From one Imposter to another

Okay, in keeping up with the habit of explaining the stuff I am learning, it's time to give a brief explanation of what DeFi is. DeFi is nothing other than a financial system built on blockchain technology. By now you should be aware of the core concepts of blockchain — decentralization and cryptography.  This means it's bound to inherit the core characteristics of the machine it's built on. In fact, the word "DeFi" is an acronym for the words "decentralized finance" — cool right? It gets better. Essentially the goal of DeFi is to bring existing financial systems on-chain, making them automatically transparent and, most importantly, permissionless. I can't stress enough the feeling of no one having control over my finances, but that's just me. With that out of the way, let's try understanding the "building blocks"  — see what I did there? I'm so cool —  of the DeFi system. DeFi, when peeled back like an onion, is essentially sma...

So we meet again, I think. If you are doing this correctly, you would have read my previous — hopefully not so boring — blogs on my learning journey through what blockchain is all about. I must say though, after re-reading my previous post and doing some freshly revised studies, my attempt at explaining blockchain was… rather incomplete. Quoting the famous meme: it needs some milk. So here is another attempt, a gallon later, lol. Deconstructing the Word This time I’m going to break down the words, make sense of them individually, and then rebuild them with some more seasoning. Blockchain. “Block” + “Chain.” Let’s start with  Block. Googling the word, one of the definitions that pops up (which I picked for its convenience of the point I'm trying to make) is: a large single building subdivided into separate rooms, flats, or offices. And honestly, that’s not a terrible way to think about it. I’ve also noticed something funny about the crypto ecosystem: most things are painfully litera...

 Okay, so I decided to start the blockchain fundamentals course from Updraft Cyfrin again. But this time I’m trying to explain, in my own words, what I’m learning along the way. Bear with me, I might sound slightly more stupid than I really am (I think). Before explaining what blockchain is, the logical thing to do is to answer why blockchain, just like in the course. Personally, I’m a bit stubborn, and although I understand that some level of control is needed, we’ve clearly taken it too far. As a society we evolve by making life more efficient, and at some point we decided to give certain people more responsibility so the rest of us could focus on other things. In exchange, we made sure those people — the chosen ones — got a share of our earnings. In theory, this is actually beautiful. In a utopian world, it would work perfectly. The problem is that humans are greedy. Give us power and we’ll push it as far as we can. That’s exactly what happened, first with authorities and th...

I am on a path to understanding blockchain , DeFi , and all its relatives, and I must say — in the voice of Jim Parsons ’ character from the movie Home — I am confusion. I’ve watched more tutorials than I can count, with special props to Anders Brownworth and the Updraft Cyfrin team for their incredible Blockchain Foundations course . And yet, when I try to move forward, I keep hitting the same wall: I don’t actually feel like I understand what the hell is going on — just the words people use to talk about it. And that’s the problem. Like most people in crypto, I found myself memorizing fragments of the system without really understanding the system. I was learning terms like wallets, blocks, gas, smart contracts, yield, and so on. I even deployed the infamous SimpleStorage and FundMe contracts, but had no idea where they were going or why they even needed to exist in the first place. When it came to testing, I was just following instructions. I don’t want that. I want to understand...