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Pragmatic Web3

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Start with the problem, not the definition.

Everything published so far, grouped by topic. Each explanation begins with what was not working before the technology existed.

Topics

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  • Blockchain

    Distributed systems, smart contracts, consensus and blockchain infrastructure.

    6 pieces

  • AI

    Artificial intelligence concepts, systems, capabilities and limitations.

    1 piece

  • Protocols

    How technical protocols coordinate systems, users and applications.

Series

Follow a series end to end

Ordered sets of tutorials that build on each other.

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  • Series

    Blockchain4 episodes

    Blockchain Fundamentals

    Start with the fundamentals and understand how blockchain systems actually work — from the problem they were built to solve through to the consensus that keeps them honest.

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All content

Everything published

Newest first, across every topic.

  • Tutorial

    BlockchainEpisode 04

    Distributed Consensus

    Why agreement is the hard part of every distributed system, what the impossibility results actually say, and how proof of work and BFT voting make different bargains with the same problem.

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  • Article

    AI

    What a Language Model Is Actually Doing

    The mechanism underneath a language model, what follows from it directly, and where a smaller deterministic system beats it outright.

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  • Tutorial

    BlockchainEpisode 03

    How Does Blockchain Work?

    Follow one transaction from the moment it is signed to the moment it is final — keys, mempool, block assembly, validation and propagation, with nothing skipped.

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  • Article

    Blockchain

    Where Blockchain Does Not Make Sense

    Five proposals that come up repeatedly, why each one fails on inspection, and what the person asking for it usually actually needs.

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  • Tutorial

    BlockchainEpisode 02

    Why Do We Need Blockchain?

    A database with an audit log is cheaper, faster and simpler than any blockchain. This is the specific set of conditions under which it stops being enough.

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  • Article

    Blockchain

    Why Blockchain Exists

    Blockchain was not invented to be a database. It was invented to answer one question about digital money that had gone unanswered for twenty years.

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  • Tutorial

    BlockchainEpisode 01

    What Is Blockchain?

    A practical introduction to blockchain — what the data structure actually is, why it exists, and how it changes the way a group of systems maintains a shared record.

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