. This is extremely interesting.

What is technically interesting about web3, or what does it bring?

What is interesting in the development from Bitcoin to Ethereum is that not only money, but many functions, such as formulas and instructions, can now be embedded on the blockchain. I personally also like Bitcoin-fundamentalist approaches like Jack Dorsey’s, but it is interesting simply to think about what interesting things can be done with this update.

Many of the services being discussed could theoretically have been implemented with existing technologies. What I find interesting is, first, that if you were building a normal web service, the database would be something you hide except for what users need, but on a blockchain it is exposed so anyone can see it and it can be incorporated into other things. The other point is that IDs, or addresses, can be issued freely in the digital world without linking to real-world IDs.

These technical elements give the digital world something like a tactile feel, and they give a sense of Lego blocks where multiple apps and organizations connect through a blockchain. That is what is interesting to me as an engineer. That said, I do not know what can be done. I think the current situation is chaos, with people running on belief that such ideals may be realized, people playing with it like a technical or artistic toy, and overheated investors all gathering together.

After this I was also taught about things such as ZCash, where the transaction itself can be encrypted. Technical change is also moving at a very fast pace, and the things written above are being overwritten one after another.

In that sense, the most universal, or essential, understanding is that “I feel the atmosphere of the internet’s rise in the 1990s.” After the bubble-like thing collapses, as the internet bubble once did, what remains is what I think we should watch most closely.

For education, I was taught about the following.

https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/

Finally, I will write what I am thinking now. Many Web3 influencers frame the discussion as opposition to Web2. I wonder whether that is correct. To spread blockchain technology and make it genuinely useful, wallet adoption will be key. To dramatically raise wallet adoption, I think good paths may be 1. governments using wallets for point programs and similar systems, or 2. adding wallet functionality to apps from companies that represent Web2.