Why Blockchain?
Blockchain technology and decentralized apps allow for an entirely censorship free version of the internet that cannot be controlled by one single entity,
where all data is stored and kept forever. The following are all advantages of blockchain technology:
- Trustless exchange without requiring a third party
- Longevity (a blockchain like Ethereum would only cease to exist if all the thousands of nodes all decided to stop)
- Durability - unlike a server, blockchain has no central point of failure, and thus isn't susceptible to things like DDOS attacks
- Transactions get processed within seconds or minutes (no waiting a day for a central bank to process a transfer, for example)
Resources to learn more
There is an enormous amount of misinformation and phishing/ICO scams in the area of blockchain technology and Ethereum, so be careful. The following are some useful
resources that helped me learn about this space:
Ethereum Wikipedia page - general overview of Ethereum
Ethereum Reddit page - useful for keeping up with Ethereum news
Ivan on Tech - there are some great videos here discussing how Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies work
aantonop - Talks on Bitcoin and Ethereum from an expert in this area
What The Func - some very helpful and recent video tutorials on coding in Solidity and Web3
Three part tutorial on making a dApp by Mahesh Murthy - this will take you through how to setup a dApp from scratch
Ethereum section of Stack Exchange - ask here for help when you run into problems with dApp development
State of the dApps - directory of decentralized apps like this one