Importance of Education as a means for Onboarding:
Web3 is the Mount Everest of technology, one of the most beautiful yet challenging platforms constructed in the last two decades. The hike to the top, or even base camp for that matter, requires a comprehensive understanding of each unique blockchain, how smart contracts work under the hood, and how to manage your activity and security in the ecosystem. However, if a user can prepare and learn how life on-chain works, it can be one of the most empowering and exciting experiences an individual can have online. From Builders to Users, each person exposed to crypto must dive headfirst into this new web, and thanks to some exciting communities, this adventure has become much more accessible in the last year. To onboard the next wave of users into the ecosystem, education will play a critical role in the user experience by providing a simple approach to reducing the learning curve for non-crypto natives. Before we explore where and how to build up your web3 knowhow, we’re going to break down the 3 most prominent lessons to familiarize yourself with and why they’re essential:
On-Chain Account
Just like in the previous iteration of the internet, new users must create an account that allows them to store their credentials and payment methods to interact with the application. As Web2 has the Login or Sign Up button, Web3 has “Connect Wallet.” A user’s wallet is their passport to the blockchain, allowing them to verify transactions, host self-custody of their funds, and manage where their profile is connected. It’s not just important; it is essential that new users are highly proficient in maintaining their wallet security, what happens when they connect to an app using their wallet, and how it communicates with the network it is tied to. Without this understanding, users may purchase incorrect tokens, confirm transactions without knowing who controls them, or send funds to the wrong network address and lose the assets forever. Undeniably powerful for sovereignty over your assets and information, but going in blind can be incredibly detrimental if done incorrectly. Don’t go hiking without the proper gear or preparation.
Smart Contract Interaction
Decentralized applications are powered by Smart Contracts, which act as an agreement, and transactions are signed via code running on their respective blockchains. Each contract is built with its unique set of parameters and functions that allow the application to operate, including but not limited to, financial apps, social platforms, and games. The exciting part about smart contract-based applications is that “their code is transparent and publicly verifiable, which means that any interested party can see exactly what logic a smart contract follows when it receives digital assets” (Coinbase Learn). However, it is vital to understand the mechanism that powers these apps due to the code’s irreversible nature. If a user is to execute a transaction, whether associated with a value or permission to access the wallet if there is any malicious intent behind the contract, a user’s funds and information could be at risk.
Unique Blockchain Ecosystems
Like the internet in the 90s, various blockchains have appeared and are fighting for dominance in web3. For new users, identifying which chain is the most powerful may be less important than the benefits of the apps built on top of them, but it is still necessary to know the slight differences between networks. Some may have lower latency and allow for faster transaction processing or lower transaction fees, while others may have a higher emphasis on security and have more reliable apps built on top of them. At this point in the web3 lifecycle, there is no clear winner, and each chain has its community of supporters and believers, and the value of the application built will prove to have the greatest longevity in the space.
Bounties
Bounties offer an exciting and lucrative way for new users to learn how to interact with individual applications through tutorials and guides that monetarily reward the user upon completion. Similar to how Web2 companies would issue users credits or discounts for referring their friends to test the app, dapps offer these prizes in hopes of displaying the favorable benefits and user experience. Over the last few years, bounties have evolved several times, initially being used as a marketing tactic for ICOs, then as a means of engagement for new users, and now have become a widely adopted measure to reward project contributors and users for testing new features.
Platforms like Layer3 provide an expansive marketplace of bounties created and listed by the dapps that walk the user through the project’s unique value proposition and then incentivize the user with a crypto reward once they’ve worked through the steps to using the app. Within Layer3, projects can contact the team and build a particular bounty explorer that walks new users through each step of the onboarding process, from acquiring niche tokens to staking into liquidity pools or making their first swap on a DEX.
Quizzes
Another fantastic way to engage and educate users is through human-readable quizzes working through the puzzles of on-chain interaction. Coinbase takes a proactive approach with this strategy by prompting all new users to work through a handful of quizzes exploring unique ecosystems or aspects of crypto investing in getting the user familiar with the technology they’re investing in. Like bounties, most quizzes come with some reward or achievement once completed; in the case of Coinbase, users are rewarded a small amount of the token from the ecosystem associated with the quiz.
One of the most prominent education platforms in web3, 101, offers an appealing way for new users to interact with educational content through company-created quizzes. 101’s platform enables companies to create customized courses that issue a sole-bound NFT or crypto for completion. These proof of completion badges are verifiable on-chain and can act as access passes to specific content, features, or platforms. The applications of sole-bound rewarded education yield an exciting opportunity for users to learn the basics of particular applications and unlock new features as their knowledge expands, improving their understanding and reducing risk as they explore web3.
Courses
If a new user or developer wants to dive headfirst into web3, they can take a highly technical and informative route through Alchemy University’s coding boot camps. A massive part of learning is through trial and error, and Alchemy’s educational platform allows new and experienced developers a robust course that walks them through building on-chain from zero to one. The best part about this Bootcamp is it comes at absolutely zero cost to developers! With 20 total weeks of lessons planned and guided, new builders can go from having no understanding of building a dapp to deploying their first blockchain application. The road to web3 has never been more attainable for builders.
The Road to Web3
Each step builders in web3 take to make their applications more accessible to the new user base is a step toward the mainstream adoption of blockchain. There are various mechanisms to achieve this, and as we’ve explored in this article, education serves as one of the most optimistic tools to accomplish these goals. Aside from building approachable platforms with fiat-based payments or investing or dynamic user flows tailored towards the non-crypto-native market, the following step platforms can take is through embeddable content to educate new users. This can look like required quizzes once an account is generated or wallet connected or through the optionality to work through modules on the user’s own time. The presence of quizzes or bounties allows users to explore a new type of technology through engaging and potentially monetarily rewarding content. By catering to the more significant market segment with no web3 experience, dapps open their services and products up to a more extensive user base. The road to web3 requires learning to drive before racing through perps and trading on leverage.
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