I wonder if I should have called the blog ‘Web3 from a Nigerian Perspective’ but the title is probably saved on-chain and unable to be changed or is it? I would definitely have to check that.

I know I found that to be a hassle because, why wouldn’t I be able to change the title of my blog just because it has been appended to the blockchain, living on it for all of eternity. All I can do is sulk and yell like the old man from that meme: ‘Damn you Blockchain.’

Classic, very classic.

A couple of minutes after the post was published: (I can actually edit the post so I was wrong. I wonder if this creates a new entry on the Arweave blockchain. I need to look into that)

That’s just one way I think about blockchains but it doesn’t really echo much of my thought regarding the technology. This is going to be my personal experience with blockchain tech and I don’t promise to offer anything that’d blow your mind. If you are interested in what a 21year old Nigerian Med school dropout thinks about web3, cryptocurrency, you would get that, and get the full monty.

so let’s go on this journey, all the way from the very start.

Where it all started

Segue: I struggled with making that heading an h3 element and I’d consider myself, at least tech-literate so that wasn’t fun. It does look like Mirror has a UX issue regarding that because I still couldn’t get it to work. I had to resort to a normal text albeit bold.

On to web3: the future or not

The very first thing I heard about web3 as a young Nigerian was Bitcoin. Everyone was talking about it; you had to have bought in. If you did while it was still pretty early, you would be a millionaire and not just a millionaire, a millionaire in Dollars. Foreign readers might not get the hype and glamour of being a MID. MID is the acronym I am gonna user moving forward. I will briefly explain.

You see, in a third-world country with a struggling economy, it is a plus to be able to earn in a much more stable currency like the US dollars ( I know it isn’t technically stable but you get the drift), compared to the Nigerian Naira. You would be considered well off if you worked for a US-based company and lived in Nigeria. so that’s just a basic run-through, back to Bitcoin or as people around me called it: ‘digital Gold’

Let’s imagine this: Imagine someone hears that just by buying some digital currency, you could be a millionaire. a MID, man, that's something for the average Nigerian. That seems like a pretty big deal to me; It was a big deal. No one was primarily concerned with disrupting TradFi or vesting back power to the people.

A large majority of Nigerians just wanted to make money and live at least, a little more comfortably, providing for their families and maybe even helping the community. and that is not a bad thing. I say that now because certain critics of web3( a very broad generalization but suitable term for now) criticize the financial incentive behind it. They fail to recognize that a lot of people need to be financially emancipated to even get the basic necessity of life. Food, clothing, Shelter, these things cost money. People need money to meet those needs; they are not inherently evil for that.

I forgot to mention that most people I know didn't really differentiate the blockchain from the currency. BTC was Bitcoin, everything.

Enough segue. Back to BTC. Of course, I couldn’t buy any BTC. That was due to a lot of factors. As Techy as I was in secondary school, I just did not hear about it. Even if I did, I did not have a bank account to facilitate trade. So welp! no MID for me. I don’t really know anyone who talked about BTC because literally, no one in my secondary school talked about it.

Fast forward from 2015 - to 2021

Broke 20year old Med student trying to become a developer, who needs to ask for money from his friends to buy data to learn to code. I needed something to help me out. Something legal but good and with exciting returns rubs hands excitingly.

I had initially bought some USDT on an app that facilitated exchange but well, the fees were so high that the meager profit I scraped was lost after conversion. Welp!

I gave up and... then came back.

Somehow, I remembered that Cryptocurrencies had a reputation for going to the moon. That was some quick way to make a quick buck. So what to do? I couldn’t just start investing cause I didn’t have money to spare. Next thing: Take a low-interest loan and payback while reaping some rewards. I didn't know where to start so I reached out to a friend.

Dozie, the crypto guy. He has a good reputation of knowing which tokens are Moon bound with Technical Analysis garnished with risk management. My kind of guy. I did what any broke boy would do. I got his number, told him to teach me how to use Binance, and bought my first few tokens. One got to the moon and crashed back to the Earth, the other got the moon and further.

Hurray for experimenting. I got back my original investment with some extra on top of it. At least the data subscription was covered for that month. It felt exciting to make money yet that wasn’t the exciting part of my adventure.

What Happened during my Investment

You see, I like to try new things. Experiment, fail, experiment, succeed a little bit and then the cycle repeats itself. It’s no wonder that while initially, I was interested in hopefully doubling my investment, the tech behind it all fascinated me.

I got some Ada and SOL tokens and because of that I joined Reddit groups, followed Twitter accounts, joined some discord channels, and even got to stake some SOL which was fun. Btw, Dozie didn’t understand the rationale behind my staking. As a result of that, I wasn’t able to take profits at its ATH( there is nothing wrong in making money, just rehashing that once again). But that wasn’t a deterrent, the space was moving fast, it was fascinating, NFT art was selling at insane prices, meme coins -- how are these things so popular --, DeFI, everything got me in a rush of excitement and I wanted to learn more and more.

Solana was a centralized network...what in the world of decentralization?

Binance smart chain...we don't talk about that here.

Ada was well...no longer going to the moon, heck it couldn't lift off.

USDT, BUSD, and USDC were not suitable to be stablecoins for the decentralized economy? and UST was the only conceivable alternative.

ETH transaction fees helped secure the network but made it impossible for me to get an ENS name 😭

wait…BTC is going to destroy the planet, what in the global warming?

El Salvador is adopting BTC, well…that is intersting.

That and so many other amazing experiences. I am literally smiling as I write this.

And then my quest started…

End of Part 1

I'd like to get an ENS name for my web3 blog and would appreciate your contribution towards that. I can cover the initial cost but the gas fees, oh lord. Gas is around 0.063ETH max at the moment. I'd appreciate your kind-hearted contribution so I can share more amazing experiences.