It always feels like so much happens in the world of web3 on a daily basis and to be honest, it does. I intended to start writing these weekly newsletters for people new to web3 from a non-technical perspective. With that in mind, let’s dive into the past week’s content.

If you already own some ETH and BTC, one of the first things I would suggest doing is getting your ENS domain. Obvious first question would be, but why should I get this?👇

• The simplest use case is that your .ETH name becomes your username across all web3 platforms. Instead of creating different usernames and passwords as we do now on web2 applications, your ENS domain will be your single source of entry into any web3 application.

• It can also be used to store all of your addresses and receive any cryptocurrency, token, or NFT. So instead of copying out that long coded address, you can just type your ENS domain (mehak.eth in my case).

Top Articles of the week

• I often hear people ask (including myself) “Am I too late?” and this article points out exactly why we are still so early.

  “if crypto adoption were mapped to the history of internet usage, we'd be in the mid-90s.”

• Anything you currently post on a web2 platform (pictures on Instagram, videos on TikTok etc) don’t actually belong to you soon as they are uploaded. Solution? NFTs make the internet ownable

  "A common critique is that because digital art and digital collectibles can be copied, they don’t carry much value. But NFTs introduce a new possibility that enables true ownership to exist while a work continues to freely circulate online."

Tweet of the week + Follow recommendation

https://twitter.com/jarroddicker/status/1465410042186903565?s=20

Kinjal Shah is an investor at Blockchain Capital and also writes a blog! She recently posted her favorite web3 articles of 2021.

Happy learning & building! 🚀

I will focus the first edition of this weekly series for people brand new to web3 and confused about where to even start.

Top articles of the week

• This beginner’s guide to crypto from Peter Yang is an excellent introduction to web3. He explains blockchains, fungible and non-fungible tokens, Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFT’s & DAO’s in a very simple way.

• Once you have read the BTC and ETH white papers and the beginner’s guide above and are ready to go a little deeper, this breakdown for ETH from Packy is great. It is a very in depth bull case for ETH (38 minute read!)

• Now that you have a bit more background on blockchains, tokens (fungible and non-fungible), this is a natural transition to this next article from Chris Dixon about the idea of a 1000 true fans and NFT’s.

Tweet of the week + follow recommendation

This thread from Yash recommends some of the things you can start doing in web3 to get comfortable with the tools, wallets, and platforms.

https://twitter.com/yb_effect/status/1458569764637454347?s=20

Chris Dixon is a partner at a16z and invests in web3 projects. His tweets are insightful for anyone trying to get into a deeper crypto rabbit hole and Chris also writes on his blog here.

https://twitter.com/cdixon?s=20

This should be a good start for anyone looking to dip their toes in web3!

wagmi!

• Top 3 articles of the week

• Best tweet of the week

• 1 new thing I learnt about web3 that week (this can be theoretical knowledge or actual tasks like staking your tokens, buying/selling NFT’s, how to use new tools that come up in the space etc)

• 1 web3 person to follow on twitter to enhance your content diet

I will also continue adding any resources that have helped me in my learnings so far. To get things rolling for people brand new to web3, start by reading the BTC and ETH white papers below.

• BTC white paper

• ETH white paper

Then I started to think how, we as humans, also have properties associated with us. Some of these are very common (100% of us are humans). But there are also tons of rare properties that we have or have the ability to learn and add to our belt. What if we focused on strengthening the properties that are unique and rare and have the highest probability of generating valuable returns for ourselves over a long enough time horizon. I bet some of these valuable properties could just be simple things like: not giving up, being persistent, working smarter, minimizing distractions during creative work hours etc. And by focusing on things that others are not willing to do, you can naturally make yourself more rare = more valuable in the long run.

The best part is that these unique and rare properties don't need to be the same across all industries. Of course, there will be overlap for some properties such as working hard, being persistent etc, but each vertical will bring along its own set of unique properties that will be more valuable in that niche than anywhere else.

Balaji shared his opinion of how the value of traditional education will keep decreasing because people will be evaluated based off the projects they have worked on and the tasks they have completed. And this data will sit on the blockchain for anyone to evaluate when they are hiring. If very few people have done the same task or have expertise in a particular skill, the more they can charge for it.

What are some rare properties and skills that you can start working on today that will produce outsized returns over the long run? The future of web3 is bright and we are only getting started.

WAGMI!!