New Breaking the Circle Effect? A Review of Web3 Education Projects Worth Noticing

Written by: veDAO Research Institute

In the crypto world, exchanges have long taken on the bulk of user education: they allocate a portion of transaction fees to user education efforts, achieving an ecological loop in the process of attracting and converting users. However, any industry needs to establish a mature entry and learning system, and this is especially true for the Web3 industry, which is still in its early stages and involves asset security. For the billions of users in Web2, the user base of Web3 is still very small, indicating that there is significant room for development in Web3. However, the barriers and difficulties for Web2 users to enter Web3 are not small, and Web3 education is one of the solutions to this problem.

Today, the on-chain ecosystem is continuously exploding, and users' learning needs are rapidly beginning to show characteristics of specialization and systematization. Simple articles for popular science can no longer meet user needs. At the same time, the number of industry participants is experiencing explosive growth: including enthusiasts and practitioners of technology or projects, the continuous increase in these participants has also brought more demand for Web3 education.

As a result, more and more Web3 education platforms have emerged in recent years, either providing systematic technical education courses, establishing Web3 learning systems through gamification, helping ordinary users enter Web3 more conveniently, or supplying professionals to Web3. Many top investment institutions have already noticed the potential of the Web3 education track and have begun to increase their investment in this field. This includes the collaboration announced on May 18 between Animoca Brands and Hooked Protocol, and institutions like Binance, DCG, A16z, and Sequoia have been gradually laying out in this track.

In previous articles, the veDAO Research Institute introduced Binance's Web3 education protocol, Open Campus. So, what other projects in the Web3 education track are worth paying attention to? This article categorizes the projects in this track into three types for sorting and introduction.

Classification of Web3 Education Projects

At this stage, Web3 education platforms are basically composed of centralized and decentralized platforms. The advantage of centralized platforms lies in their operation, while the highlight of decentralized platforms is their incentive systems. Web3 education platforms can be roughly divided into three categories: general popularization, L2E (Learning to Earn) platforms, and course education.

General Popularization

Any user entering Web3 needs to understand concepts, project introductions, and other industry basic knowledge, which are usually provided to users in the form of articles. Most of these platforms are launched by industry giants with the purpose of attracting users, having a certain trading orientation, but they have long maintained a good standard in terms of the richness and timeliness of popular science information, still playing a significant role in helping users learn basic knowledge.

Binance Academy

An open learning center under Binance, aimed at providing a one-stop service for learning resources related to crypto and blockchain, open to everyone. Users can schedule learning about blockchain and cryptocurrencies completely free of charge. The academy aims to popularize blockchain information dissemination, allowing blockchain enthusiasts to learn and acquire blockchain-related knowledge independently. Binance Academy provides relevant educational courses in the form of articles and videos, addressing the current fragmentation of blockchain and cryptocurrency content on the internet.

CoinMarketCap Alexandria

CoinMarketCap Alexandria is a cryptocurrency and blockchain education platform created by CoinMarketCap. Its goal is to gather all information about cryptocurrencies so that anyone can find relevant knowledge about what they are interested in, anywhere. It is an online knowledge base containing articles about cryptocurrencies and blockchain, written by researchers at CoinMarketCap, along with annotations of crypto-related terms.

Bitwave

Bitwave is a provider of CPE and news in the crypto accounting and finance industry, offering Web3, DeFi, accounting, and financial communication services aimed at crypto accountants. It aims to connect thought leaders in finance and accounting with professionals working in or entering the crypto field.

Overall, these educational platforms are more like traditional content publishing platforms, although some have begun to collaborate with project parties to provide users with certain rewards. For example, Binance Academy offers its new users the opportunity to learn blockchain knowledge and earn cryptocurrency by watching video courses and then taking quizzes to earn rewards. If this form is further integrated with the economic model of Web3, it becomes the current L2E education platform.

L2E Platforms

Learning to Earn is a relatively popular learning method in the crypto field recently. These L2E platforms act as a bridge between crypto projects and users, where crypto projects provide cryptocurrencies and interaction requirements, and L2E platforms create tutorials based on those requirements. Users then learn according to the tutorials and earn cryptocurrencies or NFTs, etc.

Alchemy University

Alchemy University is a Web3 learning platform launched in collaboration between the blockchain development platform Alchemy and its acquired educational startup ChainShot. The bootcamp content includes cryptography, Solidity development, smart contract security, proxy contracts, and delegated calls. It serves as both a Web3 development course and a complete ecosystem for building skills and networks.

Learnoverse

Learnoverse is an educational metaverse platform launched by BitDegree. It seeks to use blockchain to issue scholarships, preserve teaching video content, and provide certificates. Learnoverse focuses on crypto and blockchain education and plans to build its own crypto learning metaverse by combining a Learn & Earn system, thereby providing crypto-native educational concepts for learners, instructors, crypto companies, and influencers.

Hooked Protocol

Hooked is a Web3 education project that helps more users from outside the circle enter Web3 by providing immersive, gamified, and social learning experiences. It is the 29th project on Binance's Launchpad. Hooked encourages more users to start their Web3 journey from an educational perspective. This protocol offers gamified learning experiences and incentive designs to achieve large-scale adoption of Web3. Among them, Hooked Academy provides intuitive video education solutions for Web3 users while also developing its community through a social recommendation mechanism.

Questbook

Questbook is a tool for donations and bounties for Web3 builders, and it has also launched a decentralized academy to help developers learn coding in Web3, covering free coding knowledge on Ethereum, Solana, NEAR, and Polygon. After completing tasks, users can also receive NFT rewards.

Open Campus

Open Campus is a platform that combines educational creation with blockchain technology, allowing educators to create and share their innovative teaching materials. Students can choose the corresponding materials to study based on their needs, characterized by community creation, ownership, and promotion of content they want to understand globally. Educators can earn income through this protocol and gain recognition from learners and the platform for their contributions. For a detailed introduction, refer to:

Course Education

In the past, most crypto practitioners adapted to work requirements through self-study, which was difficult and inefficient. Developers usually exchanged technical knowledge in specific forums, while marketers and content creators were scattered across various small circles. Subsequently, some universities began offering open courses on crypto, such as Princeton University, MIT, and Stanford University, which gained widespread popularity due to their forward-thinking and practical nature, cultivating a large number of blockchain developer student teams. At the same time, Web3-native course education platforms have begun to emerge, providing professional and systematic skill courses to help users seek employment opportunities in the industry.

Blockchain at Berkeley

Blockchain at Berkeley is a student organization at the University of California, Berkeley, founded in October 2016 by the Berkeley Bitcoin Association, which launched the world's first undergraduate university-recognized blockchain course. The courses offered by Blockchain at Berkeley include blockchain fundamentals, blockchain development, blockchain technology, and Bitcoin & cryptocurrency.

DeSchool

DeSchool is a Web3 online education infrastructure strategically incubated by SeeDAO, allowing instructors to issue SBT educational certificates to students who complete courses. Web3 organizations can also use this tool to simplify community education processes. In the future, DeSchool plans to launch on-chain educational resume features and on-chain educational certification programs, aiming to become the Coursera+LinkedIn of the Web3 era.

Blockchain Academy

Blockchain Academy is a nonprofit organization under Talentre, co-initiated by the Crypto-Fintech Lab of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, aimed at imparting Web3.0 knowledge and skills to users. The website covers learning, activities, BuildCamp, and hackathon sections.

Web3 University

Web3 University was launched at the end of 2021 as a Web3 education platform for developers, targeting those who wish to learn how to write smart contracts, mint NFTs, and build scalable end-to-end DApps. Web3 University's partners include Alchemy, a16z, Pantera Capital, Arbitrum (Offchain Labs), Polygon, OpenSea, and others.

Encode Club

Encode Club is a global blockchain education platform and developer community aimed at promoting global blockchain development and learning. It provides learners with a wealth of blockchain educational resources and offers opportunities for startups through hackathons. In May 2022, Encode Club completed a $5 million financing round led by Galaxy Digital and Lemniscap.

LearnWeb3

LearnWeb3 is a Web3 developer education platform primarily aimed at developers, offering a series of courses from knowledge introduction, building DApps to security precautions, and has developed specialized tutorials for public chains like Celo and Flow. The project received $1.25 million in seed funding from IOSG Ventures and Balaji Srinivasan last September.

Conclusion

Although Web3 education platforms are beginning to gain attention from crypto companies and investors, they still face issues such as balancing learning models and incentive mechanisms, enhancing users' industry awareness, and achieving ecological positive loops. However, with the expansion of the crypto market and the refinement of user needs, there are still numerous opportunities for Web3 education platforms, playing an important role in promoting the popularization of Web3 knowledge and attracting more users.

Overall, the L2E model may become the mainstream framework for Web3 education platforms, achieving a win-win-win situation for project parties, platform parties, and users, and making it easier to realize the migration from Web2 to Web3. Course-based education platforms have systematic courses, which are highly attractive to users with clear learning needs, and their development models will also be healthier and more sustainable. Essentially, Web3 education serves as a bridge linking Web2 and Web3, thereby driving Web2 traffic into Web3. The Web3 education track is still in its early stages, and leading protocols have yet to emerge. Whether this track has the opportunity to form a large-scale breakout effect is something to look forward to.