Cryptocurrencies are strange: they are the marriage of economics and computer science. Since graduating with an economics degree in 2019, I have spent the last two years exploring these novel technologies. I felt comfortable enough approaching it from an economics perspective: I applied the concepts of money, incentives and game theory that I had been studying for the past few years.
But I found that my programming and computer science background was heavily lacking, and that mastery in both economics and computer science is needed to fully engage with the technology at a nuts-and-bolts level.
So during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time programming- I learnt Python, I learnt HTML, JavaScript, React and static-site generators. I taugh myself Go and began to pick up some rudimentary algorithms and data structures.
In addition to that, I also learnt a lot about cryptocurrencies. In particular, I worked through the highly recommended 'Mastering' series by Andreas Antonopoulos, which includes Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum and Mastering the Lightning Network.
Of the plethora of cryptocurrencies that exist today, I am certainly most interested in Bitcoin (and Lighting) and Ethereum.
Whilst I find the idea of a general programable blockchain, like Ethereum, to be absolutely fascinating in its limitless potential for a variety of use cases. Decentralized Finance ('DeFi') and Non-Fungible Tokens ('NFTs') are only two of the possibilites we have dreamed up. But I have certain concerns about Ethereum's scaling solutions. Currrently, Ethereum layer 1 is clogged with transactions, forcing users to pay high fees to interact with the network. For example, consider the ConstitutionDAO fiasco where over $1 million in fees were paid in total for a $49.8 million failed bid, and the median donor lost about 50% of their contribution to deposit and withdrawal fees.
There are various layer 2 Ethererum solutions in their infancy, such as Zero Knowledge Rollups and Optimistic Rollups. In addition, the mythical ETH 2.0 includes sharding as a potential remedy to growing pains. But none of these solutions are being widely used at the moment, and the result is an Ethereum network like a busy Johannesburg highway at 4PM in the afternoon, with little thoroughfare and a lot of irritable users.
And so in more recent times, my attention has shifted towards the Lightning Network, which in my opinion is an absolutely ingenous layer 2 solution. It inherits all the security primitives of its layer 1, the Bitcoin network, whilst enabling instant confirmation and microtransactions. In my economist's head, Bitcoin and Lightning respectively also corresponds nicely with the idea of clearing and settling transactions.
As cryptocurrencies continue to bleed into the mainstream, the issue of scaling these technologies will become increasingly important. I won't try to comprehensively weigh up the scaling possibilities and options for Ethereum and Bitcoin here. Such a discussion deserves an entire series of articles. Suffice to say that they are both definitive blue chip cryptocurrencies in the space, with slightly different use-cases and applications. And I intend to explore both of them with lightness and curiousity.