Mark Simpson and a guest explain how to start with crypto, distinguishing between centralized exchanges like Coinbase (needed to buy and sell) and true Web3 wallets like MetaMask where you control your own account with a private key. They use Airbnb as an analogy for how decentralization removes middlemen.
Questions this video answers
12 words (described as '12 magic words').
The first question that I want to just throw back to yourself, obviously you talked about MetaMask, which is a, which is a chrome extension that you can do, but you can go get started on. But what's your views on some of the most even simpler programs to get on? For example, Coinbase has been in the news recently. It's a crypto platform that you can change Fiat into cryptocurrency. It's currently at its ipo. It's currently been in the news. What are your views on companies like that? Do you, do you use them, do you endorse them, or do you have a different view?
We need those companies, at least for now, to get your dollars, euros or whatever you have into crypto, right? So they are the owner amps into crypto and that's it. And after you've done that, you don't really need them anymore. Of course. I suppose that if you get into this thing and you're going to buy tokens, you're probably not going to buy one and forget you're going to buy many. So it's the on ramp and off ramp at the same time, right? You could maybe earn some tokens because you help a company or a project in the Web3 space and then you want to sell it for dollars. You need to go through these guys. So they are the gatekeepers between Fiat, we call it like Fiat Money is like currencies and crypto. Right. And they are an important part of the, of the whole ecosystem. They are centralized. That means they're just normal companies. One thing which I can say is that if you go on Coinbase and you start buying Bitcoin or stuff, and then you buy and sell and you stay there, you won't learn basically anything. Because this is not like coinbase is not web 3, okay? It's a bank selling you crypto. Okay? So when you start really learning, understanding what's going to happen and is when you are on your browser and you installed MetaMask, right? What is MetaMask? So today when you open an account on a new website, they ask you for your login and password, right? And then they own your account. So if the company shuts down, the account is gone. If they close your account, the account is gone. So you are opening an account on each and every website. Or maybe you use Facebook Connect or Google Connect and then Google or Facebook owns the account. Right now MetaMask is basically an account. Okay? I'm going to try to keep it really simple. You build your account on MetaMask and you own this account, okay? Your login and password is not an email and a password. It's 12 magic words. And I'm going to use the word magic because it's maybe, you know, it's easier. So those words are a private key, are a password, right? Now, you create an account with the MetaMask, and then you connect to, let's say, the Airbnb or Web3, whatever that's going to be, right? You don't need to open an account with them. You just say, okay, Airbnb, Web3, use my MetaMask account. And then you give out. It's easier. You connect to this in basically 5 seconds instead of 2 minutes to open an account. And then with the same MetaMask account, you go to a thousand other websites and you never open a new account. Okay? So this is the first thing. So you take away the account ownership from them and you bring it to yourself. That's the core aspect of this. And that changes everything. Because suppose that your account in Airbnb is actually yours and you decide to stop working with them. You take with you all your reviews, you take with you all your bookings, you take with you all your listings, right? Because they are all connected to your own account and not to their account. So if today I have to build my listings in Booking and in Airbnb and in vrbo, and then I have to use some service to synchronize them in Web three, I build my listings on the Internet, okay? And I'm not going to say on the blockchain, doesn't matter. The blockchain is part of the Internet. So I build my listings on the Internet. They are connected to my own account. Nobody can stop this. Nobody can take it away. And I'm going to tell, okay, booking, Web three, you can use my listings, or maybe you can use half of my listings, okay, Airbnb and Web3, you can use my listings. And then you say, okay, you can't use them anymore. And then the RBO the same, and your reviews are connected to the listings which are connected to you. So the OTA becomes much thinner. Their job becomes to bring you customers, maybe to bring you a better interface, but they don't own you. You are a citizen of the Web. You're not anymore a renter. You're not anymore. Okay, let's go there. It's like when the United States, sorry, the Americas were discovered, or we Europeans discovered them. And Europe was in a future system where people had no rights. There was no rule of law. And then some of them decided to go to this new continent where rule of law was at the base of everything, right? And things went pretty well. It's the same process today in web 2. We are in a future environment where there are a few kinks who own everything. They are incredibly rich, and we own nothing. We get some money from transactions, but we don't own much in this land. So we're gonna go to web3 as a new land. Sorry if I'm becoming a bit biblical here, but that's actually the best way to explain it for me. And on that new land, we own our own stuff, right?
Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee? Like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf? Those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.
