A Beginner’s Guide: Getting Started In Web3 Today

Very often, you’d hear the words Web3 being thrown around conversations, in dinner and most certainly over the news in 2022 and beyond.

If you’re just like many others curious about what it means, I hope to not only help clarify the ideas in Web3 but take one step further by helping you get started to experience it for yourself with a step-by-step guide.

You’d likely need around a maximum of an hour to try it out, and at least after that you can proudly share that you’re ahead of over 80% of the world’s population having tried this brave new world ahead of us.

But first, a story.

The Massive Growth of Web 2.0 and Mobile apps

The first picture I posted on Instagram on my iPod Touch (yes, that was a thing) was way back in 2010 on a WiFi network.

In the next 10 odd years which followed, companies like Facebook and Google have become these trillion dollar market cap companies primarily built on advertising which led to much debate over data privacy issues where they are known to be tracking your every move.

This led to the famous saying from the early Google employees and founders via the ‘Don’t be evil’ mantra, as hypothetically they could be influencing elections, human rights, consumerism and many more global events.

Enter The Web3…

How about taking it one step further by adopting the mantra of ‘Can’t be evil?”

That essentially is the idea of most web3 decentralised companies where it is mostly impossible for a single person or a centralised board of directors to be able to impact change without majority of the users agreeing.

All code is fully open-sourced, and vetted by the community. Where all decisions are made in open calls and governance decisions as a community.

Participate In The World’s Largest “Vending Machine”

All Web3 Decentralised applications run primarily on code, and smart contracts which essentially state that if conditions are met, certain outcomes would happen.

Much like how when you walk over to a Vending Machine to get a drink, a Coke costs you $1.20. It would not be possible to buy it for $1, and likewise if you gave a $2 note, you would expect the machine to return you $0.80.

Edit: I will add in a caveat from a friend, Elvin Zhang from the VC world. That the understanding of this vending machine analogy is akin to rather a world of connected vending machines, running on multiple computer hosts in a decentralised manner such that if one vending machine decides to run afoul, the code still runs.

And furthermore ever since the blockchain’s technology’s introduction since the first Bitcoin whitepaper, it has spawned impressive applications and use cases since which builds on a premise that there can only ever be one single truth - a living blockchain of all transactions ever recorded since it’s genesis.

In theory, it is similar to how the Singapore government would have all the birth and death records of all Singaporeans who have ever existed.

Web3 is this tidal wave of innovation which is in its early years about

• Data & Privacy Ownership
• Decentralisation

• Censorship-resistant

Let’s Get Started Together!

Before I continue, I just want to give an important and crucial caveat.

I am by no means a crypto professional or developer. Neither am I a crypto guru of any sort. None of what I am about to share is financial advice and always do your own due diligence before doing anything or signing any transactions as all transactions on the blockchain are irreversible (much wow, Web3).

I personally love it so much that there is this amazing intersection of Finance and Community and Technology.

Having worked in the FinTech industry for the last 8 years, we have faced many constraints like financial APIs which banks were closed off and gated.

Today, with Decentralised finance, this is truly not just a face lift but a re-work of the entire system from the ground up, and gaining so much steam.

Option 1: Try Out Decentralised Applications on the Ethereum Blockchain (Expensive)

Just before you jump in, it’s definitely worth a note to understand what the Ethereum blockchain is about. Think of it like a global world computer where a huge amount of people are building decentralised applications on top of this operating system.

Not only that, most recently they are storing their Ethereum or other forms of crypto tokens (like ERC20 tokens) with value locked on the smart contracts, thus spawning the idea of decentralised finance.

Also worth noting that at this point in Jan 2022, Ethereum can be quite expensive to use as Gas fees (the fees you pay to the blockchain to reward the miners, and stakers soon) can be very high.

Recently, there have been a bunch of new use cases like Non-Fungible Tokens, and more applications which have been built on top of it.

The Ethereum blockchain is currently upgrading to Ethereum 2.0 with a multitude of projects built on top to assist with the scaling issues and in theory bringing down the gas fees multi-fold in the years ahead.

TL;DR: Here are the 3 simple steps

1. Set up your Metamask wallet
2. Get some ETH into your wallet (the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain)

3. Test out some Decentralised Applications by ‘connecting your wallet’

Step 1: Set up your Metamask wallet

Currently Metamask exists as a chrome extension or a mobile app. You can get it set up here and is trusted by millions of users worldwide. I currently use this as well as my main Ethereum hot wallet.

Important__: Once you have your multi-word seed phrase, keep it safe and secure. Never share it with anyone, not even if there are communications pretending to be the MetaMask team.

Think of this as a wallet which is only accessible by you which you can:

• Store your crypto there (ETH and other ERC20 tokens, ethereum compatible)
• Sign in to Decentralised apps to understand and interact with them

• Transact, send money, swap cryptocurrency

Step 2: Transfer in some ETH

I would recommend getting ready to budget around S$300 to S$500 worth of Ethereum to get started and think of this as a ‘tuition fee’ to understand what this world is about.

The best way to get some cryptocurrency to load it up into your MetaMask wallet would be to use a centralised crypto exchange, for example:

• I use the Gemini app as my primary centralised wallet/exchange
• I pay around 0.35% of fees to buy SGD to ETH on the Active Trader interface
• My crypto assets eg. ETH are held in my Gemini wallet
• I can transfer out to my ETH wallet address on my MetaMask (Make sure you copy and paste in, never write it by typing)

Step 3: Test out some DApps on the Ethereum blockchain

Once you have loaded up your Metamask wallet, congrats, you are officially an owner of not only cryptocurrency but a decentralised wallet.

It is time to try out some real applications in this new decentralised world. Do appreciate the idea of how simple it is to login, with a click of a button. No fees will be charged to sign-in.

Here are some to start with which I really liked:

1. Zapper Finance - A dashboard for DeFi (A simple dashboard for DeFi. Easily track and visualize all your DeFi assets and liabilities in one simple interface)
2. Uniswap Protocol - A decentralised exchange. Think of this as Gemini or Coinbase but fully decentralised (Swap, earn, and build on the leading decentralized crypto trading protocol)
3. PoolTogether - A no-loss lottery (A crypto-powered savings protocol based on Premium Bonds. Save money and have a chance to win every week)
4. Foundation - An NFT marketplace for creators to come together to mint, buy and sell their artwork and creations
5. Mirror - A publishing platform service like Medium which allows writers to create pieces of content and publish it, while earning royalties for users who might read their work (a little bit like SubStack)
6. Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) - Decentralised naming for wallets, websites, & more
7. Layer 2 protocols - Polygon, Arbitrium, Optimism zkSync

Option 2: Try Out Decentralised Applications on the Terra Blockchain (Cheaper)

If you are keen to try out another blockchain altogether, one in which most users are flocking to would be this one called the Terra Blockchain which is a relatively younger but fast growing chain.

There are multiple new applications being built on the Terra blockchain but essentially the standard few use cases would include Decentralised Finance and NFTs.

TL;DR: Here are the 3 simple steps

1. Set up your Terra Station wallet
2. Get some LUNA into your wallet (the native currency of the Terra blockchain)
3. Test out some Decentralised Applications by ‘connecting your wallet’

Step 1: Setup Terra Station wallet

Currently Terra Station exists as a chrome extension, and mobile app. You can get it here and is trusted by millions of users worldwide. I currently use this as well as my main Terra Blockchain hot wallet.

Important__: Once you have your multi-word seed phrase, keep it safe and secure. Never share it with anyone, not even if there are communications pretending to be the Terra blockchain team.

Think of this as a wallet which is only accessible by you which you can:

• Store your crypto there (LUNA and other Terra compatible tokens)
• Sign in to Decentralised apps to understand and interact with them

• Transact, send money, swap cryptocurrency

Step 2: Transfer in some LUNA

I would recommend getting ready to budget around S$300 to S$500 worth of LUNA to get started and think of this as a ‘tuition fee’ to understand what this world is about.

The best way to get some cryptocurrency to load it up into your Terra Station wallet would be to use a centralised crypto exchange, for example:

• I use the Crypto.com app as my primary centralised wallets/exchange for the LUNA token
• For Crypto.com, unlike Gemini, I don’t pay fees to buy tokens as I use a USDC stablecoin, I would recommend you can do something similar
• My crypto assets eg. LUNA are held in my Crypto.com account wallet
• I can transfer out to my LUNA wallet address on my Terra Station Wallet (Make sure you copy and paste in, never write it by typing)

• I incur some fees at this point to transfer LUNA out of my wallet

Step 3: Test out some DApps on the Terra blockchain

Once you have loaded up your Terra Station wallet, congrats, you are officially an owner of an up-and-coming cryptocurrency and decentralised wallet.

It is time to try out some real applications in this new decentralised world. Do appreciate the idea of how simple it is to login, with a click of a button. No fees will be charged to sign-in.

Here are some to start with which I really liked:

1. Terra Station Wallet - It is the official mobile wallet for managing native Terra assets and tokens and connecting with decentralized applications running on the Terra blockchain
2. Anchor Savings - It is a recent new option for people to get high APY (interest rate) for your savings on a blockchain in UST, a stablecoin on the Terra blockchain denominated in USD of up to 19.5% (It has no minimum deposits, account freezes, or signup requirements - it can be used by anyone in the world with access to the internet)
3. Random Earth - An NFT marketplace for creators to come together to mint, buy and sell their artwork and creations
4. TerraSwap - A decentralised exchange. Think of this as Gemini or Coinbase but fully decentralised (Swap, earn, and build on the leading decentralized crypto trading protocol)

5. Terra Naming Service (TNS) - Decentralised naming for wallets, websites, & more

Happy Exploring: You Can take it so much further!

Again these steps above are non-exclusive and always do your own due diligence before jumping into any applications.

Some more advanced things you can do like getting your own ENS or TNS domain (eg Adam.eth or Adam.ust) and participating in many DeFi strategies (eg. Liquidity pools, Yield farming, Staking)

If any of the above points might have piqued your interest further, and you have found that inner geek who is keen to consume and learn so much more, I would highly recommend that you follow these amazing resources.

Heree are the ones which I have found to be gold especially in my own journey in the past one year:

• BANKLESS - Awesome daily Newsletter
• The DeFiant - Another awesome daily Newsletter
• Whiteboard Crypto - Superb Youtube channel
• Finematics - Easy to understand for mainly DeFi on a Youtube channel
• Coin Bureau - Another Superb Youtube channel
• Chain Debrief - Recent new Crypto publication in Singapore #SupportLocal

Happy exploring, stay safe and stay on the right side of change!

P.S Inspiration for this piece came from the amazing work at BANKLESS and the awesome cover image which I got from this artist gmoneynft.

P.P.S There is much debate now over what is happening in Web3 and whether Web3 is just another nice wrapper over what is happening today with the VC fueled world. I will update my perspectives when I get more infromation and thoughts on this topic!