What really is Ethereum? A Survival Guide for New Explorers

Ethereum is scary.

You logged on Twitter two hours ago and your face is decomposing while you keep digging into the rabbit hole you just found.

It started well with the basic notions: Ethereum is a Blockchain, a database of transactions. Anybody can read it, write on it, but nothing written on the blockchain can be deleted. You can store and exchange value (cryptocurrency), develop and run programs (smart contracts).

But then, you read that Ethereum is ultrasound. That $ETH is deflating and $SOL is inflating. Ethereum has a million validators, which is somehow good, and BSC has only twenty, but it just works fine. Your tabs are popping like crazy when you click on tweets like: “L2 bad,” “Modular Blockchain good,” “this rollup has a centralized sequencer,” “this L1 is an Eth killer.”

You are about to give up, you don’t want to pollute your brain with so much information.

That’s fine. Ethereum sounds useless anyway.

Something in you is whispering that Ethereum is no good.

We don’t seem to care about how the tools we use every day work: how our IoT devices spy on us, how Facebook, Google, and TikTok sell our data, how banks use our money and print infinite bills. How the stock market is a casino, and yes, the house always wins. In a dark corner of our brain, we know something is going on. Yet, we still use these tools: there’s simply no alternative, right?

But you see Ethereum enthusiasts online, and you listen to them trying to explain their ways: how Ethereum is trustless, permissionless, decentralized. How Web3 will change “everything”. They seem to have so many good arguments. But the truth is, you are going to close all the tabs soon.

And this isn’t just about rug pulls, the NFT and meme coin frenzies, or the billions of dollars lost to hacks and scams each year that you read everywhere. It’s something way deeper.

The exploration-exploitation dilemma: we don't need no new Technological Revolution

This is called the “exploration-exploitation dilemma.” Exploration is expensive, whether in dollars or brain power: we’re always more comfortable exploiting our already accumulated knowledge to make a decision (opening a bank account instead of creating our first wallet, posting on Web2 Facebook instead of creating a Web3 Lens account). By taking an “exploration” approach, people face the following risks:

• Committing to a sub-optimal strategy without being able to "go back" (Opening your new profile on a Web3 Social Media like Lens was incredibly complicated, and you have a fraction of followers than on your Instagram account. You are losing time and money.)

• Taking risks with something that might not work (Ethereum gets hacked, or there’s actually no solution to challenges like scalability trilemma.)

That being said, recently, you’ve witnessed countless changes in your habits: adopting the internet, smartphones, social media, streaming platforms, and LLMs. You have been quite curious and have adopted these new technologies fairly rapidly: you’ve proven to be an explorer.

So why would this be any different? You’d think that you want to jump on the bandwagon, start using decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DaO) and non-fungible tokens (NFT), and all cool acronym that people won’t shut up about; but something is not right. You feel like there’s no point.

Why would you want to take risks by adopting a technological tool that basically does the same thing but is way more complicated?

You see, all these recent innovations, before the Blockchain, changed the fabric of society, but didn’t deeply shake it. When looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (the stages of human growth), they merely improved self-actualization, esteem, and social connections—the highest needs. We can say that, for now, we’ve got those quite figured out. Why would we need to innovate further?

Do you need another technological revolution? In fact, what do you need?

Ethereum, the Technological Social Revolution we need

Well, have you taken a look at the lower part of the hierarchy? Physiological and safety needs.

In a world where fascism and inequalities are rising, world wars and climate change loom upon us, mass surveillance is becoming the norm, trillions of dollars are printed to save banks and greedy shareholders—do you feel safe? I don’t.

Isn’t it a social revolution that we need rather than just a technological one?

We don’t need another gadget. We need freedom, privacy, justice, public goods, something better than democracy. We cannot achieve this with today's tools: we trust people saying they'll help, but politicians don't keep their promises, greedy corporations are using green-washing for profits, rich people are buying social medias and failing to secure free speech and privacy.

So, why Ethereum?

It’s just like the blind men and an elephant parable: everybody is approaching this beast with its own lens, and it’s very difficult to comprehend what Ethereum really is, and its purpose.

Let’s focus on what Ethereum is. Is it a public ledger? No. Bitcoin with smart contracts? Absolutely not. A a tool for being rich overnight with imaginary money on a database? No way. It is a coordination platform, nothing less. As the Ethereum Foundation states, it is a “foundation for communities, applications, organizations, and digital assets that anyone can build and use.” Anything can be built on Ethereum. By anyone. We could build a new world without censoring, monopolies, middle-men, too powerful men. But with Neutrality, freedom, transparency, security, privacy and resilience enabled by default, thanks to this new tool.

Let’s focus on what a user (you) is. An Ethereum investor? No. Some exit liquidity? Nope. You actually are a builder. Whether you’re going to build a cool game online as a dApp, a network of photography enthusiasts on Lens, cool art, a foundation, or even a Network State; Ethereum researchers and developers are not the ultimate Web3 builders. You are.

The Neolithic Revolution (going from nomads to settlers), the Industrial or French Revolution—history has shown us that we are willing to abandon “exploitation” and enter “exploration” extremely rapidly when our basic needs are compromised, and a new solution arises. But to do so, explore the uncharted territories without dying, we need to be prepared.

So, how can one safely venture into the Ethereum realm?

In a world where so-called leaders drown us with “do as I say, not as I do” speeches, promoting cognitive dissonance by projecting their flaws onto others, you are curious. You don’t want to trust Ethereum, you need to try it. And only then, you can be convinced.

So, how to be prepared, learning from our ancestors, explorers that witnessed countless successful revolutions, and the “exploration-exploitation dilemma”'s theory?

• Gather Knowledge: To switch from exploitation to exploration, we need to accumulate knowledge first. There are numerous knowledge databases online. To cite a few:

• Seek Safety: We are risk-averse. Let’s diminish it as much as possible with tools: sponsored transactions so you can onboard without paying any money, social recovery on wallets, and transaction simulations, for example. If you use Reddit for free, why would you want to pay to deploy your Smart Wallet? And then anytime you want to post something? Can’t you be sponsored? If so, it means you can give Lens a try and go back to Web2 for free if you don’t like it.

• Secure Benefits: There are plenty of incentives – as money - in Web3 to attract new builders with grants, hackathons, incentives, and prizes. Look for success stories in your field, identify sources of incomes, and where monopolies and middle-men in Web2 take your money.

• Identify sources of Inspiration: We are surrounded by terrible actors—dictators, corporate greed, and so much more. Try looking for people who seem to set the example. Someone that doesn’t tell, but does and shows. Vitalik Buterin, one of the Ethereum’s creators, is a pretty cool dude—everybody loves him, and it’s for a reason. Let’s stop following people tweeting “Study Ethereum” or “ETH go up” and look for meaningful conversations.

• Understand that Ethereum is not just cryptocurrency: It’s so much more. Coincidentally, Vitalik just dropped a very interesting article about Plurality. In a world where we vote “against” political candidates, can’t we talk more about new voting systems, Network States, public goods, and privacy? Isn’t it what we really need?

Conclusion

We’re fed up with new technologies. We’ve got plenty of comfort, but we don’t see that our most basic needs are being threatened more and more every day.

We need to change the world, and you might learn that Ethereum is the most efficient and friendly tool to achieve this: deep under all this fuss about cryptocurrencies, NFTs, ETF, and all other BS, there is so much more. But please, don’t trust me. Check by yourself, switch to exploration mode, armed with knowledge to stay safe.

We need people like you: builders and not just users—people who will shape society and fulfill our needs.

Thanks for reading!