🤓 TL;DR

Web3 is the next step in the internets evolution. I take a journey across Algorands network. From Yieldly (defi dapp), to ab2gallery to pick up an NFT. I find that not all blockchains are built the same and what the true meaning behind web3 really is.

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The Blockchain

I always knew that blockchain technology would change the world, but didn't know exactly what or how it would look. The Blockchain is a decentralized, secure, immutable ledger that keeps records, tracks, and stores data. There is nothing else like it, and the world continues to adopt it.

Gas Fee Lesson

After learning about the blockchain I was interested in what it could do. First, I went to ETH (Ethereum) a type of cryptocurrency that uses its own blockchain. Yes! there are different types of blockchains 😲. In order to use the Ethereum network, you have to pay a gas fee (Not gas as in gasoline for your car!) for validating each transaction on ETHs blockchain. When users send a transaction, they set the gas price (wallet software often automatically completes this) and transactions are sent to the “mempool” for Ethereum miners to include a block on the blockchain. This means that miners are incentivized to prioritize higher transaction fees. So, the lower the fees slower the transaction or even canceled.

In other words, to transfer ETH to a wallet involves a few steps:

Set up MetaMask the wallet will give you a recover phrase🤫don’t share with anyone.
The Recover Phrase is a list of random words that make up your master key. If for some reason you can’t access your wallet (forgot password, log in from a different location, etc). Your recover phrase will be the only way you can recover your assets.
Get the retrieval address of the wallet you are sending ETH to(double check to make sure its correct).
Pick the amount you want to transfer
Pay gas fees ( A fun note on this --> I once had to pay the same amount in gas fees as the amount of ETH I was transferring 😲)
Approve the transaction and poof money appears in its destination. My biggest grip with ETH is the fees. Otherwise, ETH is great and has a vast network. ETH 2.0 will be coming soon and its biggest improvement will be utilizing the L2 network ( i.e. negligible gas fees 🎉).

Traveling through Algorands network

That's when I found Algo ( Alogrand ), and boy did it Van Damme kick my expectations into a bathroom stall. I’m thinking all crypto Blockchains have high fees. Algorand is a proof-of-stake, high performing Layer-1 blockchain. It provides security, scalability, transaction finality, privacy and advanced smart contracts.

Once I set up the Algo wallet I was able to move my way around through Algos unique network. I found moving Algo from my wallet to Yieldly , seamless. Yieldly is A dApp(Decentralized Application) and is part of Defi (Decentralized Finance). Yep, a big ol’ mouth full of words. You can think of Yieldly as a decentralized, web3 version of a brokerage firm - kind of (Vanguard, Wells Fargo, etc). If you were wondering Defi is the term given to financial services on the public blockchain.

Next, I made my way to the community driven, NFT marketplace dApp, Ab2Gallery. Ab2Gallery does not have a database, or host any pictures, they don’t even store any user data – everything is on-chain. Typically, users host their assets using IPFS . In this case Ab2Gallery provides a form to create a listing that initiates a transaction note on the smart contract instead. From there, all the data is pulled from the blockchain with an API service. While browsing through the gallery I found and bought this awesome NFT Algo Parrot 🦜🦜!

What the dApp

Ok.. but what the hell is a dApp??!.. Well, the promise of the dApp (decentralized App) is to cut out the companies that own your data, the middlemen that monetize your data in web2. To explain further, pretend we are at a festival. You see a cowboy and horse cut-out board. You think it would be a funny picture for your hash node profile. You decide to get behind the cowboy and horse cut out boards, pose, and take your picture. You obviously notice it’s you but as a cowboy and then a horse but once you leave the cut-out board it’s empty and hollow. Now let’s substitute you for a wallet and the cut-out board for a dApp. When you connect your wallet and choose to share your data the dApp will render what every it gets permission to. Once you logout none of the data is kept or stored on the dApp. It all stays in your wallet address on the blockchain.

Web3's Promise

Huh.. so then how does web3 play a role? Glad you asked😊 There is a stark difference between Blockchain and web3, even though it may seem like they are the same. Blockchain is the technology, the brains if you will. web3 is more of a movement and a paradigm shift. It is all about giving control of your personal data back to you, the user. In a time where censorship is growing, companies are continually selling our personal data without consent and daily security breaches, the mismanagement of our data has reached a critical point. More people are realizing that there is a need to keep and protect their data, while getting paid only if they decide to share it. Blockchain tech and web3’s ethos will change this world, for the better.

BriGuyy