Want to learn about web3 but don’t know where to start?

Here’s my imperfect answer...

The basics

  1. Find 2-3 others who also want to learn. Create a discussion group where you catch up for 30-60min each week
  2. Watch the first 6 episodes of a16z’s crypto school. You get to learn from some of the greatest investors, founders and thinkers in the world. On episode 2, spend extra time to understand all the concepts. If you want to learn more about them, I recommend the first 7 of Gary Gensler’s MIT lecture series
    1. Discuss all this with friends. For example, you could watch one episode from the crypto school per week, and then discuss it with friends.
    2. I also recommend quickly learning about the “Blockchain Trilemma”. YouTube or Google will be your friend.
  3. Congrats, you now have the basics! From here, most crypto-related podcasts and YouTube videos will start to make sense. Three podcasts I recommend, in order, are:
    1. A16z — Crypto, An Oral Essay
    2. Chris Dixon on Invest Like the Best (April 2021 episode)
    3. Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant interviewed simultaneously on the Tim Ferriss Show

In 2020 I wrote this on Bitcoin:

Bitcoin

Some further basics if the crypto bug bites

  1. Watch a few YouTube videos that hype coins for three reasons:
    1. They can be informative
    2. Sentiment and momentum are the most powerful forces in crypto markets, and these videos are a proxy for and driver of market sentiment
    3. Most of these videos are flawed in terms of how they think about things from first principles. The crypto world has developed a lingo that fuels narratives but obfuscates fundamentals and critical thinking
  2. A16z’s Crypto Canon is one of the best resources on the internet. It changed the way I think, even beyond crypto