In the rapidly changing blockchain industry, new concepts, new models, and new projects are constantly emerging, mixed with a large amount of invalid and junk information. In this context, how can participants in the blockchain industry enhance their blockchain learning capabilities? How can they establish reliable information acquisition channels? How can they better filter quality information and reduce noise?

To this end, Chain Catcher interviewed five senior industry researchers, including Meng Yan, Vice President of the Digital Asset Research Institute, Wan Hui, Founding Partner of Primitive Ventures, Lan Hu, the organizer of Lan Hu Notes, Pan Zhixiong, Research Director of Chain News, and A Jian, a writer for Ethereum enthusiasts, who shared their learning methods and thinking techniques in detail regarding the above questions.

整理|Loners Liu

01

Vice President of the Digital Asset Research Institute, Meng Yan

1. Everyone should establish their core capabilities, which is the foundation of their existence, allowing them to fully utilize their core abilities in any new field.

My core ability is actually to bring a new thing in front of me, understand it in my own way, and then express it in my own language. Sometimes my expression may be more distinctive than that of the original author, so this is my core advantage. No matter what work I do, I have always firmly grasped my core abilities.

2. Establish what is called first principles. I prefer to return to the essence of some questions. I am not afraid to admit my ignorance in a certain field, which is what Steve Jobs meant by "stay hungry, stay foolish." Therefore, I do not feel ashamed to hear some new concepts that I do not understand and spend a lot of time reading various literature. What I want to understand is what the biggest problems in this industry are? What are the core fundamental issues?

To solve these problems, what kind of mathematical principles and methods do we need to use? Once I return to this level, I try to start thinking for myself rather than looking at what predecessors have done. The downside of this approach is that if you are in a mature field, you will do a lot of repetitive and possibly low-level work, far from what those masters can achieve.

In a brand new field like DeFi, this way of thinking can help us move forward more quickly. In this process, it is important to value scientific and engineering thinking, such as mathematical foundations and logical deduction.

3. Be bold in expressing yourself, even if I haven't thought through many issues clearly, I dare to express them in my own language.

This kind of expression is often not very academic, which may result in the issues you discuss lacking depth and high levels. But another benefit is that I think in a new field, this approach has certain advantages because it helps you quickly form a communication with the outside world and engage in exchanges and collisions with those around you. This open-ended exchange is conducive to quickly understanding many things.

4. In my past consulting work, I have certainly made mistakes in the design and judgment of token economic models, but the main reason is not due to design errors, but rather the various pressures of reality that lead to unreasonable distortions in the design scheme, preventing it from being implemented as originally intended.

However, there are indeed judgment errors, such as the economic model of projects like YFI, where their tokens are all released in a very short time. This kind of model, in our past views, belongs to unsustainable or very poor model design.

But its later performance also prompts us to reflect on why our original ideas do not align with practice. This reflection will also drive us to continuously improve this theory in practice.

02

Wan Hui, Founding Partner of Primitive Ventures

1. Read more classic literature. There are now many high-quality learning materials organized online, including open courses from top universities around the world. For example, the best tutorial on Bitcoin is Princeton University's open course on Bitcoin.

At the same time, learning with questions will be much more efficient. For instance, when watching Princeton's open course on Bitcoin, you can list questions like "meta questions": How does Bitcoin ensure scarcity? How does it ensure fairness for miners? What exactly is being mined?

"Slow is fast." Don't think about quick fixes in 10 or 30 days; building a knowledge system requires enough time and patience.

2. Spend less time in groups and using social media, and it's best not to use low signal-to-noise ratio applications like Douyin, Kuaishou, or Toutiao. I have never downloaded such applications because the information density is too low and they waste too much time (though if I were still doing consumer internet investments, I would need to scroll through them daily, which relates to the investment targets). I check WeChat at fixed times each day to reply to messages.

The best way to learn is to discuss with others after you have a certain knowledge foundation or to answer others' questions. The best channel to understand information is still through industry professionals. I generally have a few go-to people in each field, totaling perhaps fewer than 20, but these 20 people are sufficient as your extended brain.

I currently have two browsing habits. Back in 2012, I discussed the differences between two behavioral patterns with several PM friends in the Bay Area: one is called Search in Browse (searching for useful information while scrolling), and the other is called Browse in Search (looking for useful information in search results). The former includes all information flow products, such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Kuaishou.

It is impossible to learn efficiently through Search in Browse. Therefore, the first step to effective learning is to conduct more purposeful searches and less aimless browsing. Do not become a human battery in the internet's time consumption.

03

Lan Hu, Organizer of Lan Hu Notes

1. First is the construction of basic knowledge. To understand the crypto world, Bitcoin and Ethereum are two mountains that cannot be bypassed.

In the development process of Bitcoin and Ethereum, we will encounter various challenges, such as scalability issues, cost issues, and the fit between applications and markets. The solutions to these problems have given birth to a lot of new things. Especially the exploration of DeFi provides us with numerous cases and practical experiences, and studying them will bring us many new ideas.

2. The biggest obstacle to early research is whether one can immerse themselves in research. Many pieces of knowledge are dry and seem to have little relation to investment, but they are very helpful for our decision-making. Regarding practical tools, there are still not many, mainly keeping up with new projects, and then using some data assistance tools, such as market tools like CoinGecko, blockchain explorers like Etherscan, and others like DeFiPulse, DuneAnalytics, Messari, etc.

The current problem is that there are too many new projects. Valuable projects are backed by good founding teams and good models. I generally learn about them through various domestic and foreign communities; often, a good project will connect to more good projects. Of course, there are also pitfalls in this.

A team that truly wants to get things done is completely different from a team that sells concepts, which can be seen from white papers, products, and various public expressions. Sometimes, from the very beginning, the future situation is determined.

The most challenging aspect of blockchain is that it is a composite field, involving cryptography, finance, programming, etc. The core here is first principles; sometimes, excessive concepts may hinder the understanding of the essence of things.

04

Pan Zhixiong, Research Director of Chain News

1. First, you need to have (or cultivate) a genuine interest and curiosity in this field, which will generate the motivation for self-learning.

More than a decade ago, I was particularly fond of eMule and BitTorrent, two distributed and peer-to-peer file transfer products. They attempted to make content distribution more equitable, shared, and reciprocal, and later, some similar products hoped to make the entire centralized internet more open, transparent, and resistant to censorship.

However, at that time, there was no blockchain, which could securely transmit value over the internet through a distributed network, so these projects later scaled very small and were difficult to maintain long-term. Since the emergence of Bitcoin and Ethereum, those previous distributed storage and networks have gained a native currency and a native computing platform. With their support, the entire internet's applications and underlying architecture will be completely reshaped. This is the core reason that has always driven my love for this industry.

Then, after having the motivation for self-learning, you need to build your own learning system, involving information collection, learning, summarization, organization, and re-output.

However, due to the abundance of new terms and concepts in the cryptocurrency industry, one also needs to have a certain understanding of computer science, finance, and game theory, as well as the ubiquitous English terminology (those new terms may not even be accurately translatable into Chinese). Therefore, the general level of basic knowledge may also become an obstacle to learning in the blockchain industry. There is a simple yet difficult method: learn and record all unfamiliar vocabulary, then regularly reinforce it; there may be no shortcuts to this.

Collection System

Explore a suitable information collection system for yourself. The publicly available information found online is still layered, so first achieve coverage, and then as time goes by and you have your own judgment, remove content with low informational value, optimizing your information organization method at any time.

Here, I recommend using RSS or email systems as the underlying protocol for information collection because these are open standards that can be standardized. In simple terms, try to "RSS-ify" or "email-ify" all source information as much as possible.

Recommended tools include Reeder, Inoreader, Feedly, IFTTT (paired with email or RSS), etc.

Information Organization Tools

The collected information needs to be reorganized and classified, at which point a personal knowledge management tool is needed, generally referred to as PKM. Such tools can greatly improve efficiency, so they are usually proprietary software that requires some cost.

I prefer using DEVONThink, but Keep it or Evernote are also good alternatives. Many startup teams are also reshaping these tools, such as Roam Research, Notion, and the newly released Craft, all of which are good; I currently prefer the first one.

Mind Mapping and Diagramming

After organizing the materials, you may generate some ideas based on certain topics, and at this time, using outline diagrams, mind maps, and flowcharts to help organize your thoughts is very important.

If you have a whiteboard or paper, using it directly will be more intuitive; an iPad can also work. If using a computer, mind mapping can be done with MindNode or Scapple, while other general diagrams can actually be created using Keynote or PowerPoint.

2. Currently, whether it is DeFi projects, the Ethereum community, or public chain technology communities, the discussion atmosphere in overseas communities is better, more sufficient, and more intense, as Twitter can serve as a platform for information exchange, discussion, sedimentation, and storage. Domestic communities lack such facilities, relying more on closed group chats.

After that, you need to clarify who the most important participants and influencers in this market are, even though these people are constantly updating and changing rapidly. You can start by focusing on leading investment institutions and top KOLs, paying attention to what these people are interested in.

Alternatively, you can outsource this part of obtaining important information, selecting some curators to help you organize the latest information sources, such as domestic and foreign media with research capabilities, research institutions, etc., allowing them to become the initial materials for establishing your own research system.

Then you need to select some topics of interest for in-depth research. If you find researching alone very tedious, you can find like-minded friends or get to know some experts and directly consult them.

05

A Jian, Writer for Ethereum Enthusiasts

To reduce noise, first, you need to maintain curiosity and sensitivity towards the themes you favor. For example, I am very concerned about Layer 2, and as a result, I encounter a lot of information, such as a project recently launching a testnet, going live on the mainnet, or someone proposing a new solution. But you actually don't need that much information because they can simply be categorized into a few major types, such as state channels, sidechains, and Roll Ups.

So in the first stage of learning, you need to understand each basic paradigm of the industry so that when you organize information, you can be more targeted.

As for how to quickly understand this basic paradigm, a common method is to increase your reading volume to have a basic level of understanding. You can also directly find someone who is relatively knowledgeable in the field and ask them questions to get a relatively candid and reliable result.

In the second stage, you need to consciously think deeper about each question, making yourself consider different angles each time, and then strive to systematize your thinking. Each of us is doing this, and there is no shortcut to it.

Of course, many people will remain stuck in the first stage; they are easily attracted by trendy things because this industry often introduces new terms and concepts.

So an important point is that you need to understand something in enough detail from the very beginning, exercising your thinking ability in the process, and then generating the ability and confidence to judge other things.

Of course, in this process, do not limit yourself to a small world; connect yourself with the vast world. When you face a topic, you should at least know that there are existing achievements in academia that you can absorb and accept.

In other words, if you want to take this issue seriously, you can only seek a small problem's solution within the larger wisdom, rather than looking for a large problem's solution in a very small world.

Finally, I want to share a few words with everyone: I hope everyone pays more attention to the right and wrong of things themselves. In a complex world, many different voices will emerge and should emerge, but you must believe that there are standards to compare different viewpoints and opinions. Understanding or seeking such standards is what we need to do.

However, the judgment of things themselves is always connected to the broader world of knowledge and our cognitive abilities, and only this is what we should continuously hone.

Maintain the habit of thinking and comparison (only the habit of comparison can help you avoid biased listening and belief), and stay alert to big concepts.