Blockchain developers’ guide to navigating the future of Web3

Being in the blockchain space feels like we oscillate between dizzying whirlwinds of confusion and vomit-inducing whiplash — and on rare occasions, if you’re lucky — all of that is punctuated by short bursts of quixotic optimism and euphoria.

…and if you’ve gone through those stages multiple times over the years, yet still keep coming back for more like a crazy maniac, you’re likely addicted to that sweet dopamine rush of the potential satisfaction of capitalizing on a bunch of nascent, cutting-edge technologies that most people don’t even fully understand yet.

Heck, even the tiny coterie of awkward nerds and authors of those very technologies, despite being considered “industry thought leaders” — don’t even understand the future implications of their very creations.

Yes, I’m talking about industry leaders & people who invented the tech here — so if you’re some muggle living a fairly mundane life like most of humanity, other than maybe hearing a few superficial references to “blockchain” from your friends or on social media — you’ve got even less of a chance of attempting to understand any of it, despite zealous claims of “blockchain” being THE future or the “most disruptive technology” of our generation.

In other words, our technologies have outpaced our ability, as an industry (and as a society) to understand them — and things are only going to accelerate — so, expect more dizzying whirlwinds & whiplash.

Now, if you’re a blockchain developer that’s constantly learning, and building cool tools and projects, you probably have a much better chance of predicting the future than your average street psychic.

I mean…

Hacking your fingers to the bone and spending lonely sleepless nights trying to figure out how to build something useful, and being proactive about shaping the future of Web3 does have some hard-earned benefits, after all.

But, don’t get too overconfident, either.

This isn’t about developers getting the future right.

This is a tiny bit about developers being nostalgic about the past, and being unable to see the future because they’re irrationally high on hopium, yes.

But, it’s mostly about what developers can do to avoid getting the future of Web3 wrong.

Plus, let’s not forget…

History doesn’t necessarily repeat, but it sure does rhyme

You see…

History is rife with endless examples and case studies of the most qualified experts getting the very thing their expertise is supposed to prevent them from getting wrong, dead wrong.

Thus…

If history is any indication, it’s those closest to a given technology who are least likely to predict its ultimate use.

Remember when Ken Olson, the former engineer turned co-founder & president of one of the world’s largest and most successful computer companies, Digital Equipment Corporation, said there was “no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home” first in 1977 — then later in a September 1981 edition of “Creative Computing,” and despite Microsoft & Apple proving him wrong, STILL stubbornly held the same belief throughout the 1980s?

…or that one time when former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told USA Today there was “no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”

The video version of Ballmer is even more entertaining.

That definitely didn’t age well 😅

Now…

Consider the fact that many blockchain developers are exhausted, overworked, myopic to their technology stack, and of course, underappreciated — not cool.

…and then, sprinkle a wee bit of availability bias, and a tiny dash of confirmation bias, and if you’re an “influencer” — don’t forget about the overzealous degens that stroke your ego daily like you’re some low-budget crypto Jesus engineering the second coming through code.

This means the good ole’ overconfidence effect is also at play here.

All of a sudden, you’re trapped inside a filter bubble (curated by dusty, dispassionate supercomputers) without even being aware of it — and by you, I mean WE as I am also including myself in this insanity.

We also cannot forget the fact that, per the sunk cost fallacy, instead of admitting fault or cutting one’s losses, people are also prone to doubling down on a losing idea or project, or tech stack, until it’s too late.

We have two classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.

—John Galbraith, Economist

Also…

Everyone knows that Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877.

But, what almost no one knows is that it took a self-taught engineer named Eldridge Reeves Johnson to realize the phonograph’s potential to bring music into every family parlor and saloon.

Johnson founded Victor Records in 1901 and started hiring famous performers like Enrico Caruso to join his label.

Edison may have invented the phonograph, but Johnson did something far more significant: he invented the recording industry, yet no one knows about him.

More people know about the Kardashians than about my boy Eldridge.

It’s a real shame 😞

So…

Just because one is considered an industry expert (like Olson, Ballmer, etc) — or in this case, the actual, literal inventor of a piece of technology (Edison) — it does not necessarily mean they’re the one that will bring it to mainstream adoption OR even understand its place in the world.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the bigger picture when you’re too inside your own frame 🖼️

So, it’s healthy to have a bit of skepticism and not get too overzealous about listening to or following experts — including in the blockchain space.

An experienced specialist may be among the last to see what is really happening when events take a new and unexpected turn.

When faced with a major paradigm shift, analysts who know the most about a subject have the most to unlearn.

— Richards Heuer, Central Intelligence Agency

Now…

If your confidence level in the entire concept of expertise hasn’t started to slowly erode, keep reading — because, at the very least, I’m hoping to take it down a few more notches by the time you get to the end of this.

In the meantime…

I’m going to share some interesting, counterintuitive insights & heuristics that should help you gain an unfair advantage in improving your future prediction power in the wild wild blockchain west — especially if you’re a blockchain developer building the future of the digital economy.

Before we move on…

Here’s the first key tip you should incorporate into your frame of mind:

💡 Pay extra attention to and identify all the biases you are committing on autopilot every day, and make a conscious effort to minimize them.

The question isn’t IF you’re committing any, rather, the question is: to which degree are you committing these?

It’s not easy to identify— so make it a lifelong homework assignment.

While that’s simmering in the back of your mind… next up… let’s explore…

The mysterious (and magical) phenomenon of emergence and how it will shape the future of blockchain & web3

We all have our version of what we think is going to happen in the future — but, in reality, most of our predictions have either never materialized or have been completely wrong.

But, at least in a general, macro sense — if you’re reading this, it would be safe to assume that you have a strong conviction that blockchain will play some crucial role in our future.

If so, I agree.

But, that doesn’t mean blockchain technologies are going to take a linear path or evolve gradually, either.

If you think deeply held beliefs about blockchain technologies are going to evolve gradually over time, sort of like the nerd equivalent of natural selection, I got news for you, buttercup…

That ain’t gonna be the case.

That’s not even how evolution among living organisms works.

In both cases (deeply held beliefs & natural selection) — long periods of relative stability in an ecosystem are followed by sudden and violent upheaval triggered by a rapid change in external circumstances, like the rise of disruptive new technologies like blockchain.

In evolutionary biology, these chaotic transitions are called periods of speciation — and they’re NOT pretty.

In my opinion, blockchain ecosystems, technologies & models used to build those ecosystems, and our collective beliefs & philosophies underpinning all of those are also going through a similar transition.

…and at the heart of what drives all of this change is a mysterious & magical phenomenon known as emergence.

Emergence is what happens, when a multitude of little things — neurons, bacteria, individuals — exhibit properties beyond the ability of any single individual, simply through the act of making a few basic, binary choices like left or right? buy or sell? solidity or CosmWasm? ethereum or Cosmos? blockchain or SQL? taylor swift or doja cat?

You get the idea.

Despite being unaware of it, it’s happening within us, around us, and all over the entire cosmos… at all times.

Ant colonies are a classic example of emergence in action since the collective intelligence of the colony is exponentially greater than each individual ant.

The colony can detect food, know when to take evasive action, and even know the exact number of ants that need to be deployed to forage food or ward off an attack.

Your Brain is another example.

Each neuron isn’t conscious or very smart on its own, but when connected together, the collective intelligence is so powerful and conscious that you can even think about thinking!

Blockchains are another example.

The governance & economic design, consensus algorithm, security model, the collective values of the community, and every binary decision made by everyone including each developer & community member involved — all contribute to catalyzing emergent behavior.

The more you study emergence the better you get at spotting it in everyday life.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

For our purposes, all we need to know is that…

Any system that exhibits these attributes is known as an emergent system — which again, are systems that start with simple parts making simple choices, then eventually evolve into a complex whole that is exponentially more complicated than the sum of all of the simple parts that originally started it all.

…and here’s the mysterious part about it:

The trajectory of emergent systems is virtually impossible to predict because they are changeless and changing, constant and fluctuating, persistent and shifting, inevitable and unpredictable all at the same freakin’ time — so, basically, a freeze frame of how blockchain ecosystems have evolved, will evolve, and are currently evolving right before your eyes.

You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on.

— Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

Emergence is one of the key reasons why Ken Olson, Steve Ballmer, and even Thomas Edison got the future dead wrong.

So, here’s the second key tip & heuristic you should incorporate into your thought process:

💡 Pay attention to and uncover all of the emergent properties and attributes of the system you’re interacting with and see how you can influence them — especially if you’re a blockchain developer building the future of the digital economy.

Because, all of your “inconsequential” binary decisions, like which technologies should you use, what should you build with those technologies, and whom should you align with, etc. will most definitely cascade into something completely different & unpredictable as time passes.

I mentioned that blockchains exhibit emergent behavior, but have you ever noticed that…

Blockchains are like cities

To understand anything blockchain-related, it’s helpful to have a simple, easy-to-understand mental model based on common attributes of their behavior.

So, to relate it to the real world…

Ethereum is like New York City, because it’s expensive and congested, and is a hotspot for the wealthy since all the hottest brands, DAOs, NFTs, and celebrities are there.

Application-specific chains (i.e: Polkadot and Cosmos) are like a group of small towns, where each town specializes in one thing, like a mining town, a farming town, or a town full of boutique shops — and all of those are connected along a convenient, easily accessible highway system.

Then we have Solana, Avalanche, and NEAR, which are brand-new cities built from scratch to attract a certain type of developer or user.

The point is:

Each city has a different vision of what a city should be and how it should be governed based on the collective values of its developers & community.

In the real world, yes, we have a LOT of cities around the world, but it’s still a finite number.

Similarly, Web3 is also going to follow a similar trajectory, thus the future of blockchain is going to be multi-chain — which means we’ll have a LOT of different interconnected blockchains, but the number of blockchains in existence would still be finite in the same way the number of cities in the real world is finite.

Note: I got the blockchains are cities analogy from

, and it happens to be my current favorite — but I reckon it has been floating around for quite a while, like on Cosmos Hub is a Port City, etc. — regardless, I recommend you read all of them, you know… in the interest of getting wicked smahht.

By the way…

If you have a better analogy than blockchains are cities, improvements to this analogy, or perhaps a city comparison (or a joke… related…) to your favorite blockchain with an explanation of parallels, let me know in the comments below.

In the meantime, speaking of cities…

Let’s approach emergence from the perspective of how a city develops… from the ground up.

Recall the last time you took a peek through a window while you were in an airplane up high in the sky — ideally right after takeoff or right before landing — and remember how the city below you looked from up above.

From the scale of an entire city, humans are just like ants, scurrying to and fro making small-scale, binary decisions all day long — which is why cities can be such interesting places with unique vibes & personalities of their own.

To give you an analogy…

If you look at a map of a major city like Paris, it looks ugly, disorganized, and very messy:

Conversely, if you look at a city like Brasilia, things look modern, organized, and quite neat:

Where would you live or go on vacation, if you had to choose?

Paris or Brasilia?

Taylor Pearson brought up this example (which was originally proposed by James Scott) to highlight an interesting perspective on the evolution (emergent) of systems:

Though Brasilia looks beautiful and elegant on a map, the result in the words of one resident is that “the city center feels markedly devoid of life in plazas, where the pigeons far outnumber the people.”

From the planner’s perspective, it should be better, yet, it’s less popular and worse.

Similar to the best crypto networks, the best cities where people want to live (like Paris) are compelling from a bottom-up perspective, not a top-down one.

Despite their unsightly appearance on a map, people actually want to live there and so the cities continue to grow and thrive.

— Taylor Pearson

In other words, Brasilia was planned top-down and built with rigid, inflexible beliefs & models intended to exert more control.

…and Paris was built with loose, flexible beliefs & models with faith that people’s individual, binary decisions & the universal principles of emergence would take care of the rest.

Thus, Paris is a thriving, vibrant ecosystem, but Brasilia isn’t.

So, then, the question becomes, what are the most important variables in cultivating the blockchain equivalent of Paris, and how can you, as an individual influence & contribute in a way that would not only make a meaningful difference to your ecosystem but would also help you thrive as well?

It’s a great question, and we’re going to figure that out together by exploring…

How to futureproof what you’re building — or at least TRY not to make the wrong choice

Now, if you’re a lot more skeptical about anyone (including me!) claiming to know what will happen in the future, that’s a significant sign — because it means we’ve made progress, and I’ve trained you well 😉

With that said…

I’m going to give you my take on the general direction of what the future of blockchain will probably look like, and of course, you should be skeptical of me too — but, take everything I’ve said above into account & consider it, then use your reasoning faculties before deciding.

…and if you vehemently disagree with me, please let me know why in the comments below because we’re all figuring this stuff out together.

Alrighty then… before we continue, let’s do a quick review.

So far, we’ve learned that:

1. Unless you’re aware of all the potential biases you could fall victim to and are actively trying to minimize them in your thought process, self-deception & lack of self-awareness are the default state(s) for most humans.
2. History is full of countless examples of industry experts, and even the very inventors of certain technologies, getting the future & the uses of their own technologies dead wrong.
3. Blockchain ecosystems behave like cities, and since living in a multi-city world is obvious now, by inference, we’re likely going to be living in a multi-chain world as well.
4. Emergence is cool AF and results from simple units of things making simple binary decisions, which eventually leads to an unpredictable whole system that’s far more complex than those simple things that started it — and it’s an always active process.
5. Blockchain ecosystems also exhibit emergent properties, and the collective beliefs & actions of each individual developer & community member will result in an unpredictable (at least under the hood, not from a UI/UX standpoint for the end-user, which would get simpler — and I’ll talk about this in the future) & virtually unrecognizable version as time passes.

As I mentioned earlier…

Just as each city reflects its collective vision & values, blockchain ecosystems are also a reflection of the collective vision & values of each individual developer & community member in that ecosystem.

Plus, we already saw how it’s virtually impossible to predict the future or the behavior of any emergent system.

Then, what is one to do in this bewildering blockchain fun house full of smoke and mirrors?

It’s hard out there for a pimp.

Do you just give up?

OF COURSE NOT, CHAMP.

In my opinion, the most important variable to consider if you’re a blockchain developer is whether your personal values and vision of the future are in alignment with the people, communities, and technologies you decide to collaborate with — not just hypothetically, but actually encoded into the very fabric of your chain & ecosystem from the ground up so they’re less prone to any funny business.

For example…

Taking everything above into consideration, we are contributing to Archway with a singular focus on making developers the superstars of their creations by flipping the existing economic models (and how the dapp creators get rewarded) on their big ole’ fat heads.

We believe we are in the middle of a phase transition in the blockchain space, and Archway’s rewards model for developers is paradigm-changing to the point of potentially making existing models in the industry unsustainable for dapp developers because we’ve baked everything into the very fabric of the protocol from the start.

Which means…

Archway is the best place for launching decentralized projects (and smart contracts) on a global scale while earning automagic, built-in rewards ✨

Our vision & values revolve around the importance of making developers & dapps the center of the economic model that drives everything.

…and by getting the rewards model right, we believe all of the emergent properties make Archway the best place for developers to launch their decentralized app or contract on a global scale from one convenient launchpad — with greater reach and less friction.

That’s it.

Get the rewards model right & put developers in the driving seat — and we trust the universal principles of emergence to make Archway the blockchain equivalent of Paris.

But, it doesn’t have to be Archway either because, the fact of the matter is, I don’t know what your values or vision of the future is… and it might be entirely different from ours.

If that’s the case — all good, too.

Different values & visions are always a good thing in the aggregate since we’ll live in a multi (but finite) chain world, anyway.

Plus, by now… it should be self-evident to you that this is less about picking one thing, and more about improving your thinking & decision-making process so you’re at least directionally correct about the future.

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving — we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

―Oliver Wendell Holmes

This brings us to my final tip, which is to:

💡Identify and clarify your personal vision & values of what you think the future should look like, then stick to your guns and only collaborate with technologies, ecosystems, and people that strictly align with them.

You see…

A single drop of water doesn’t think it’s responsible for a flood, but it is💧

A single snowflake doesn’t think it’s responsible for an avalanche, but it is ❄️️

Similarly…

A single individual or developer might not think they’re responsible for shaping the future of blockchain, but as I’ve demonstrated above, that certainly isn’t the case.

Because you, as an individual or a lone developer, have a LOT more power & influence than you think, and your choices — even the ones you think are inconsequential — will play a critical role in the exciting, emergent future of blockchain.

So, choose wisely 😉

Archway is the best way for developers to launch decentralized apps & smart contracts on a global scale while earning automagic, on-chain rewards.

If you’d like to stay in the loop with what we’re building — be sure to sign up for Our Newsletter and join the Archway community via Our Twitter & Our Discord.

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