The Dev Migration — Leaving Web2 for Web3

The Dev Migration — Leaving Web2 for Web3

An interview with Varsha Mahadevan, Software Engineering Manager

In the final six months, Google searches for ‘Web3’ have grown greater than 33x as individuals start to look into the motion in direction of decentralization. This time period has turn into synonymous with a extra clear and equitable method for people to take part in constructing the following era of purposes and platforms that can form how we reside, work, and work together with one another. To higher perceive what’s happening behind the scenes, we spoke with Varsha Mahadevan, to dive into why builders are leaving Web2 for Web3 tasks.

Varsha spent the previous 20 years working as a developer constructing prime quality merchandise at Microsoft and BankBazaar.com earlier than becoming a member of Coinbase as a Software Engineering Manager.

COINBASE: Developers are leaving Web2 for Web3 in droves. Why do you assume that is?

VARSHA: Data shared in a current report by Electric Capital, signifies {that a} majority of the builders which can be presently constructing in Web3 simply entered the area final yr. A giant motive behind why we’re seeing this mass migration of Web2 builders into Web3 is as a result of builders love being on the bleeding fringe of all innovation.

Web3 is shaping as much as be a courageous new world with prospects nobody imagined would exist only a few years in the past. The ecosystem of protocols, instruments, and providers that energy Web3 growth are nonetheless nascent. It is pure that Web3 attracts the brightest minds that search to form this future.

COINBASE: What are the largest variations and similarities you see between Web2 and Web3?

VARSHA: When it involves Web2 vs Web3 structure, the idea of using distributed methods isn’t solely new or revolutionary. What’s essentially totally different between Web2 and Web3 boils right down to values.

Web1 was a world large internet consisting largely of content material shoppers and solely a choose few content material creators whereas Web2 opened the doorways to consumer generated content material and introduced a big emphasis on usability and interoperability. However, this got here at the price of relinquishing management of consumer’s id and knowledge and as an alternative put that energy and management within the fingers of a choose few.

Web3 is the evolution of the world large internet which has been outlined as learn, write, and personal, and goals to allow customers to have possession over the content material they create — and tasks they construct. In Web3, no single entity controls the community and everybody can take part in a trustless surroundings that’s ruled by a set of consensus protocols. Users are, as an alternative, empowered with transparency and verifiable ensures of the info they obtain and ship with out placing their belief in any central authority. These grounding values make Web3 a extra equitable web for contributors and builders alike.

COINBASE: What does it imply for a developer to have possession over their product within the Web3 world?

VARSHA: In a decentralized world there’s a paradigm shift in how builders assume and design merchandise. Products are constructed to be self-sustaining with out the necessity for possession and authority. In the world of Ethereum, merchandise are constructed as good contracts that are deployed as immutable transactions. The conventional notion of versioning merchandise doesn’t precisely exist. Newer and higher good contracts will be constructed as new merchandise.

COINBASE: What form of incentives and benefits are there for Web2 builders to affix a Web3 firm like Coinbase?

VARSHA: In my opinion, Coinbase is on the forefront of innovation in all the core product areas of Web3, viz. CryptoCurrency, DeFi, NFT, DAO. It really believes in making these straightforward, safe and accessible to every body, cross borders and geographies. While it chases these lofty objectives, it’s deeply rooted in its engineering, infrastructure, and machine studying investments. This to me is an ideal mix and arduous to withstand for people with an urge for food for challenges.

Companies like Coinbase additionally supply builders an excellent place to be taught and strengthen their abilities whereas studying from among the finest and the brightest builders in Web3. Coinbase particularly additionally has a recently-implemented Project 10% initiative that invests in employee-led ventures.

COINBASE: What does the Web3 tech stack look like?

For Web2 builders, it’s vital to know the present Web3 tech stack, which consists of

• Layer 1 blockchains (Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, NEAR, Tezos, Fantom, Polkadot)
• Layer 2s & sidechains (ZK Sync, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism)
• Developer Environments (Hardhat, Truffle, Foundry, Anchor)
• File Storage (IPFS, ARweave, FIlecoin),
• APIs (indexing & querying),
• Identity (Wallet Connect, Ceramic Self ID)
• Clients (web3.js, Ethers.js, Anchor)

This tech stack presently powers a 2 hundred billion greenback market cap that’s led by two main classes: decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Across DeFi and NFTs, protocols and good contracts are the spine of creating all of it work, and plenty of of them are constructed utilizing programming languages equivalent to Solidity, Rust, and Web.js.

Simply put, Web2’s ‘backend technologies’ are the protocols of Web3.

The Dev Migration — Leaving Web2 for Web3 was initially revealed in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, the place individuals are persevering with the dialog by highlighting and responding to this story.