Building in Web3: what do we need to know?

The journey of a web3 builder is not easy, but it's definitely far from boring either, and it comes with a lot to learn! This path of learning is crafted by both dedicated study and confronting challenges directly until finally "finding the light." 

Here, I'll share some tips on how we, as web3 builders, can move forward more efficiently.

Conceptually, What is Blockchain? 

It's crucial to grasp the conceptual understanding of blockchain. As a cutting-edge technology, blockchain involves a wide range of essential concepts we should comprehend before designing our product. These concepts include digital ownership, types of blockchains, consensus methods, permissionlessness, censorship resistance, among others.

One of the core features of blockchains is that they enable true and permissionless digital ownership, auditable and verifiable ; this allows something really important: the freedom to transact.

But there are many other important features that differentiates blockchain tech from previous technologies.

Useful tips to improve your knowledge:

• Explore Vitalik Buterin's work.

• Familiarize yourself with Andreas Antonopoulos' writings.

• Dive into "The Infinite Machine" from Camila Russo.

• Engage in meetups and events to connect with people.

• Stay updated by following reputable accounts on Crypto-X (formerly known as Crypto-Twitter 😅).
  
  

Know how to code in the web3 realm

Understanding how blockchain works from a technological standpoint and knowing how to code within it are mandatory. It is not necessary to be you, but someone in your team (or a vendor) must master this skill. No way to avoid this!

Nowadays, there are plenty of online resources available that we can leverage to learn how to code in Solidity (the most important language for blockchain development), but also for other languages.

Crypto Zombies and Ethernaut can be good starting points. Moreover, some excellent readings like "Ethereum for Web Developers" by Santiago Paladino or "Mastering Ethereum" by Andreas Antonopoulos can help us solidify the concepts.

Regarding tooling and frameworks, projects like Open Zeppelin offer audited and community-approved smart contracts, libraries and tools that are secure and ready to be used in our contracts. And we can also find many tools that can benefit and assist us in web3 development, such as Hardhat, Ethers.js, Alchemy, or Metamask.

By understanding the technological aspect of blockchain, we will be better equipped to create web3 products with a secure and reliable infrastructure.

Solving Actual Problems

We should solve actual problems.

What happens with bull markets is that web3 developers and companies are tempted to “add blockchain” to anything, just in case.

But we all know that that never lasts. The only scalable web3 use-cases are the ones that solve real problems for people or businesses.

One of the core features of blockchains is that they enable true and permissionless digital ownership, auditable and verifiable (there are others, but let’s stick to these ones).

So, if your end-user is in a better position if they can freely transact digital items or tokens, demonstrate ownership or prove that some action really occurred in time, without the need of a centralized third party, then you were correct: add blockchain!🚀

But if not, maybe it is better to build using the old and beloved SQL database or why not, just use Excel (?).

The good news from bear markets is that they teach us to think this way in order to overcome them.

What is this app supposed to do? 

We should be crystal clear to our clients (both businesses or end-users), on what our product actually does. Why is it useful, what can be done with it, which problem it solves.

And we need to explain it fast. End-users need to understand our message as soon as possible. If not, we may lose them for good.

I've been in crypto for more than 6 years and it still happens to me that when getting into a new web3 product I often don’t understand what its purpose is.

Think about a non-web3 user, why would they care to do the whole crypto onboarding (subject for a future blog post 📝) if the builder cannot easily explain to them really good reasons to do it.

If we want people to benefit from web3, we need to explain them WHY!

I hope you find these tips helpful! 

While writing this article, lots of other cool ideas and tips popped up. I'm excited about the upcoming blog post where I'll share more. 

Happy to hear your comments and feedback! 
You can leave me a DM on Twitter or LinkedIn 🙌

Thanks for reading!

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📩 If you seek further advice or require assistance during the development of your project, do not hesitate to reach out to WakeUp Labs. Feel free to contact us here. 🙌