“Why Initia?” A Beginner’s Guide, 2/n
(Part 1, “why the why”: click here)
Good-to-know’s
Assumption: readers have heard of BTC, ETH, and maybe few others. Also know what databases are. And some of the major events that made the headlines on, say, Bloomberg or TV news. And lastly, would appreciate this type of a re-cap or bring-up on what blockchain is.
The Web3/crypto/blockchain lingo and some of the concepts could be dizzying to first timers. Also: blockchains are protocols. Blockchains are also networks. Blockchains are platforms as well. And on top of this, so many -isms — “interoperability”, “permissionless-ness”, “composability”, “sovereignty”, “immutability”, … the list could go on.
While today’s article does not aim to be the go-to bible for blockchain, it hopefully gives you a sense of comfort, by giving you the right low-downs and a compass to follow. Will try to rely on analogies, and examples, as appropriate.
A novel way of storing data, together
The most simple way to start explaining blockchain to a new person is, that a blockchain network is a distributed, decentralized database.
“Distributed” means that there is no sole copy of the database stored in a specific storage area (desktop or server), nor live in a company-run cloud server (cloud storage such as Amazon cloud). Instead everybody who wants to participate in the distributed hosting of the blockchain network gets to. They have to provide computing power (“node” or “nodes”), and can start acting as one of the stakeholders.
“Decentralized” means that not one single party, organization, entity, or corporation, is in charge of paying for the electric bills to run the database, or gets to call the shots in terms of gatekeeping, kicking out users, modifying the contents, or shutting down the whole database altogether.
And this type of database is called block+chain because the new entries are grouped in blocks, and stored in blocks; newest block gets added to the last block, like linked lists one might learn in computer algorithm class; hence, “block” & “chain”.
“Permissionless”, and open participation
Blockchains are open to… anyone. Unless it was designed to be a proprietary, closed, private blockchain. (Enterprise use cases were being floated around a while back, but not sure if it is popular or useful anymore. Let’s just stick with the prevailing open, public blockchains.)
Permissionless means that all the past data can be accessible by anyone. Whoever wants to take a look at a specific point in time, they can browse freely. Whoever also wants to verify all the low level work that went into the linking of blocks, they can. Whoever wants to download a copy of the entire blockchain, if they have the computing resources to do so, are allowed. Anyone can write into it, anyone can be a stakeholder to weigh in on the addition of new blocks. It’s a novel concept.
What doe it really mean to be an actual stakeholder though?
- Blockchains continue to grow with newer blocks, filled with transactions.
- In order for a new block to be a part of the chained blocks, a new block needs to be added by a stakeholder.
- Stakeholders’ role is to not only grow the blockchain by adding new blocks, but also to watch other stakeholders so that no one is making foul play. One could propose a new block filled with transactions, and others can shoot it down. Or, in certain cases (like bitcoin), stakeholders raced each and every time for a new block addition, by using computing power of the CPUs or GPUs they own, and try to beat the competition by solving a complicated, cryptographic, math. That’s how a block is chosen as the newest block.
- The prior is called Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism. The latter is called Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism. In the prior, stakeholders are called validators. Validators have a unique role of validating new blocks, and if they don’t do their jobs properly, they get penalized just the same as the ill-intentioned stakeholder that ended up proposing a shady new block.
- Most blockchains rely on a form of PoS these days. There are plentiful write-ups on PoS for regular people, such as this Forbes article.
“Unstoppable”, “Immutable”, “Censorship-resistant”
This aspect of the chain-level blockchain mechanism is quite fascinating. Basically, blockchains are meant to be ever-growing, and once it launches, and all the mechanisms as well as the actors are on stage, the show will go on. This is because everybody who participates in it is expected to be treated fairly and there is also a compensation structure built in so that stakeholders and users are continuously motivated to engage with blockchains of their choice.
They are also designed so that, if anyone wants to apply effort or resources towards tampering with any part of the chain, it makes no reasonable sense so that they are discouraged and thus give up.
There is an interesting notion of “hyperstructure” that is on people’s mind in this world. Freely consider reading this write-up to get a sense of it. It’s like a well-built, perpetual engine of sort.
Of course, expectation/idealogy is never the same with reality. Imperfect scenarios happen. Certain chains are known to come to a halt (multiple times). Certain others get compromised so that assets are moved around against users’ will (multiple times). This will most definitely cause users leave, causing castle walls to start falling apart. It is really hard to design a perfect blockchain, and even though everybody would want to get there, few only make it as standout examples. Let’s quickly go over some of them next.
Not all blockchains are equals
Here are some of the important blockchain projects that are worth mentioning, because of the scale/popularity they achieved, or it means a great deal to a large group of people.
Bitcoin (circa 2008), again, was the first blockchain ever, based on the original paper.
- Being the OG blockchain, it is longest-running, and also is most widely recognized as digital asset. I’ve heard many a times people referring to it as “digital gold”.
- It requires mining (as a Proof of Work chain); fractional bitcoins are called satoshis; founder Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared at a certain point and his identity remains the biggest mystery; certain developing countries decided to adopt it as an official currency.
- Market Cap of bitcoin is the largest by a big margin at <$1T, as you can see on CoinGecko.
- A new way of storing some additional data onto the bitcoin network has now made bitcoin NFTs possible. It’s called Ordinals. (I won’t get into it because it is out of scope.)
Ethereum (circa 2013) was the next big thing after bitcoin, because the founder (one of the most iconic figures in the industry named Vitalik Burin) tried to come up with a better version of bitcoin and succeeded.
- The Ethereum ecosystem is currently the largest in terms of market size (we call it Total Value Locked) and also daily activities (24h trailing trade volume), at around >$50B and $2B respectively, as of writing. Check out the landscape at DefiLlama and compare it to other ecosystems.
- Since Ethereum was also an early chain, it also boasts rich history. It was the first general purpose blockchain that aimed to add customizability or expandability by allowing developers to create programmable code (called smart contracts) that eventually allowed the concept of dApps possible. “The World Computer” was the initial vision of Ethereum, and explore this material to read about it more.
- Running on Ethereum became too hot — this created the problem of high gas fees, and congestion, because all types of transactions were being posted to the main network. Traders in an attempt to generate gains, app developers that tried to save data on their backend, and those who just wanted to play with it. (Remember that pretty much all blockchains are “permissionless” — meaning you don’t have to have special power or permission to be able to view or add data to blockchains. This is a crucial piece that makes blockchains “decentralized”.
- Certain blockchains are now trying to improve upon the inherent limitations the original Ethereum design posed for future scale and growth. (Just to roughly give you an idea,) some try to replace it, or others try to create an auxiliary version of a blockchain that works alongside Ethereum. Imagine smaller databases for the large main database that only holds summary or crucial information only from all the smaller databases; this idea of a “second layer” ended up creating more opportunities for other projects to pop up.
One thing to note is that both Bitcoin and Ethereum were meant to be a self-contained thing of their own. Because of this, trying to add stuff later on to make it more versatile and to make it serve other purposes post-facto has been hard. This is somewhat the case for other “monolithic” chains such as Solana, circa 2020, but since it came later on, it took some cues so it was meant to support smart contracts and thus apps from the get-go. Late mover advantage.
Contrary to these “monolithic” blockchains, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there has been a whole different category of blockchains based on a different first principle, of “interoperability”. Imagine a computer with no USB port, versus computer and devices with tons of USB port for compatibility and interconnectivity. It benefits users so much more to have options. A whole ecosystem based on the design approaches that happened around and between 2016 and 2018 timeframe ended creating the Cosmos ecosystem with totally different framework for developers to consider using. As long as you fit the spec, and make it compatible with other blockchains, it was easier for anyone to create a new blockchain and have it talk to other Cosmos blockchains.
(Side note: each and every blockchain that has been around for more than 3 years, I say, has too much deep individual history behind them, so I suggest you maybe do some Googling to find out more.)
If you remember from the news, Facebook tried launching its own ambitious blockchain project a few years back, aiming to create a “stablecoin” called Libra so all of its users could benefit from the in-app payment from their Messenger app. Well, it ended up going nowhere due to massive backlash. But like Nokia’s relics ended up seeding the fertile grounds for Finland for Angry Birds to come along, the team that worked on the project ended up spinning out into two Web3 startups. One of them have launched Aptos, and the other Sui. It was an interesting example of a big Web2 company trying Web3, and failing, but ended up benefiting the industry nonetheless. (There is a reason why I am mentioning these projects — you will see later in my future writings.)
Web3 apps, or “dApps/Dapps/DApps”
(the “d” prefix stands for “decentralized”.)
Blockchain is essentially a database to some, right? Any app that chooses to use a type and form of blockchain in their server architecture to store data could be considered a Web3 app.
- Say, if a new PC game chooses to have a blockchain database to store some of their generated data. Let’s say it is an RPG game, and, naturally, as users sign up and progress towards higher level and ends up advancing into dungeons, game data is generated. So this game might have various databases on the back end to store each and every type of data.
- Certain data should probably kept in conventional types of databases (for technical reasons) but for specific cases, it might make sense to store data on a blockchain; the benefit of having a blockchain as database is, well, it’s permissionless and decentralized, right? This means that not just the game company can access it but it could be accessed by… the gamers. Or, some other 3rd party. Say another game company that develops… a first person shooter.
- So if, say, the game items that are hard earned by the gamers get stored in a blockchain, there could be… a new potential benefit that conventional databases couldn’t provide at all! Imagine — you the skilled gamer unlock the rarest gold plated head armor with rainbow colored dragon etched on it from a samurai-themed RPG game. When you end up logging out to play another game that also has access to this blockchain database, as soon as you sign up, your achievement is recognized, and for a limited time you can pay just 1 cent to purchase a bulletproof helmet that has the same design!
This is one of the ways in which blockchain can benefit an existing category of product or service. There could be novel, previously impossible, new scenarios that have been devised from ground up, to allow new way of engaging with technology or with others.
A financial market that does not close after hours, but rather stays open 24/7, across the world. (That’s the crypto exchange market for you.) Or different types of synthesized derivatives that didn’t exist before. Or a digital art marketplace that sells uniquely identifies the creator, or the current owner, of each and every art. (That’s the NFT scene right now for you.) Oh and also, every time these digital art gets traded between owners, the original creators can get a small cut from it, for perpetual revenue stream from their original work. These are the things that blockchains made it all possible, regardless of the current status or success. And so this is why to some, Web3 is different, and could potentially benefit all of us in a whole new way that Web2 was unable to provide, due to its friction points.
Just to be clear — Web3 apps can either be a traditional app that works with blockchain or blockchains; or, it could be a natively Web3 app in which the entirety of the code is based on smart contract language (i.e. Solidity for Ethereum, Go or Move for others). Let’s just leave it at that.
Use case examples
There is a joke in the crypto world that goes “so far the killer use cases that have been produced are — stablecoins, and, NFTs.” Even though there is some truth to this, there’s much more to blockchain so far than just speculative gains that made some people happy.
Use case 1: blockchain-based digital ID program called COOV for South Korea.
This was a widely adopted standard for QR verification during the peak days. Back then Koreans were surprised to see “blockchain based” in a government sanctioned app that everyone was supposed to use to prove their vaccination record. It also worked surprisingly well, until the country no longer required digital proof for entering restaurants and such. I was based in Seoul when it all happened, so pulling this out in public became the new norm for few years. Weird times.
Use case 2: P2E (Play to Earn) games that provide livelihood for certain demographics.
You may have heard of games such as Axie Infinity. Basically these games let you earn token that could be converted into cash, and so many from developing countries leaned into the games to generate primary income. These games tend to be on a lighter/casual side of the spectrum, and we have yet to see conventional or hardcore games adopt blockchain as much. However, despite their wimpy game design, the economic phenomenon that they caused is notable; previously these gamers might have relied on other means to generate income using mobile phones, such as Android lock screen app reward farming that was and still is quite popular in certain parts of Asia.
Use case 3: DeFi (Decentralized Finance) services that have upended the traditional finance market, at least in the eyes of certain demographics.
I won’t be pointing out a particular DeFi protocol but the most important thing to know about DeFi is that, it is the gravitational force for most blockchains that generate interest, activity, and volume.
Younger generation are already quite familiar only in terms of how to interact with these types of financial products in order to take out loans, figure out personal financial strategies, and try to earn passive/active income. To them, waiting in line for a counter to open up at physical bank locations would be such a foreign concept, but it has happened already years back ever since the DeFi industry bloomed.
It is quite easy to err on the side of calling out those passionate towards this new way of things “greed/money driven”. However it is something to think about, especially in terms of …
Wallets, Addresses
Wallets are basically apps that lets users interface with different blockchains as the go-to dashboard, or, something of an equivalent of “my page” for most websites. Most of the wallets are launched as Chrome browser extension first. Some of the wallets may have a mobile app version that is sometimes more limited, but also adds user benefits such as passkeys (Face ID on iPhones). And sometimes there are hardware wallets for certain hardcore people who are about not being hacked.
One thing to note is that even though these (software) wallets are technically apps, different assumptions should be in one’s mind when using them, compared to conventional Web2 apps. Say you own an iPhone, and have downloaded an app, and start using it by logging in with Apple ID and set up Face ID. Now immediately there are some measures in place that protects your data that you uniquely generated, sitting within the app (but to be more precise, on the storage chip that the app has been taking up space on, for user data). As long as you don’t lose your phone, you generally feel safe with the data sitting in there.
In contrast, for crypto wallets up till now, it hasn’t been the same. Users have to keep the access code (called seed phrases, which are 12 or more random ordinary words, in specific order, that is meant to be a collective password as a whole) very very tightly safeguarded. This is because once you lose the seed phrase, your assets are forever gone. Or, if someone else ends up acquiring your seed phrase, it’s super simple for them to access your assets from their computers. This is because of the more open nature of blockchains. And also the decentralized nature of it comes into play here too. Since no company is behind or responsible for protecting data on blockchain, you cannot call up a customer service representative as if you have been locked out of a Web2 service and need to log back in. The burden of diligence is upon each and every user.
Also, it is not like a book kept by retail banks that contains the list of all customers and all their assets, tucked away somewhere secure. Imagine if this type of book is publicly available on the Internet. The names of customers are obfuscated, thankfully, but the ledger shows everything in terms of past transaction records or memo written down at every given point in time. In this example, the obfuscated user name is “wallet address”, which looks like encrypted text in hexadecimals. This is called a wallet address. If you get to go on a blockchain browser (which are usually called something-scan, or explorer), you can see every wallet address that was involved in every blockchain transaction in the past.
Slightly more in-depth stuff
Once you are okay with the concepts described above, let me try explaining few more things.
Smart contracts
Smart contracts are small code (as in smaller than the blockchain network code base itself) that was created by anyone and can be written by anyone, in blockchain world. You’ll see the vending machine analogy come up a lot if you Google it, because it is very similar to how it operates. A simple way to predefine how a certain transaction should happen, if input variables come in, and preset conditions are met. Those code live on the blockchain for anyone to access, just like how smartphone apps, once installed onto your phone, can run anytime you click to open it.
These should be written in the same base language that the underlying blockchain that stores it is written in (i.e. Solidity for Ethereum, WebAssembly for Cosmos), in most cases. However, depending on the language, certain SCs could have more innate vulnerability than others, because of the level of sophistication of the language itself. Solidity is exactly the case which opens up for hacks and attacks.
Read this for more on smart contracts.
Signing (with your wallet) and paying (for gas)
Once you start playing around with cryptocurrency stuff (as putting some small amount of money in is the best way to learn), you will likely open an account for one of the major exchanges (Coinbase, Binance, Upbit, etc.), which feels safer and straightforward than other options, and it will feel almost the same as signing up for a conventional Web2 service. Because they most definitely are, the way they are designed and ran on cloud servers. They’re no different from those stock trading apps of your choice. These days you also have the option to purchase crypto from financial apps such as PayPal.
If you end up depositing real money (“fiat”) into an exchange app and purchase a token, your cash balance is replaced with said token balance. This step is also relatively straightforward. While doing so you may be asked to verify your real life identity, as well as confirming your intention to transact, and doing so you probably rely on an existing authentication method (authenticator app, SMS, email etc.) to receive a 6-digit code. This code is issued by a trusted issuer, and you are already a trusted user of such authentication service, so the code works. Again, nothing unusual.
In the world of blockchain, however, the equivalent for that authentication step is called “signing with your wallet”. This means your software wallet of choice usually gives you a pop-up modal to ask you, “do you approve?” and this action also creates a lasting footprint, on the chain. What is interesting here is, instead of being able to freely use Google Authenticator or SMS verification (mostly because the providers bears the cost, if you think about it), in Web3 the user who will be accessing or interacting with something on a particular blockchain needs to pay the toll to use the blockchain, so to speak. Why? Because there is no equivalent concept of “a service provided by the blockchain itself”, but rather, within the boundaries of protocol in which such blockchain is designed for and is meant to work with user intent or data that is to be stored, everything is, well, decentralized. So there is no one that will foot the cost of you trying to store something, or wire the tokens to another person (wallet, to be exact). And this signing almost always costs a small fee, in tokens. Every action has a price to it.
This inevitably creates an interesting heuristic behavior for virtually all users — that every time you try to do something, you immediately calculate the cost of your action, and reserve plenty more as wiggle room just in case you need to spend more on gas fee in the future. An analogy: always leaving some balance for the checking account because the bank will always draw the fee regularly. Or, when traveling overseas, you never know when you will need the small changes for petty use or tip or vending machines, so you have a special wallet with a coin pouch just for traveling purposes.
Halving
Halving is not relevant to most chains that are out there today but maybe except for bitcoin only. This is the short explanation.
Bitcoin’s supply is like a company stock that gets newly issued every time a block is added to the chain. So the number of shares continue to grow over time. The new bitcoins are produced when a node successfully computes the math first and gets to append the new block. This mining reward, every four years give and take, gets halved because the total number of bitcoins that could be produced is limited.
This obviously won’t come into play for non-PoW chains.
Staking
What staking means is this.
If you own certain tokens, let’s say INIT that Initia is based on, then after you acquire some and put it into your wallet, you have a choice of leaving it there, not doing much. Or, you also can put it to work, so it contributes to the ecosystem, as well as generates yield to you as a holder. This is a relationship that most users end up having with blockchain projects of their choice. Because the most common utility for coins and tokens are generating income, financially motivated users make up a big part of the Web3 society.
I mentioned that stakeholders called validators do the work in terms of validating new blocks together. This process is dependent on which exact type of PoS scheme, but across the board there is one thing pretty similar. Validators present a locked up amount of tokens as collateral, to earn their rights and make their votes count. They also tend to accept user’s tokens to create a bigger pot, and in return, when new tokens get rewarded for their hard work, they split it with whomever entrusted tokens to them. But this can go sideways if a validator ends up getting penalized, because the collateral, well, takes a hit as well.
Anyways, there is this symbiotic relationship between ordinary users that hold tokens, and the validators who are in the business of making the gears go round and round. Please study up via other materials on the staking stuff if interested. This one is a good place to start.
Also note that there is a slightly different way that each major parties Ethereum tribes and Cosmos tribes use — voting power vs. delegation power, and so on.
Coins vs. Tokens
Some cryptocurrencies are called coins, and others tokens. Why? The way I understood it, is that coins are coins when it is a “native” asset that a chain needs as base currency (i.e. BTC/bitcoin for the bitcoin network, ETH/Ether for Ethereum network). You also pay gas fee with these coins.
However, “stablecoins” that are meant to be a digital fiat equivalent (such as USDT or USDC) are “stable” because they are pegged to fiat currency, but, confusingly, don’t have their own eponymous chain equivalents. And some (such as Ripple) don’t even follow the same convention in terms of being on a similar blockchain system. So all you need to remember is that it is just a digital currency that is commonly used for payment and especially remittance, because of its relative stability compared to any other coins or tokens. (They do tend to fluctuate in value, in reality, but not by much, on a given day.)
Tokens are slightly different sets of assets that are based on a blockchain network. A token such as NFT or XXXX-based tokens (i.e. Arbitrum’s ARB token based on Ethereum) are created and used with an explicit purpose and utility, and therefore is not essential for the underlying base chain’s functioning. If you see something and it reads “ERC-20 standard token”, it means that the token was designed and implemented according to the Ethereum’s standard called ERC 20 so that it could live on top of the chain, and, is going to be accessible for Ethereum compatible wallets such as MetaMask.
This one is another article worth your time, if you want additional info.
Minting
“Why do blockchains need tokens?” It is natural to wonder why a concept of token that ends up getting treated as currency or asset needs to be present in a given blockchain. Think of it this way. Originally the bitcoin paper was meant to facilitate and track P2P payments. And as long as you buy into this new concept and start owning bitcoin and also use it to send it to others, there has to be a self-perpetuating and perpetual way for this system to keep going. This is why the concept of token was need to ensure that 1) users pay for adding transactions to the network, 2) the miners get compensated for burning the fuel to run their GPUs to work as a participant, and so on. Same goes for non-PoW chains these days. users pay usage fee (“gas fee”) to allow new transactions to be packed into blocks, and validators get paid by running the nodes, and both validators generate fee and yield by using the tokens. This is the most basic way in which a given token is used for a given blockchain.
In blockchain, the word “minting” is often used. It means a token is generated. Since NFTs are tokens, you would here the words “minting an NFT” most often. NFT is a type of token (as in there are different ways in which each blockchain recognizes tokens, or whether each tokens are unique or non-unique. (Because NFTs are unique, it’s different from, say, putting two bitcoins together, because adding one NFT with another NFT does not make it two NFTs of the same kind. (However, there is more to NFTs nowadays, but… I won’t get into that now.)
Security
Just wanted to touch on the notion of security in the Web3 sense. When someone says “security” in this realm, there is a good chance that they are not just referring to the same sense of security that you might intuitively think of.
Yes, for example, you could lose access to your wallet that is the gateway to blockchains (and they usually hold crypto balance for you so this means loss of asset). Or, a server that hosts certain other functionalities (i.e. the website, or the underlying AWS goes out) and that could impede what you were about to do. But usually these days when one says blockchain security, there is a good chance they are talking about making sure a blockchain stays pure, only the good blocks are generated, and added, without some actor intentionally swaying towards it otherwise. This could be true for both PoW type chains (see 51% attack) or PoS types (if, say, not enough total value is locked within the ecosystem, and one validator takes on too much to start becoming the heavy voter; think about rigged vote in a dictator country that is only superficially democratic).
Interoperability
This is a cool concept that is prevalent and pervasive in the blockchain world. It roughly means that different blockchains can communicate with each other to exchange data or assets. A same type of asset can live on different blockchains (i.e. USDC stablecoin) and can be transferred across them. And early on the Cosmos ecosystem was specifically set out to achieve interoperability by setting a standard called IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication Protocol) to facilitate interoperability between Cosmos chains.
To dig a little deeper: each blockchain is primarily designed to operate within its predefined boundaries and conditions, for stakeholders who subscribe to the vision and the concept of it. But since blockchains are permissionless, trust-minimized (as in no need to build up trust in intermediaries, third parties, because the mathematics behind cryptographic works and the consensus mechanism that the stakeholders are to follow in order to keep the chain going makes blockchain behavior predictable and thus safe) systems that anyone can choose to engage with, interoperability became something everybody expects to be there.
If you own some stuff on Ethereum, and if someone else owns some other stuff based on Cosmos ecosystem, then maybe one day you might want to try moving over by exchanging what you two have, just like currency exchange in real life. Or be able to send it to someone because you feel like they deserve it, or maybe it is because of a certain agreement. So token swapping or token payments can now be a needed end result. And because each blockchain wasn’t geared to handle these scenarios from the get-go, solutions such as bridging or messaging protocols were developed afterwards to achieve interoperability.
- Swaps can happen if there is a pool of tokens locked up just for this purpose.
- Bridging is a solution where a token from the source chain stays but is locked up, and on the destination chain the resulting token pops out that is a representation of “source token sent”.
- Messaging protocols allow a more transient, native transfers for certain cases; for example, stablecoins such as USDC can be moved around between chains as long as the sanctioned method called CCTP transfer based on the CCTP protocol is used.
You don’t really see this type of an example in the conventional tech space — think about how an in-game gold from one RPG game made by a game developer is not the same thing as another in-game currency for a different title by the same game developer, even though you are the same gamer. Wouldn’t it be great if one day it’s all compatible and interoperable?
Wrapping up
Thank you for putting up with such a long write-up. The broadness of the topic warranted it, but still could be a lot.
There is so much that I haven’t covered yet, or couldn’t, and I don’t know if writing more on those would be a good use of my time. But if this much explanation piqued your interest in the right way, then perhaps we’re both on the right track.
Some more easy reads:
- HBR on ‘Web3’
https://hbr.org/2022/05/what-is-web3 - ‘What is blockchain’
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp
https://www.ibm.com/topics/blockchain - Why is it called ‘crypto’ currency?
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypto-basics/what-is-cryptocurrency
Next up — I will try to cover other conceptual chains. Since we talked about monolithic chains above, we should also cover the other types, and also in other ways in which different chains can benefit others.
(Part 3, “layers, layers, layers”, click here)
Please send in any feedback on the article to me@inbae.io. Thank you! 🙏🏻
Disclaimer
- This article series is not intended as a learning material so you could trade better; and for sure an investment advice of any sort
- Also not targeted for specific audience from any specific country or demographic
- Please keep an eye out for our latest updates on our website, and cool announcements on our official account on X/Twitter, as well as our official Medium blog.
