Understanding and navigating through Web3 can be difficult. As stated, before Web3 is about ownership at its core. Web3 gives one the ability to connect to the web and have ownership over assets whether centralized or decentralized. To help you navigate through Web3, I will do my best to give an overview of wallets, blockchains, bridging, and domains.

Wallets

To connect to Web3, you must have a wallet. There are two types of wallets, hard (hot) and soft (cold). A hard wallet is like USB drives in which they maintained your digital assets (Coins, NFTs, etc.), Ledger is a well-known hard wallet. The benefits of hard wallets are security and privacy due to not having anything left on exchanges or the web. A soft wallet are wallets that are on the internet, there are many soft wallets to choose from, but they all do the same thing, store your assets off centralized or decentralized markets, hold NFTs, and allow you to connect to Web3 browsers/apps (like Open Sea or decentralized like Uniswap).

In addition, you would want to know which soft wallet to utilize depending on the blockchain you are interacting with. MetaMask is one of the most popular wallets to use for this due to the ability to connect to multiple blockchains. Some blockchains will need their native wallet but in most cases, you can cover your digital assets by using certain applications, one of which I will speak about. Not to mention most centralized exchanges or CEX will have a wallet to store your tokens.

Blockchains

Blockchains are the heart of crypto, without blockchains there really is no crypto or Web3. The Blockchain in its simplistic explanation is a digital ledger that has no middlemen. No middlemen, then what confirms these transactions? Well, proofs or miners. Miners use a proof of work technology to confirm transactions from wallet A to wallet B (or Nodes). Miners got a bad rep due to harming the environment and high fees, therefore other ways to check transactions were formed. This also led to other blockchains and other proofs. The goal is to make faster transactions, the ability to handle more wallets (nodes), less fees, and better for the environment. The other blockchains utilize a proof of stake, it is a more democratic approach allowing those who stake their digital assets to vote. Staking also provides rewards for those who lend digital assets to improve blockchains, but it is not guaranteed.

When transacting with an NFT project or decentralized application you can confirm your transaction was completed by using multiple blockchains by checking on scanner webpages. Some useful pages to check transactions on blockchains are Blockscan.com (all blockchains), Bscscan.com (Binance/BNB), Polygonscan.com (Polygon), Snowtrace.io(Avalanche), SolScan.io (Solana), Blockchain.info (Bitcoin) and Etherscan.io (Ethereum). The technology of blockchain is much more in depth then this and if interested you can literally Google multiple resources, its great reading when going to bed.

Bridging

Bridging is possibly one of the most beneficial tools to learn about when trying to transfer certain assets to different blockchains. This is not the same as wrapping coins or swapping. Both of which can help you change your current assets from another. Bridging as the name applies is a digital bridge transferring one cryptocurrency from one blockchain to another. For example, say you have Ethereum (ETH), and you want ETH on Polygon (MATIC) blockchain, well you would find the Matic bridge, once you have the bridge you would select ETH and transfer that to Matic and now you have ETH on a proof of stake blockchain (Polygon). Not only can you bridge ETH on Polygon blockchain, but different blockchains have different bridges. So, knowing which bridge to utilize to transfer for the digital asset to be on a different blockchain is essential. This can be done by doing a simple Google search of the digital asset you would transfer to another blockchain. There may be some limitations but with doing your own research (DYOR) on how to transfer said digital asset can provide positive results and prevent mistakes.

As a matter of fact, Opensea.io allows you to bridge ETH to Polygon. The benefit of bridging is that it can cost less to transfer the asset then swapping or wrapping due to gas fees, less steps, and can utilize cheaper blockchains with less congestion. Consequently, giving you all the benefits of a proof of stake blockchain just from transferring your digital asset. The biggest disadvantage of bridging is the time constraints due to transferring from one blockchain to another. So, this is best to use when you are not in a rush.

Domains

Web3 allows one to buy domains and own them, by connect your wallet, it is also recorded on the blockchain. If you’ve heard stories of how people back in the day were buying domains and selling, well here is your chance to do the same thing. Two sites that allow you to buy domains and sell are Ethereum Name Service or ENS and Unstoppable Domains. Both allow you to utilize Ethereum blockchain or ETH digital asset to purchase the domain. Before, one would have to use their public wallet address, which would have letters and numbers to infinity and beyond. Requesting a payment or sending a payment, these addresses can get troublesome and more prone to mistakes when transacting.

Luckily with domains you can send to a specific address without the numbers and letters, for example, John.eth. The .eth is the domain someone would use to send and transact for crypto assets. But not only that you can use the domains to create subdomains to link other data like regular webpages such as your YouTube channel, your email addressed, etc. ENS may be more popular and everyone on twitter has .eth name. To purchase one you would go to ENS App and search for a name/domain you would like to purchase pay ETH + gas fees and $5 yearly (to keep) and the domain is yours.

Although ENS is popular partly because it is on the Ethereum blockchain, those gas fees can be a nuisance. Luckily, Unstoppable Domains is a great alternative and creates your domain on multiple blockchains, just like Polygon. Polygon blockchains has cheaper gas fees, due to POS. In addition, you can get a domain for free, I know because I bought one if interested hit the link. If you are strap for cash or just want a free domain and no yearly renewals, then go to Unstoppable Domains. Essentially both do the same things, but I am bullish on Unstoppable Domains due to the ability to get domains cheaper, flip domains for profits and potential airdrops since it’s a newer app. You can also customize webpages for your Web2 social media presence or companies.

Conclusion

As stated before, Web3 can be difficult to navigate through, but if done right one can explore the many benefits. The most important being, ownership. If you do not own, then you really cannot get the benefits of capitalizing off your digital assets. Although, this write up can be basic information it will help steer you in the right direction of how to get into Web3 and why should you care. It is super important to understand as much as you can and continue to do your research. Also, you are super early in this space, so learn all you can before the boom. Thanks for your time and all the best!!