Why I decided to sign up for my first Blockchain Certification

I made a decision awhile ago: becoming serious about Blockchain. Quite an unusual thing you might say. You probably make such a commitment about your career or your relationships. But becoming serious about a technology? What a weirdo I thought to myself!

Well, in a weird way, Blockchain had actually become to me a sort of relationship. A sort of “date” I would have every single day with this beautiful lady that was simple on its surface but beautifully designed in the detail by its cryptographer creators. And I was having this “date” continuously up until the moment I actually had the guts to ask mademoiselle Blockchain to tight the knots of our destiny together and move on. After all, I was thinking about Blockchain day and night. I could hardly spend an entire day without thinking how decentralisation could actually enable a world immensely different from the one I grew up in. I probably lost a few friends along the way who would say “Oh gosh, there he comes with Blockchain again”.

But I ended up finally asking myself. After all this reading, all this “rabbit hole” I was finding myself into, what did I actually know about the basics of this technology?

Its protocol, its basic cryptography principles, its terminology, its mechanisms, its payments systems, its actors, its economics, its community. That’s when I decided to actually cement the foundation of that knowledge I had acquired informally everywhere in the internet, and commit myself seriously to mademoiselle Blockchain. I wanted to have something that I could use as basis to actually build on confidentially overtime.
Below are some of the reasons I decided to pass my first blockchain certification as a way for myself to test the basics of that knowledge I had acquired until then. Not to prove anything to anyone else, but to myself.

Information is dispersed (and sometimes unreliable)

The internet is probably the greatest tool humanity has ever invented to enable the democratisation of knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, but as much as the open knowledge is an awesome invention, it had also its flaws for me. Particularly when it comes to a complex technology that is just at its infancy in terms of use, development and adoption such as Blockchain. For me, the internet was great as an introduction to the rabbit hole of Blockchain. But at the same time, I would easily get lost in that deep hole with few chances of ever coming back, so much the information was dispersed.

And organising all that in my head was no easy task.

Therefore, forcing myself to take a structured approach to get the basics right on the tech was, on the opposite side, a great way to leverage the power of the internet and put the information in the right folders of my brain.

It’s a truly foundational technology

From the time I had my first “Aha” moment when reading about Blockchain technology, I knew I was on to something potentially bigger than a simple peer-to-peer payments system or simply a currency-based technology.

A trustless protocol that could be used by previously unknown parties to transact freely and securely without intermediaries, all while incentivising integrity and protecting sovereignity of individuals seemed to me as certainly something bigger than just another minor technology innovation.

Using smart cryptography to build a decentralised infrastructure from scratch on top of the web is by itself an honorable goal for the developer community.

Blockchain is effectively enabling the next generation of the web, the so-called web 3.0. And that for itself was worth being studied in depth in my view.

You’ll never stop learning

One of the great things about an infant technology is that it’s continously evolving. You never get bored, ever. And as much as I was learning new things everyday, it was hard not to get swamped into the news that focus mostly on market movements and relatively little on the technology.

Therefore, having a good knowledge basis to build on top of was a great way for me to connect the dots between a new technology improvement such as a new ERC standard and what I knew already. It is like creating a huge mind-map where it’s important to connect two pieces of information: the existing and the new. But for all that to occur, a good foundation is essential.

A great way to meet the local Blockchain community

Becoming more serious on your relationship with a technology is also an amazing way of meeting new people. While committing myself to this technology, I was committing myself to get in touch with a great group of really smart people that are all contributing to build the technology from scratch.

And because Blockchain technology is very focused on decentralisation, I found the community both locally and globally to be extremely open to new actors and contributions.

After all, in general, the community sees contribution as a way to increase adoption and innovation in Blockchain, rather than a closed doors approach to innovation that occurs inside traditional businesses. For me, that was definitely a breath of fresh air.

No industry or career path will remain untouched

Last, but not least, once I started grasping where the technology was moving and the use cases that were been worked on, I couldn’t stop thinking how many industries and careers would end up being disrupted by Blockchain.

But contrarily to usual assumption where a new tech kills jobs and creates massive unemployment, I truly believe Blockchain will actually enable an entirely new economy that we can barely imagine its shape at the moment. In this new economy, those entities that are now purely intermediaries (aka middle man) are disintermediated in the benefit of peer to peer networks. As for the shape and direction of those new networks, I think this still a page to be written in the history of our economy.

The great news is that it all depends on us, those that are seriously committed to contribute to this global community of actors in the Blockchain world.

Hence why for me having a foundation layer was so crucial to be able to contribute more effectively to this great community.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and based on his own experience. They do not reflect any absolute truth or the views of his employer. Any views discussed here are opened for discussion with the community in a respectful manner.