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Alana Levin10 Analogies for Understanding Concepts in web3
These are 10 analogies for understanding concepts in web3.These analogies are far from perfect, but I’ve found them useful in explaining crypto to my friends trying to learn about the space for the first time. #1. NFTs: a regular baseball could be considered a fungible “token”. A non-fungible token (NFT) is akin to a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle. One is common, the other has a unique signature.#2. DAOs: imagine a non-profit, but organized by strangers on the internet with a united cause. ...
Alana LevinHow to Retain Top Talent
Before I worked in venture capital, I worked at a firm called Boston Consulting Group. It’s full of great talent (in particular, high-slope young professionals), interesting work, and luxurious perks. Yet top consulting firms still experience really high rates of churn. I’ve spent a good part of the past few years thinking about why that is. More specifically, how to avoid the pitfalls that lead to high churn. One simple framework is to view the costs and benefits undertaken / enjoyed within ...
Alana LevinPublic Goods in Crypto
The concept of public goods in crypto is pretty popular. It’s discussed a lot with regard to layer-1s, protocol treasuries, and ecosystem growth. The term has also begun to pop up in investment announcements. I find this last part especially interesting — prior to seeing firms “invest in public goods,” I had never really thought of public goods as an asset class. To be honest, I still don’t. It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about what actually constitutes a public good. Outside of c...
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Alana Levin10 Analogies for Understanding Concepts in web3
These are 10 analogies for understanding concepts in web3.These analogies are far from perfect, but I’ve found them useful in explaining crypto to my friends trying to learn about the space for the first time. #1. NFTs: a regular baseball could be considered a fungible “token”. A non-fungible token (NFT) is akin to a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle. One is common, the other has a unique signature.#2. DAOs: imagine a non-profit, but organized by strangers on the internet with a united cause. ...
Alana LevinHow to Retain Top Talent
Before I worked in venture capital, I worked at a firm called Boston Consulting Group. It’s full of great talent (in particular, high-slope young professionals), interesting work, and luxurious perks. Yet top consulting firms still experience really high rates of churn. I’ve spent a good part of the past few years thinking about why that is. More specifically, how to avoid the pitfalls that lead to high churn. One simple framework is to view the costs and benefits undertaken / enjoyed within ...
Alana LevinPublic Goods in Crypto
The concept of public goods in crypto is pretty popular. It’s discussed a lot with regard to layer-1s, protocol treasuries, and ecosystem growth. The term has also begun to pop up in investment announcements. I find this last part especially interesting — prior to seeing firms “invest in public goods,” I had never really thought of public goods as an asset class. To be honest, I still don’t. It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about what actually constitutes a public good. Outside of c...
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Transportation provides an interesting mental model for thinking about components of crypto:
Blockchains are roads
Wallets are cars
Dapps are often the destination
Some blockchains are more congested than others. Transactions per second, blockspace, and congestion remind me of car traffic. Some road systems deal with traffic better than others. Safety concerns might differ, tolls might be more expensive on one roadway vs. another, and not all cars may work well on all roads.
Wallets are how we move around in crypto. They live on various blockchains: Ethereum wallets like Metamask don’t work on Solana, while Solana’s Phantom wallet doesn’t work on Ethereum. In my mind, it’s pretty similar to how a city sedan may not function well on rough country terrain. Different roads require different vehicles, even though the underlying technology may share similar attributes (e.g., the cars could still look similar, share engine commonalities, etc.).
Uniswap, OpenSea, Aave, Curve, Metaplex, and so on are examples of destinations. They’re built on specific blockchains, and users rely on wallets to engage (i.e., to “get there”). Picking the right road to be on can be important — you want to make sure there’s sufficient throughput of users, but also want to be cognizant of avoiding traffic jams. Traffic jams frustrate users.
Consider junctures, which are destinations that sit at the intersection of multiple big roads: in a world where blockchains are roads and wallets are cars, junctures highlight why multichain bridges or applications might play an important role in the future. If a road is consistently congested and the tolls are expensive — and there are other options for getting to a similarly desirable destination — how long until users switch roads? Then again, if one road is consistently much safer than another, a slightly longer commute might be tolerable.
I find mental models useful for understanding new and complex concepts. This is especially true for crypto, where so many things feel simultaneously old yet new again. Having a familiar benchmark for how to think about these complex concepts helps to determine the new-again old from what’s truly new.
Transportation provides an interesting mental model for thinking about components of crypto:
Blockchains are roads
Wallets are cars
Dapps are often the destination
Some blockchains are more congested than others. Transactions per second, blockspace, and congestion remind me of car traffic. Some road systems deal with traffic better than others. Safety concerns might differ, tolls might be more expensive on one roadway vs. another, and not all cars may work well on all roads.
Wallets are how we move around in crypto. They live on various blockchains: Ethereum wallets like Metamask don’t work on Solana, while Solana’s Phantom wallet doesn’t work on Ethereum. In my mind, it’s pretty similar to how a city sedan may not function well on rough country terrain. Different roads require different vehicles, even though the underlying technology may share similar attributes (e.g., the cars could still look similar, share engine commonalities, etc.).
Uniswap, OpenSea, Aave, Curve, Metaplex, and so on are examples of destinations. They’re built on specific blockchains, and users rely on wallets to engage (i.e., to “get there”). Picking the right road to be on can be important — you want to make sure there’s sufficient throughput of users, but also want to be cognizant of avoiding traffic jams. Traffic jams frustrate users.
Consider junctures, which are destinations that sit at the intersection of multiple big roads: in a world where blockchains are roads and wallets are cars, junctures highlight why multichain bridges or applications might play an important role in the future. If a road is consistently congested and the tolls are expensive — and there are other options for getting to a similarly desirable destination — how long until users switch roads? Then again, if one road is consistently much safer than another, a slightly longer commute might be tolerable.
I find mental models useful for understanding new and complex concepts. This is especially true for crypto, where so many things feel simultaneously old yet new again. Having a familiar benchmark for how to think about these complex concepts helps to determine the new-again old from what’s truly new.
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