Boot Camp Week 10, Non-Technical Recap

By Mike Bivens | Journey to Web3 | 18 Apr 2022

Week 10 did not turn out in any way like what I expected. I had way less time available to utilize on the technical side of the growth and a considerable amount of more time where I could only use it for non-technical stuff. You'll find an extensive list of articles, videos, and podcasts that I was able to work through this week, all of which I found through Crypto Canon an extensive list of web3 resources curated by a16z. Additionally this week, I kept up with the weekly articles and tweets, and prepped a little more for the hackathon that starts this week.

<usual_enterance> If you're new here I'm creating this blog series as I go from coding newbie to working in web3. I'm creating this to reflect on the technical and non-technical growth and to leave it behind for others who might be interested in how they can follow a similar path. </usual_enterance>

Articles

I tweet every day about at least one web3 article, here are the biggest takeaways from those articles this week:

It can take a few transactions after yours to ensure it is not reversible, the benefit includes protection from fraud
CCSS provides recommendations for 3 levels of increasingly stronger security for wallets.
4 types of stable coins; fiat-collateralized, commodity-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, non-collateralized
Memecoins are often created as snubs or jokes and experience hefty spiked whenever a celebrity or group discover them
Some of the major trends for crypto in 2022; regulation, ETF approval, broader mainstream adoption, Bitcoin volatility

And you can find my sources here:

a16z Crypto Canon

What follows is a very extensive list of articles, videos, and podcasts from the a16z Crypto Canon list that I read this week. This was a serious treasure trove of a resource list that I found that transformed my understanding of blockchain and crypto and brought it to an entirely new level. I can't overstate this, after reading just the first few resources I felt like I understood this technology at a whole new level and provided a stronger education than the last 10 weeks of daily article readings. Not to say these weren't worthwhile or beneficial, but this curated list is clearly going to be the first source I send anyone to if they ask how they could learn more about this technology.

I've completed their sections on "Building Blocks and Basics", "Foundations (and History)", and "Key Concepts". The transformative impact of these sections on my knowledge base was focused on the foundational components of blockchain and cryptocurrency as well the historical work from the last several decades that impacted the formation and development of these technologies.

Here are the articles I read this week (indentation denotes articles that were linked from the prior article):

All this to say I feel like I had a true crash course in blockchain fundamentals and history in the last week.

Chainlink Spring Hackathon

The Chainlike Spring Hackathon starts next week! We've added a fifth member to the team who is also from our boot camp so we're heading into it with a full team, which is very good for us as very junior devs. I also submitted a new project idea for consideration, we're going to hold off on choosing a final idea to commit to until after the opening ceremony when the categories will be more fully explained.

Feeling very pumped for this event now, whether we're able to come out with a working product or not this will be an incredible experience for all of us on the team.

What's Next?

A new focus on daily articles starts this week, with the focus shifting to NFTs, I considered switching over and starting on the curated listed by a16z on these as well but ultimately decided that it would be best to stick with the crypto list and finish it off before starting a new resources list. So this week I will continue to work through the content of Crypto Canon. I am looking to make it through the "Governance", "Privacy and Security", and "Scaling" sections by end of the week. The Hackathon is also beginning this week, so this will be an additional pull on my time but I don't expect this to take off very heavily right out of the gate.

If you'd like to join the learning community I'm building on Discord for web3, you can find the link for that here. It's a space that I am trying to build for myself and others to share their growing knowledge of all things web3.

You can also find me here:

LinkedIn | GitHub | Twitter | My Website

Cryptocurrency Crypto Blockchain Blog Hackathon

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Mike Bivens

Blockend Dev | He/Him Founder of WAGMI Squad & TheDrop https://www.msbivens.com/

Journey to Web3

I am using this blog to talk about my experiences from pre-software development boot camp towards entering the Web3 ecosystem. I'll share thoughts and what I'm learning, reflect on the journey, and share informational interviews for others to follow along.