Articles and Videos
There is no shortage of articles and videos covering Web3 - some are good, many are useless.
Fortunately, I've consumed a ton and attempted to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Here are my favorites:
What is Web3?
The crypto and Web3 space can be confusing and intimidating to newcomers. To get started, I recommend checking out the following resources:
An Intro to Crypto: Building Blocks by Linda Xie
Cryptopia: Bitcoin, And The Future of the Internet on Amazon Prime
The Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto by Kevin Roose
Web3: in a Nutshell by Eshita Nandini
Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant — The Wonders of Web3 And Much More on The Tim Ferriss Show
Why is Web3 Important?
Web3 is poised to fundamentally restructure our economy. The following resources detail how:
Bitcoin by Fred Wilson
Why I’m Interested in Bitcoin by Chris Dixon
Why Decentralization Matters by Chris Dixon
Crypto Mega Thesis by Kyle Samani
And What Has the Blockchain Ever Done for Us? by Balaji Srinivasan
Web3 Use Cases: Today by Packy McCormick
Web3 Use Cases: The Future by Packy McCormick
The Slow Death of the Firm by Nick Tomaino
Own the Internet by Packy McCormick
Fat Protocols by Joel Monegro
The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency — Nick Szabo on The Tim Ferriss Show
Crypto Tokens: A Breakthrough in Open Network Design by Chris Dixon
The Ownership Economy 2022 by Li Jin
Understanding Web 3 — A User Controlled Internet by Emre Tekisalp
Chain Reactions: How Creators, Web3, and the Metaverse Intersect by Rex Woodbury
How Does Crypto Work?
Cryptocurrencies rely on three distinct technologies – blockchains, digital key cryptography and consensus mining – to maintain decentralization. The following resouces explain on a deeper level:
Two Generals Problem by Finematics
What do We Mean by “Blockchains are Trustless”? by Preethi Kasireddy
What is a Blockchain? by Whiteboard Crypto
Public and Private Keys (Asymmetric Encryption Animated) by Whiteboard Crypto
What is Proof of Work? by Whiteboard Crypto
But How Does Bitcoin Actually Work? by 3Blue1Brown
The Ethereum Whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin
How does Ethereum work, anyway? By Preethi Kasireddy
The Blockchain Economy: A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics by Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson and Jason Potts
Distributed Systems 2.2: The Byzantine generals problem by Martin Kleppmann
What is a Cryptographic Hashing Function? By Whiteboard Crypto
WTF is The Blockchain? By Mohit Mamoria
A Beginner’s Guide: Private and Public Key Cryptography Deciphered by Chris Coverdale
What is Staking in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is a Mining Pool in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
What are Smart Contracts in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is Ethereum Gas? By Whiteboard Crypto
Cryptocurrencies
A cryptocurrency is a form of money that is created, distributed and owned directly by the public (as opposed to the government). The following resoruces explain how they work and why they're important:
Bitcoin Whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto
The Ethereum Whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin
A Beginner’s Guide to Ethereum, by Linda Xie
Ethereum is the Forefront of Digital Currency by Fred Ehrsam
Ether: The Triple Point Asset by David Hoffman
What is a Stablecoin? by Whiteboard Crypto
The Moneyness of Bitcoin and Ethereum by Ryan Sean Adams
What is Money? by Investopedia
#8 Reasons Why Bitcoin is Better than Conventional Currency by Vishal Gupta
The Triple Point Asset by David Hoffman
Designing a Price-Stable Cryptocurrency by Haseeb Qureshi
DeFi
DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, refers to a global, peer-to-peer network that is built to replace the traditional banking system. A few resources covering the subject:
What is DeFi? by Finematics
A Beginner’s Guide to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) by Sid Coelho-Prabhu
What is Tether? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is an Automated Market Maker? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is Uniswap? By Whiteboard Crypto
DeFi Series #1 - Decentralized Cryptoasset Lending & Borrowing by Binance Research (Calvin & Etienne)
What is Aave? By Whiteboard Crypto
Why insurance is needed for DeFi, and what it looks like by Shane Neagle
Crypto Derivatives, Lending, and a touch of Stablecoin by Gary Basin
What is Yield Farming? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is Impermanent Loss? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is a Liquidity Pool? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is a Flash Loan? By Whiteboard Crypto
What is OlympusDAO? By Whiteboard Crypto
Bank Run in DeFi by Finematics
NFTs
An NFT – or “non-fungible token”– is a certificate of ownership for a digital good that is recorded onto a blockchain. Here are my favorite articles and videos on NFTs:
What is an NFT? by Whiteboard Crypto
The Bull Case for NFTs by Jake Burkhman & Andrew Steinwold
Signaling as a Service by Julian
10 things to know about CryptoPunks, the original NFTs by Christie’s
How Four NFT Novices Created a Billion-Dollar Ecosystem of Cartoon Apes by Samantha Hissong
Sports: What is NBA Top Shot? Explaining the Blockchain NBA highlight collectables by Kyle Irving
Are We in the Metaverse Yet? By John Herrman and Kellen Browning
How Gamers are Making a Living: A Case Study on Axie Infinity by Benjamin Hor
Here's what NFTs are — and what they could do for the music industry, artists and fans by Mikel Jollett, lead singer, Airborne Toxic Event, and author, "Hollywood Park"
Road to Financialization of NFTs by Ishanee Nagpurkar
DAOs
DAOs are blockchain-based organizations that may replace the modern corporation. The following resources explain on a deeper level:
The Dao of DAOs by Packy McCormick
DAOs: Social networks that can rewire the world by Justin Mart & Connor Dempsey
DAO Landscape by Coopahtroopa
What Is BitDAO and BIT Token? By Bybit Learn
Philanthropy DAOs — The future of giving? By Yonca Braeckman
Service DAOs - Landscape, Challenges, and Solutions by Terry Chung
This Social Club Runs on Crypto Tokens and Vibes by Erin Woo and Kevin Roose
Organization Legos: The State of DAO Tooling by Nichanan Kesonpat
How to launch a DAO by Lucas Campbell
What Is It Like to Join a DAO? By Aragon
The Life of a Protocol Politician by Coopahtroopah
A Legal Framework for Decentralized Autonomous Organization by David Kerr (Principal, Cowrie LLC) and Miles Jennings (General Counsel, Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz)
Smart Contract Platforms
Smart contract platforms are decentralized "world computers" that run the Web3 ecosystem and are responsible for creating and enforcing the rules. The following resources dig deeper into what are often called "Layer 1s":
What are Smart Contracts in Crypto? by Whiteboard Crypto
Code is Law? Smart Contracts Explained by Finematics
Get Smart on Smart Contract Platforms by Grayscale
The Smart Contract Platform Sector Explained by Jodie Gunzberg
Layer-1 Platforms: A Framework for Comparison by The Block Research
Mental Models for L1 and L1 by Patrick McCorry
Blockchains don’t scale. Not today at least. But there’s hope by Preethi Kasireddy
Modular vs Monolithic Blockchains by Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman
The DCS Triangle by Trent McConaghy
Blockchain Layer 1s Vs Layer 2 – Key Differences by Georgia Weston
What is Sharding in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
What are Rollups in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
What are Sidechains in Crypto? By Whiteboard Crypto
Ethereum 2.0 Upgrades Explained - Sharding, Beacon Chain, Proof of Stake by Whiteboard Crypto
Solana: Solana Summer by Packy McCormick
Terra: To the Moon and Back by Packy McCormick
Layer 2 Scaling Solutions Explained by Whiteboard Crypto
A beginner’s guide on blockchain layer-2 scaling solutions by Cointelegraph
Optimism by Packy McCormick
Zero Knowledge by Pack McCormick
The Essential Guide to Arbitrum by Ben Give
Metaverse
The metaverse is an interconnected network of virtual worlds that will replace the web as the primary way in which we access information. A few resources covering the metaverse:
The Metaverse Primer by Matthew Ball
Metaverse: A guide to the Next-Gen internet by Credit Suisse
The Metaverse: Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies by Grayscale
The Value Chain of the Open Metaverse by Packy McCormick
Riffs by Raph: How Virtual Worlds Work - Part 1 by Raph Koster
Otherside: Everything to Know About the New BAYC NFT Project by Langston Thomas
What is The Sandbox by The Sandbox
The Virtual Economy by L-Atelier
Stay for Who You Can Be: Avatars in the Metaverse by Rex Woodbury
Web3 Infrastructure
Web3 refers to an internet that is owned by the users instead of companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Here are a few reads that explore the infrastructure powering Web3:
What is Web 3.0 by Whiteboard Crypto
The Architecture of a Web 3.0 application by Preethi Kasireddy
A simple guide to the web3 developer stack by Jonathan King, Connor Dempsey, & Hoolie Tejwani
Will Helium finally make IoT a reality? By Preethi Kasireddy
An Overview of the Crypto Wallet Landscape by Richard Chen
Your crypto wallet is the key to your Web3 identity by Michael Calce
Mapping the Web3 Identity Landscape by dommy.eth
What is Infura? By Tim Copeland
Pocket Networks Investment Thesis by Dermot O’Riordan and Lior Messika
An Introduction to Filecoin by Grayscale
Investing in the Permaweb by Kyle Samani
Our investment in The Graph by Kyle Samani
What is the Blockchain Oracle Problem? by Chainlink
Blockchain Oracles Explained by Vallery Mou
An Introduction to Chainlink by Grayscale
Rendering the Metaverse by Kyle Samani
Blockchain Bridges: Building Networks of Cryptonetworks by Dmitriy Berenzon
What are the Challenges Faced by Web3?
Like any disruptive technology, Web3 has its problems. The below articles discuss in more detail:
Yes, Ethereum has a Gas Problem by Mike Fay
What Skeptics Get Wrong About Crypto’s Volatility by Omid Malekan
Is Bitcoin Inherently Bad For The Environment? By Joshua Rhodes
The Interoperability Trilemma by Arjun Bhuptani
Blockchains Have a ‘Bridge’ Problem, and Hackers Know It by Lily Hay Newman
Miner Extractable Value: the good, the bad & the ugly by Panther Team
I think there is a User Experience problem in Web3 by Mentie Omotejowho
The Chainalysis 2022 Crypto Crime Report by Chainalysis
What are the Criticisms of Web3?
Web 3 is not without its critics. Read some of the more popular detractors (as well as a few rebuttals) below:
My first impressions of web3 by Moxie Marlinspike (Rebuttal: Vitalik Buterin via Reddit )
Web3 by Scott Galloway (Rebuttal: The Web3 Debate by Packy McCormick)
Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs by Folding Ideas (Rebuttals: Discussing the "Line Goes Up" NFT criticism video by Loopify and The line is not a line – the real problem with NFTs by The Defiant)
What are Pundits Predicting for Web3?
There is no shortage of Web3 coverage by analysts and VCs. Read some of the more popular reports below:
Big Ideas 2022 Report by ARK Invest
A Bankless Nation (Part I) by David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams
A Bankless Nation (Part II) by David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams
Introducing the 2022 State of Crypto Report by a16z Crypto (by Daren Matsuoka, Eddy Lazzarin, Chris Dixon and Robert Hackett)
Crypto Thesis for 2022 by Messari
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