In this week’s issue:

• Touch Grass: WTF is Blockchain? (an ELI5 attempt)

• Hodl Me Tender: 🔥 Web3, Crypto + AI Jobs of the Week

Hodl Me Tender: 🔥 Web3 + AI Jobs of the Week

Looking for your next move in (or into) web3, crypto, or AI? Here are some fire openings for this week, all remote, all posted within the last three days:

• Dante AI is looking for a Head of Marketing (AI SaaS)

• Safe needs someone to be their Head of Marketing

• Chorus One is looking for someone to be their Business Dev Manager

• Plume needs a Product Designer to join their team

• Paradex wants to find a Data Engineer

• Raiku needs an Operations & Project Manager—is it you?

• Raiku also needs a Solana Ecosystem Growth Lead

• Coinbase is looking for a Privacy Specialist, Emerging Talent

• Want to be a Community Manager at Specterops? Get it.

• Fireblocks has an opening for a Senior Content Marketing Manager

Want to see your company's job listed here? Reply to this email and lmk.

After diving into Camila Russo's The Infinite Machine, working my way through (currently) Chris Dixon's Read Write Own, consuming way too many crypto podcasts, and of course attending SheFi, I think I'm finally wrapping my head around this whole distributed ledger sitch. The more I learn, the more I realize how much this technology actually matters—and how little most explanations help normal people understand why.

A quality breakdown of blockchain (from someone else)

First, let’s hear about the path of outside-in technologies versus inside-out tech from Chris Dixon (mentioned above).

Basically, new technologies follow one of two paths—they either start inside established institutions (big tech) or come from the fringes (mama’s basement). In the former, things come through fully hatched, with a value that’s easily understood even before the tech exists.

Conversely, outside-in technologies—which arrive from outside established institutions (again, outside of big tech)—are routinely underestimated and much harder to see coming. They’re built in the margins, a beautiful/potent thing in most any context.

Blockchains are “classic outside-in technology.”

To continue with Dixon: “Blockchains are software abstractions that overlay on top of physical devices. They’re state machines… State machines consist of two parts: (1) a place to store information and (2) a means to modify that information.”

Cool cool cool, but how do blockchains actually work?

The Chain Part: Imagine a logbook where each page (block) contains a list of transactions. Each new page includes a reference to the previous page, creating an unbroken chain of information.

The Trust Part: Instead of a single person or company maintaining this logbook, thousands of computers around the world keep identical copies. They all follow strict rules to agree on what gets added.

The Crypto Part: Advanced cryptography ensures that once information is added to the chain, it's extremely difficult to alter. Each block is secured by complex math that would require enormous computing power to break.

The Incentive Part: People who help maintain the network (by running those computers) get rewarded with tokens (like Bitcoin or ETH). This creates an economic incentive to play by the rules.

What makes this kinda revolutionary isn't the database itself—it's that for the first time, we can have a single, agreed-upon record of information without needing a central authority to maintain it. That means we can transfer value directly between people without banks, create ownership records without title companies, and build applications that can't be shut down by any single entity (piss off, Meta et al).

Meaning the real magic of blockchain isn't the technology—it's the new economic and social arrangements it enables when you remove the need for trusted intermediaries.

My (far less sophisticated read on blockchains)

From what I understand, here's how blockchain works in vaguely human terms:

1. Blocks: Bundles of transactions (like "Laura sent 0.05 ETH to that NFT project and is already regretting it")

2. Chain: All these blocks linked together chronologically, creating a complete history of every transaction ever made

3. Decentralized: No single entity controls it—it exists across a network of computers (nodes)

4. Consensus: The network agrees on what transactions are valid through various mechanisms (more on that mindfuck in a second)

5. Immutable: Once a transaction is recorded, it can't be altered without altering all subsequent blocks, which would require control of the majority of the network (theoretically very difficult)

This architecture creates a system where you don't need to know or trust the person you're transacting with—you just need to trust the system itself. Which feels like a weird leap of faith, but I guess not that different from trusting Chase Bank with my direct deposits.

Proof of huh?

So for a decentralized system to work, all these computers need to agree on the state of the ledger. Otherwise, balances could be different depending on which computer you ask, which would be chaos.

Apparently there are two main approaches to achieving this consensus:

Proof of Work (Bitcoin's approach): Computers race to solve complex puzzles, and the winner gets to add the next block to the chain. This is "mining" and it's why Bitcoin uses more electricity than some countries. It's like if the only way to add a row to an Excel spreadsheet was to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded.

Proof of Stake (Ethereum's approach): Instead of solving puzzles, participants put up some of their own crypto as collateral (stake) for the right to validate transactions. If they try to cheat, they lose their stake. It's like having to put $10,000 in escrow just to be allowed to update the Excel spreadsheet, which you forfeit if you make a mistake.

Both systems exist to make it economically stupid to try to screw with the ledger. Either you'd need to outcompete the entire world's computing power (PoW) or risk losing a ton of money (PoS). Nice game theory, nerds.

Note: Concerns over the energy consumption of crypto? Please see the following text and chart from our boy Chris Dixon. I’d not yet seen the info presented like this and it’s fucking cool / eye-opening.

PS: Subscribe now if you want in on this arithmetic. Miss the last issue? It’s right here. Also literally none of this is financial advice. I’m sharing what I learn through Babe, and perhaps you’ll learn from my mistakes. Hopefully, maybe, who knows, ily.