Red Belt (Lifetime)

While it’s possible to get very solid understanding of Web3 and crypto in a year, truly “mastering” will the subject will take a lifetime. There’s simply too much going on in the space, and the technology is too disruptive, to require anything less.

If you do want to dedicate your life to the study of Web3, however, I’d recommend taking the following steps:

1. Broaden Your Horizons: One of the reasons that crypto is so hard to understand is that it’s interdisciplinary and requires understanding of politics, economics, computer science and cryptography. If you are weak in any of these areas, then it will be difficult to understand what’s truly going on (in fact, most skeptics I’ve met tend to be experts in one field but neophytes in the other). Dhruv Bansal explains this perfectly in Why It’s Hard to “Get” Bitcoin: The Blockchain Spectrum and recommends studying the following subjects:

Source: Unchained

2. Learn to Code in Solidity (or Rust, Move, etc…): I’ve spent most of my career on the “qualitative” side of business, learning strategy, marketing, sales, operations, finance, legal, etc… While that helped me understand crypto reasonably well, I didn’t really break through until I spent a year learning to code. Becoming a programmer (especially in Solidity) is extremely helpful as it gives you a very clear understanding of how the web truly works today and why crypto is so much better (and of course, learning to code also gives you a much deeper understanding of how decentralized applications function). If you’d like to learn more, I’d recommend the following resources:

• Learn Web3 DAO
• Cryptozombies

3. Invest!: One of the best ways to improve your understanding of Web3 is to “put your money where your mouth is”. While I’m not giving specific investment advice, I am saying that investing helps sharpen your knowledge – it forces you to think analytically about a protocol and what problem it’s solving, dive deep into the technical architecture and tokenomics and gain a through understanding of the founders and community. Some of the best lessons, in fact, come from the losses – as they’ll give you a sense of what works in Web3 and what doesn’t. If you want to become a better investor, I’d suggest that you do the following:

• Pay attention to sources such as Twitter and Reddit to get a feel for developing trends and projects

• Read whitepapers and do your own independent analysis (again, it’s very important to never take the word of any “expert” – no matter how knowledgeable they seem I can pretty much guarantee you that they are wrong as often as they are right)

• Go to conferences, network with other investors and join crypto investing groups

• If you can afford it, subscribe to paid research sources. Some of my favorite include Messari, The Block and Delphi Digital
• Follow a project on Twitter, join its Reddit and Discord groups, participate in its DAO (if applicable) and even meet the founders if possible

Last, and perhaps most important, if you want to master the space I’d recommend making it your career. Volunteer for a DAO, get a full-time gig at a Web3 project or, even better, found your own!