“Blockchain explained” and “what is crypto” are popular Google search phrases for a reason. The terms blockchain, bitcoin, and cryptocurrency have been a part of the cultural vocabulary for the past few years – but many people are still trying to grasp the power of these concepts (or just merely understand what they mean). 

According to tech.co, 90 percent of banks in the US and Europe started blockchain-based projects before 2018 and the technology is “predicted to generate an annual business value of over US $175 billion by 2025.” McKinsey Technology Council research from 2022 suggests that “up to 10 percent of the Global GDP could be associated with blockchain-enabled transactions” by 2027. Those stats might sound staggering – so let’s get back to the basics in order to recognize their impact.

Cam Glynn and Anupam Batra are USC Iovine and Young Academy seniors and co-founders of at dubdubdub labs, building a web-browser for blockchains that will simplify user experience. Their idea was a recipient of the 2022 IYA Development Prize competition, which awards funding to original products conceived of by IYA students and teams. Before we get into what their development entails, hear from Batra and Glynn on what exactly blockchains are, how they're important, and why you should get involved. After their explanation, you’ll never have to Google “blockchain definition” again. “Crypto-curious?” Read on!

Many people try to explain blockchain, but not everyone gets it. What’s the simplest way to describe Web3 and blockchain? 

A blockchain is like an online journal; you can post things to it (code, messages, digital tokens) and (using math like cryptography) it will keep an unchangeable record of time-stamped actions. 

This sounds pretty vague and… it kinda is! That’s because there are many different kinds of blockchains – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc., and each blockchain is a unique application of blockchain technology that enables different things.

 The bottom line: blockchains are like an open database of knowledge that anyone can post to but no one can delete or modify from without others knowing.

What are the most important things people should know about blockchains? What are the benefits of understanding it and using it? How do you see blockchains evolving and scaling? 

While decentralization is often touted as the primary benefit of blockchains (and is technologically really cool), we are particularly excited by the ideas of “composability” and “attribution.”

Blockchains function as a public and immutable journal - any code or apps posted to the blockchain are public, unchangeable, and most importantly, extendable. This is the idea of composability. 

And, you can see the original source something was extended from and what was changed. This is attribution. 

If dubdubdub wrote some really cool, well-written code to host a community of foodies, someone could extend a fork off of our work to create their own community of tennis enthusiasts. They could really build on top of our data structure, but their code would always be linked to our original deployment. If they decided to charge for their tennis community, we could also take a share of the profit through a royalty enforced by the on-chain code itself! 

There’s a lot still to be explored and built on top of blockchains. Many game-changing applications could exist in the field of payments, online advertising, artist/media attribution, and more. 

How does cryptocurrency rely on blockchain? For those who can’t differentiate between these two ideas, how would you explain it? 

Cryptocurrency! = blockchain. It’s incredibly important to not conflate the two. 

Cryptocurrency is one application of blockchain technology –  digital tokens managed by publicly available code. In other words, they’re traceable ‘internet money’. Instead of their value coming from a bank (e.g. a centralized entity like the Federal Reserve), cryptocurrencies are backed by usually decentralized entities that don’t require us to put our trust in the people that run them (only requiring us to trust the publicly available rules).

 Crypto relies on the blockchain to act as an immutable transaction journal - using math and cryptography to keep an unchangeable ledger of every transaction. If I sent my tax payment to the IRS with crypto, anyone could check the blockchain and 1) confirm I paid my tax and the amount; and 2) be unable to modify the records. 

 While cryptocurrencies rely on blockchain technology to solve the double spend problem (i.e. you cannot spend the same dollar twice), cryptocurrencies are simply one specific use case for blockchains. 

Can you explain the concept of dubdubdub? Talk about your inspiration and the story behind its inception. 

 dubdubdub is building Dub, a new web browser (like Safari) for blockchains (like Ethereum). While we started out building web3 experiences to bring communities together, we quickly realized how complicated and convoluted it was to use blockchains, especially for new users. 

At the core of this problem was the wallet, the “access layer” for blockchains (i.e., the thing that lets you access blockchains). For the most part, wallets are built as extensions, or plugins you can download, for existing browsers like Google Chrome – band-aids to the browsing experience that enable you to connect to web3. While many can have beautiful interfaces and animations, their functionality and security is limited by the fact that they are simply injecting code into your browser and are not a native method of interacting with blockchains. 

As a result, the basic requirements of using your own wallet requires a deep understanding of blockchain tech and sketchy hacks or workarounds. This is a terrible onboarding experience for new users, a poor experience for knowledgeable users, and particularly painful for the crypto curious. 

We’re uniting the wallet and browser to make blockchains more native to the web, and we’re excited to be launching our first alpha version of Dub in the coming weeks. Check out our progress over at www.experiments.gg. 

You’re trying to make the experience more visible and not an abstract idea. How will a blockchain browser allow people to feel their transactions are more tangible? 

 Since the creation of MetaMask (the leading Ethereum wallet) in 2016, wallets have all followed a nearly identical interface and UX – you can send tokens, receive tokens, see your tokens, and see your transaction history. This made sense in 2016 when the Ethereum blockchain was primarily used for sending a single token (Ether, Ethereum’s native token) between wallets.

 Since then, Ethereum has evolved as a platform for dApps (decentralized applications) with infinite ways for users to interact with blockchains through custom code and logic. However, wallets have not evolved to support this growing ecosystem. They act as a band-aid, injecting code into your web browser to try and make an app that wasn’t built to interact with the blockchain do so. 

 Besides the security gaps this creates, anyone interacting with blockchains is made to feel like a second-class citizen, using a sketchy add-on to the internet rather than its own application. And even though there’s over 10 trillion plus dollars moving around on blockchains, the tool we use to access them today is still a plugin. 

We’re working to change that -- to unite the wallet and the browser into a single application that makes interacting with blockchains native. Because we’re building the browser for blockchains from the ground up, we can handle security and tech stuff behind the scenes and focus on letting you do what you want to do - use apps. 

What are some blockchain trends, advances, or wins you have seen in your research? 

 One of the biggest things we’ve learned through our research is that while our current target audience may be smaller than before, it’s certainly stronger than before. While the churn of crypto-curious users over the past 12 months hasn’t been ideal (lots of people leaving), the remaining power users share a fiery passion for using blockchains. We’re excited to empower these folks to be more effective with their interactions on the chain while welcoming a new class of crypto users over the next few years.  

Anything else you would like to share that would help people better navigate this world?

The most exciting part of using blockchains is the cool applications that blockchains unlock. Truly, we think the best way to get started is to find a blockchain app (dApp) you’re excited about trying and dive in. And hopefully, you’ll use Dub to do that :)

“Blockchain explained” and “what is crypto” are popular Google search phrases for a reason. The terms blockchain, bitcoin, and cryptocurrency have been a part of the cultural vocabulary for the past few years – but many people are still trying to grasp the power of these concepts (or just merely understand what they mean).

Breaking Down Blockchain: A Tech Primer For the “Crypto-Curious”