A Speakeasy on the Metaverse
And other technical terms
This week, I joined the "Invisible College" Discord — a community of Decentralians focused on building a learning DAO for Web3. If you have no idea what that sentence means you're not alone. The first description that comes to mind for me is, I've joined a kind of speakeasy on the metaverse. Everyone's gathered in this semi-secret location. Like everyone knows it's behind a red door but you have to actually find the red door Discord link and say a secret word introduce yourself before you can access the full experience. People gather with one common purpose: to wrap their minds around alcohol something pretty esoteric.
One of my favorite parts of discovering this brave new world is learning the associated lingo.
Here's a sneak-peak of my favorite Web3 terminology to date: what I thought it meant and actual definitions. Thinking about writing a whole glossary. Let me know your thoughts.
Utility
Thought it meant: gas, heating, and electric. Or poetry. As in the words of the poet laureate who maintained poetry should arrive in one's mailbox daily, like a utility bill.
Actual definition: Something that makes NFTs useful? See "10 Types of NFT Utility Explained."
Custodial Wallet
Thought it meant: the wallet Britney Spears had to request permission to access pre-#FreeBritney.
Actual definition: "If a third party controls your private keys, then the wallet is a custodial wallet." (Still sounds vaguely comparable to Britney Spears' situation tbh.)
Smart Contracts
Thought it Meant: Something you actually read before you sign, e.g. a lease, versus something you only pretend to read, e.g. Terms and Conditions.
Actual definition: A "self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code."
Which begs the question, what would have happened if Spears' conservatorship were executed on the blockchain?
Yours in lifelong learning,
Alicia