• Genesis 15-35

  • Tracking how much time it takes me to read the entire Bible.

Books

• None at this time

Podcast

• La patada de Bobán - Fútbol Rebelde

  • A match of fútbol where a war is started. Episode in spanish.

Twitter

Excellent notes on @nntaleb lecture on antifragility

https://twitter.com/carefullycnsdrd/status/1494774246660263949

Freedom to transact

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1494444624630403083

The domino skill

https://twitter.com/ergestx/status/1494649280388284419

Awesome thread on leadership

https://twitter.com/jmwind/status/1493569303030816770

• Genesis 8-14

  • Tracking how much time it takes me to read the entire Bible.

Books

• Central Banking 101 - by Joseph J Wang - 40%

  • Central Banking is magic and with all that is happening in the macroeconomic scene I have become very interested in understanding how money actually works. Highly recommend.

Podcast

• Why everything is weird - Bankless

  • Another interesting episode exploring the different factors that are shaping the economical landscape worldwide.

Essays

• There’s no speed limit - Derek Sivers

  • Revisiting this essay, one of my favorites, since I wanted to share it with my team.

Twitter

What dashboards are for

https://twitter.com/ergestx/status/1490311089422229508

As with most things, it’s a balance

https://twitter.com/markbrooks/status/1489622584358584324

Very interesting strategy using Kujira Orca

https://twitter.com/Route2FI/status/1489643360298094597

The minimum viable insight

https://twitter.com/imightbemary/status/1489692363509276674

A must: how to read smart contracts

https://twitter.com/chriscantino/status/1480300076786274304

• Genesis 1-7

  • Tracking how much time it takes me to read the entire Bible.

Books

• The Fifth Science - by exurb1a - 100%

  • A collection of 12 stories about the Galactic Human Empire (sci-fi). A must if you are already a fan of his YouTube videos.

• Central Banking 101 - by Joseph J Wang - 25%

  • Central Banking is magic and with all that is happening in the macroeconomic scene I have become very interested in understanding how money actually works. Highly recommend.

Podcast

• Inflation, The Fed, & Macro Markets - Bankless

  • My favorite episode in a long time. You can see that I’m very interested in these topics lately.

• ROLLUP: Wonderland $TIME | Crypto Price Bear Market? | Odell Beckham Jr Bitcoin | Twitter NFTs - Bankless

  • An interesting discussion about being or not in a bear market, time will tell.

Twitter

Attributing acquisitions channels: a little too close to home.

https://twitter.com/pedram_navid/status/1487513493414711297

The analytics team is just a Swiss knife.

https://twitter.com/imrobertyi/status/1486712599999762444

Interesting thread about two concepts: “Moloch” and “Slack”. Even though I was familiar with Moloch (Bible) I didn’t see it like this until now.

https://twitter.com/tom_morganKCP/status/1487102594241683461

Anchor Protocol 101

https://twitter.com/Route2FI/status/1487079648609640456

You can never get bored in this space

https://twitter.com/Montana_Wong/status/1487886787305357313

Most people (including me?) tend to misunderstood the (3,3) concept

https://twitter.com/pottedmeat_ohm/status/1486359499829137408

A total of 0.63 LUNA will be sent to my wallet as a reward for a visualization where people can see the price of the LUNA token vs the staking yield in Terra Station.

It felt amazing. Not because of the money but because I now see myself as an active contributor to the Web3 space. With this post I would like to share what I have learned so that any data analyst can start delivering insights to on-chain projects.

Onboarding guide

If I had to restart my journey this is how I would do it:

1. Learn SQL - Mode and SQLBolt are two great (and free) resources.

2. Explore data providers - the heroes making it possible for any analyst to do blockchain research. These projects have transformed the raw data stored in the blockchain into into human-readable relational databases and then offer the tools to visualize the information.

   1. Dune Analytics: running on PostgreSQL.

   2. Flipside Crypto: running on Snowflake.

3. Take the OurNetwork course- a course that focuses on how to analyze data in Web3 and communicate your work publicly.

4. Do some work - my recommendation is to start working on some beginner level bounties in Flipside. Join their Discord where you will find other analysts who are working on the same challenge, the community is super helpful! You can also find bounties in Dune’s Discord but my experience is that those are for more experienced analysts who already have a portfolio of projects.

5. Keep learning - as more people join the movement you will start to see more resources to strengthen your analytical skills: workshops, tutorials, video series, etc.

More resources

Is very hard to keep up to date with everything that is happening on this space. The following resources have helped me to have a better understanding of specific blockchains and their inner workings which becomes very valuable when you are trying to generate insights for a specific project.

1. MetricsDAO - a must for all the analytical minds in this space. One of the projects I’m most excited about since there is a lot of work to do and anyone is welcome to participate.

2. RabbitHole - earn by learning! Get exposed to multiple projects in an easy to follow way.

3. Cryptozombies.io - yes, learn the basics of Solidity. It will help a lot when thinking about how contracts and dapps work.

4. Codeless Conduct - a Web3 hackathon for people with no coding skills/experience.

5. WhiteboardCrypto - breaking down the complexity of many projects/protocols by explaining them into simpler terms.

Wrap up

As in any other ecosystem, data will play a key role in the growth and development of the Web3.

Analytics and metrics are the lifeblood of blockchain ecosystems. Protocols are evolving in real time. In order to best understand, to share ideas, to know fundamental truths, the data must be available. - MetricsDAO

We are still in a very early stage where almost all of the analytics requests are descriptive. How is it going to look like when we start to incorporate advanced analytics (i.e. predictive and prescriptive models)? It will sure be exciting. This is only the beginning of crypto analytics.

As always, feedback and ideas are more than welcome! DMs are open @alejandrocanomx

I don’t consider this by any means my work. This is just (or at least tries to be) an attempt to synthesize all the information I've been consuming since I started my Web3 journey. Writing is a powerful tool for critical thinking.

Rather than citing my sources at the end, you will find them upfront. These are the people that deserve full recognition for their work and ability to communicate. If this is one of your first steps into this world I strongly recommend you to go over all the links below. It is (obviously) not an exhaustive list of all the materials that are out there. You might feel overwhelmed but if you continue deep diving things will start clicking on you (or at least it happened to me).

• Why decentralization matters by @cdixon

• Web3: in a nutshell by @eshita

• What is Web3 by @masonnystrom

• The wonders of Web3 by @cdixon and @naval

• Web3 Fundamentals by @root_)

• Odyssey DAO by @petergyang and @yb_effect

Let's start.

Web3: the big picture

@packym defines Web3 as the internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens. This implies that there is an internet who is not owned by the builders and users, which is the Web2, where big corporations capture most of the value generated (e.g. Facebook, where most of the revenue generated by the content creators goes to Facebook).

Just like everything, Web2 has pros and cons (from a builder and user perspective). Trying to simplify this dichotomy: Web2 corporations have given the chance to anyone to become a content creator, however, these users don’t own their content or have a say-in the rules of the platform (e.g. YouTube changing the rules for monetizing videos). I'm not saying this is wrong, but this can diminish the rate of innovation because of the uncertainty the creators have when using these platforms.

Web3 tries to give back the power to the users based on several levers:

1. Decentralization - Web3 applications run on a network of computers, in contrast of Web2 applications that powered by a private network (e.g. Google servers).

2. Transparency - Users can see the code that fuels the applications as it is open to anyone.

3. Ownership - Users own their data, work, and assets.

4. Governance - Users are co-owners of the platform, they have a say-in its governance.

5. Immutable - Once committed data can’t be modified.

Just like any other technology breakthrough, Web3 also benefits of the complex social environment we are currently in.

Whether you’re here as a missionary or a mercenary, you’ll find that one of the primary unifying forces behind this movement is the belief that decentralized technologies with embedded financial incentives (a good shorthand for Web3) offer a compelling, often lucrative, alternative to our decaying legacy institutions - Ryan Selkis

This is not just theory or a whitepaper. As of 2021 there are multiple examples of Web3 applications:

• Filecoin a decentralized network for file storage.

• Axie Infinity an NFT-based game.

• ENS decentralized naming for websites & more.

• Audius for music streaming.

• OurZora an open media market.

• Mirror a decentralized publishing platform.

• Olympus DAO a decentralized reserve currency.

Blockchain: the technology powering Web3

To achieve this level of decentralization, transparency, ownership, governance, immutability and trust the Web3 runs on blockchains. A blockchain consists of a network of computers that can share a growing list of records where there is a protocol on how new information is going to be validated and added to the chain.

To try to simplify it let’s use an example:

1. Computer A wants to add a new block of information to the chain.

2. By following a protocol other computers validate the authenticity of this new information.

3. Once this block has been validated it is added to the chain, with a very special characteristic: it also contains a “key” from the previous block which enables this chaining effect.

if you want to go deeper and understand the inner workings of it I recommend you to watch this video by the great Grant Sanderson

Tokens: owning a piece of the internet

Going back to the definition of Web3 (the internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens) we see that there is one last thing to explore: tokens. Since there is no middlemen (e.g. banks) validating the operations that are being done in the blockchain, we need a way to clearly define ownership of assets in this digital world. A token let us do precisely this.

In the Web3 there are two major type of tokens:

• Non-fungible tokens (NFTs): these are the tokens that are unique. Popularized by famous pieces of art like CryptoPunks.

• Fungible tokens: basically cryptocurrencies, which are interchangeable (e.g. one bitcoin is the exactly same as another bitcoin).

One of the novel ways in which tokens are being used is in governance. Many projects give rights to token holders to vote on the decisions of the project itself, which becomes as a result an incentive for everyone to work towards the same goal.

https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1442201648034549766

Wrap up

With massive funding, talented people and an explosion in volume of users Web3 has the perfect recipe to become a major part of our life, just like the Web2 projects have already become. And we are still in the early stages of it.

I hope this breakdown helped you to breakdown the complexity of it to simpler concepts. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I will be exploring different topics related to the Web3 in future posts.

…..

Feedback and ideas are more than welcome! DMs are open @alejandrocanomx