Beyond Crypto Winter: The Role of Crypto Education Towards A Successful Future
Abstract
Will the crypto network, crypto applications, cryptocurrencies, and Web3 at large dominate the Internet and the world economy in the near future? Will the decentralized Internet be the new wave of technological evolution? Wouldn’t be nice to be your own bank, your own social media network, and manage your own token or NFT for your intellectual property!? I bet it is. I argue that the future of the decentralized internet (vis-a-vis centralized) is characterized by converting the Internet towards an open platform dominated by open software. Therefore, understanding the underpinning technologies, and authoring or using Internet software to become autonomous in a decentralized world is crucial and required skills to navigate a successful future. Are we ready? To be prepared for the future comes with inheriting responsibility and indeed needs a lot of education. That’s what I will be discussing in this article. Will highlight the main related attributes of centralized and decentralized Internet so as to lay the foundations to become autonomous then shed the light on the role education can play for a safe landing into the future.
By Dr. Yahya Al-Salqan[1], CEO i-jaffa.net
Centralized vs Decentralized Internet
During the first phase of the Internet (in the 80s up to early 2000), the Internet was mainly an open platform of communication. From the year 2000 to the present, the Internet has become more of a centralized communication platform dominated mainly by big tech corporations like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and the like. The main feature of centralized Internet can be summarized as follows:
- It is convenient to use since individuals rely mainly on big tech to manage all their data and applications. All one needs to do is just subscribe to a service and use it;
- It offers a lot of free applications such as Google email or Maps, and a Facebook account. Of course, this comes with the price of losing individual’s privacy and data. As the say goes: “when a service or a product is free, you are the product”;
- It is the “read/write” Internet whereby individuals voluntarily create data for the benefit of big tech companies; and
- Programmers and experts are centralized inside these companies, in most cases. Facebook, for example, can change or update its algorithms as sees fit to serve its needs and/or profit. Consequently, Facebook programmers accumulate dominant experience. Needless to say, this does not discount the positive effect of startups and entrepreneurs in changing and expanding the tech ecosystem. They do, however, continue to be part of the centralized era. It is true that Uber or Airbnb revolutionized the transportation and accommodation industries, both companies, however, have built their infrastructure as centralized ones.
On the contrary, the promised decentralized Internet that started in 2009 with the birth of blockchain network and technology and bitcoin, has the following fundamental promises and features:
- The whole decentralized Internet, infrastructure, and applications are built on zero-trust principles. One need not trust any other applications or corporations, but rather trust the science of cryptography and math;
- It is built on open-source everything. Blockchain network and technology is open source, smart contracts are open source, and applications are also open source;
- Decentralization is the main thrust of this evolution. The level of decentralization is measured based on whether the infrastructure is decentralized or not, i.e. based on open blockchain technology; upon the level of decentralization in the consensus algorithm governing the technology, such as proof-of-work which is very decentralized vis-à-vis others including proof-of-stake and others;
- Identity management is becoming digital. Although digital ID is promising to solve the password memorization problem and liberates individuals from the big techs that host the credentials, it raises different kinds of challenges. A digital ID in a decentralized Internet mainly needs to be stored in a cold wallet and not at any centralized entity. If one loses the seed phrase, he/she may lose all the wealth with no way to recover. Hence the complexity;
- Decentralized Internet is converting the Internet to be more of a software-based communication and computing infrastructure with less reliance on hardware. Therefore, whoever is able to write more effective applications and software will for sure be the bidding horse of this era; and
- The industry thus far is predominantly software engineering centric since engineers are the ones who can grasp the complexity of the underlining technologies faster than others due to their specializations and engagement.
Being Autonomous in Decentralized Internet/Economy
As decentralized, the read/write/own, Internet promises individuals to become their own bank, own creators and managers of their intellectual property rights whether through NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) or otherwise. Individuals shall be owning their health records instead of the healthcare providers know more about their health than they do, owning in some cases their own tokens, owning their social media data and interactions. It is about democratizing almost many aspects of life including finance (DeFi), decentralization of organizations (DAO), Voting, and the world economy at large. If all of these promises become mainstream, understanding these technologies, protocols, and even different consensus algorithms become the vocabulary of the new era of decentralization. I find it hard to think that with this shift in the world economic order can be achieved without us the citizens of this world (not only engineers) having full understanding and knowledge of the choices one needs to make to become an active participant in Web3 phase.
The Role of Education
In this ever-changing technology, keeping the pace of all the technological advances and the economic turmoil that the world is facing, education can play a major role in a safe landing to a better future. Imagine one needs to learn alone the difference between proof-of-work vs proof-of-stake and other consensus algorithms, the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum, the advantage and principles of Blockchain, NFT technology stack, the different cryptocurrency projects, Defi, DAO, ways to protect and manage the private key, and so on. That, by all means, is attainable but requires time, patience, and much more. Therefore, the role of education becomes significant.
Decentralized Internet is inevitable as it is good for individuals, society, and humanity at large. For sure it will not solve all the world’s problems but at least some of them. Blockchain technology, as the promises of bitcoin and the likes, shall democratize wealth and prosperity and shall move the concentration of world wealth from the top 5% to more democratic and wider participants. Knowing such technology shall do magic to individuals becoming active players in shaping their own destiny and prosperity.
These days, few universities worldwide offer degrees in such a revolutionary cross-sectorial discipline. Decentralized Internet and applications are not the responsibility of software engineers and entrepreneurs alone. It is an era of more democratic societies and relies on all of us to know, learn, and participate. Perhaps a more pragmatic approach is needed beyond classical classroom education by focusing on the practical considerations with entrepreneurial spins. Engineers, economists, and visionaries have a role to make decentralized Internet a mainstream tool and easy-to-use technology. Exactly like using email these days is so easy and one need not know the underlying TCP/IP protocol and OSI layers transporting these fast emails. Blockchain technology needs to be understood by teenagers at school levels as well as entrepreneurs building future innovation in all walks of life.
I find the work at Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC)[2] is remarkable and worth highlighting as a model. The FSBC has started several educational programs[3]: DeFi Talents, NFT Talents, Bitcoin Talents, and DLT Talents to educate professionals in these technologies. In each cohort of these programs at least 100 individuals from all over the world been accepted in an 18 week long program. I had the honor to participate in one of these programs, namely, the NFT Talents, and I can attest that the level of education, the depth of the discussions, the challenges, and more importantly the network and connections with peers and crypto entrepreneurs and enthusiasts were all with high caliber and full of pragmatic approach one needs and what other educational organizations can replicate.
Closing Thoughts
Yes, many crypto projects and companies are failing these days. The common denominator among these failing projects such as an FTX is the lack of decentralization in one hand and putting trust in the centralized-governed organization on the other hand which by itself violates the main thrust of the crypto and blockchain era. The role of education at this stage of the revolution is critical to make better banks for ourselves, to better manage our crypto-based health records, to know how to capitalize on our intellectual property rights, and to better control our data and social media interactions. As many crypto influencers usually say, “this is not a financial advice, do your own research”, I conclude by saying, good research starts with a good education. Are you ready?
About the Author
Dr. Yahya Al-Salqan, an entrepreneur and educator. He is the co-founder and CEO of i-jaffa.net software[4], and before that worked and led many projects as a senior security engineer at Sun Microsystems. He has 10 patents in the field of cryptography and public key infrastructure (PKI). Currently working on blockchain and NFT related projects in healthcare and digital identity.
He spent a good part of his engineering career as a university professor and researcher and was granted an “Outstanding Professor and Researcher” by the American Government. Chaired many international conferences and workshops and published more than 50 refereed articles
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/alsalqan
[2] https://www.frankfurt-school.de/home/research/centres/blockchain