The trend has landed, seize the dividends, welcome to Wushu's talk about Web3, hello everyone, I am Wushu 🧔

In the previous sharing, we mentioned that Bitcoin has investment significance through the [deflation mechanism]. At the same time, because of the Bitcoin Pizza Day event, people gave value to Bitcoin for the first time. In the following years, because of the [security], [decentralization] and [immutability] of the underlying blockchain, it attracted more and more investors and developers, and the price of Bitcoin also rose all the way. However, the blockchain world at that time was still in the 1.0 era, mainly focusing on investment currency, and there was no development at the application level.

Until a genius boy appeared, the blockchain world officially entered the 2.0 era. Who is he? Yes, he is Vitalik, who was featured in Time magazine this year and is also known as V God in the industry.

At the end of 2013, he officially debuted with the Ethereum White Paper he wrote, and launched the mainnet in 2015. Since then, Ethereum, which takes smart contracts as its main starting point, has made the application landing a reality, announcing the arrival of the blockchain world 2.0 era. So what is the story behind it? What is a smart contract?

Well, before we officially begin, new friends are welcome to like and follow Uncle Wu. I will continue to share the top 100 essential knowledge points about the Web3 metaverse and blockchain. It is full of practical information and I hope it can help everyone to systematically plan their learning of Web3. Please continue to pay attention.

1. What is a smart contract?

We just mentioned that the birth of Ethereum has shifted the blockchain world from a simple [currency investment direction] to the direction of [application construction]. Here, I would like to summarize Ethereum in one sentence, that is, Ethereum is an open source blockchain public platform that allows everyone to freely develop smart contracts.

In this introduction, we need to focus on two words, one is open source and the other is smart contract.

First of all, the word open source is not unfamiliar to people who have programming experience, so here I will mainly explain it to fans who have no programming experience. The so-called open source means open source code, also known as source code disclosure, which refers to a software release model. In a word, it means that the source code or source design can be used, modified and distributed by the public. It is generally used for sharing among programmers to facilitate secondary development.

Among them, the open source feature makes all operations in the blockchain world more transparent and conducive to the development of the project. I believe that many people know that Musk has made public the patents of Tesla electric cars. This is a manifestation of open source technology. It also allows Tesla to reduce costs in all aspects of the production process. Because there are more people in the industry, more resources are produced, and naturally the cost is reduced. Many people will also ask such a question, doesn’t that mean giving others the opportunity to copy? This is a false proposition in itself. People who can open source technology have very strong innovation capabilities, so there is no need to worry about being surpassed by others. Well, after saying this, I believe everyone has understood the term open source.

Next, I will talk to you about the more important [smart contract]. The so-called smart contract is also very easy to understand. It is nothing more than the two words "intelligence" and "contract". It refers to the technology of digitizing contracts, agreements or matters to be performed and letting programs execute them intelligently and automatically. What does it mean? Let's take a very simple example and you will understand.

Example:

👉For example, if a certain letter is published on Ethereum in the form of a smart contract, today you borrowed 100 yuan from classmate A in the letter, and the contract stipulates that you must return the money after 3 days. If you don’t return it, you will say in your circle of friends that you are a cheating person.

In the traditional Internet, such a verbal agreement really does not need to be fulfilled because it has no binding force. However, in the blockchain world, a message is published in the form of a smart contract. Then, as stipulated in the contract, if you want to post in your circle of friends that you are a cheating person, it will be automatically executed by the smart contract. At the specified time, your circle of friends will [automatically] publish the specified content, which cannot be tampered with.

After hearing this, everyone should understand what smart contracts are. Vitalik Buterin has attracted countless developers to Ethereum by building a smart contract platform that allows everyone to develop freely, and has moved applications from the traditional Internet to Ethereum. Its smart contract model has solved many problems that the traditional Internet cannot solve. Gradually, Ethereum has come into everyone's field of vision.

2. The Birth of Ethereum

When talking about Ethereum, we must first introduce the founder of Ethereum [Vitalik], V God. V God was exposed to computers when he was 4 to 5 years old, and wrote a simple game in C++ language for his own entertainment when he was 12 years old. Doesn't it feel like a genius boy? This is nothing. At the age of 17, he first came into contact with Bitcoin and was deeply attracted by the [decentralized attribute] of blockchain technology. After that, he invested in the blockchain world and started the establishment of Ethereum.

In the early days of Ethereum construction, the biggest problem Vitalik encountered was funding. Because funds were needed to support the team's work, Vitalik launched a crowdfunding campaign. Surprisingly, the crowdfunding was very successful, raising approximately $18 million at one time. This also laid a solid economic foundation for the birth of Ethereum. With this money, the Ethereum team went all out, and finally, it was officially launched in June 2015.

After Ethereum went online, the first problem that needed to be solved was the writing of smart contracts. Here we have to mention another big figure of Ethereum, that is, Ethereum's CTO, Gavin Wood, who is currently one of the famous cross-chain duo and the founder of Polkadot chain. The [Ethereum Yellow Paper] he wrote invented the [Solidity] language designed specifically for the development of smart contracts, providing the necessary conditions for the prosperity of applications on the Ethereum chain.

It is in such an environment that Ethereum has ushered in its own spring, and various applications have been launched on it, including the largest NFT trading platform [Opensea], decentralized DeFi platform [Uniswap], [Curve], [Aave], etc. With the prosperity of applications, more and more transaction data needs to be packaged and recorded. How does the underlying blockchain protect the security of this data? The answer will be revealed in the next issue.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all for this issue. Welcome to continue to pay attention to the series of 100 essential knowledge points of Web3 Metaverse shared by Uncle Wu. In the next issue, Uncle Wu will talk to you about the indispensable [cryptography] technology among the [four core technologies of blockchain]. Welcome to continue to pay attention.

Follow Uncle Wu, an entrepreneur who has worked in major Web2 companies and is actively heading towards Web3. I look forward to meeting you who share the same ideals as me and exploring the Web3 world together. See you next time!