Go behind the scenes of Alyra's blockchain training

Over the past ten years, crypto has disrupted the monetary consumption habits of millions of people around the world. If they are criticized today, everyone is unanimous on the advantages, the impact and the opportunity that the blockchain offers. Aware of the importance of making this new sector known and better understood, Alyra, the blockchain school, has developed several training courses on the different areas of blockchain. Here we are at the time of the bi-monthly summary on my blockchain training entitled “Leading an innovative project”. Two weeks ago, I spoke to you about the progress of the activities related to the training, while sharing my various apprehensions, as well as my feelings about the general atmosphere. In this article, I offer you a deep dive into weeks 7 and 8 of Alyra’s training.

Alyra’s talks

As you know, the Alyra talks serve as an introduction to the main concepts found in the training. Each week, an expert, analyst or crypto value chain personality is invited by the blockchain school to talk about their experience and share their knowledge on specific issues in their field. Knowledge that is then addressed and deepened as part of the training.

Bitcoin’s place in our society

On Monday, November 7, the Alyra talk of the week was led by Jacques Favier. He is a co-founder of associations Corner Circle and Corner meal, two organizations that work for the development of Bitcoin and the adoption of the blockchain. Jacques Favier, who is also the author of several books on money, was not alone. We also spoke with Louis-Alexandre de Froissard, as part of this Alyra talk. Mr. Froissard is the founder and patron of Montaigne. These two experts spoke to us about Bitcoin’s place in our society.

Experts first explained that very few Europeans are ready to believe that Bitcoin will have any real use in the real world in the future. However, it is necessary to define who the usefulness of the flagship crypto is aimed at. What to remember? In Europe, we tend to say that cryptos are useless, because the monetary system still works, but those who have never had an effective currency find a major social utility in it.

We then talked about the notion of belief. To this end, we have learned that any currency implies a belief: to have euros is to have the belief that the euro will be able to reward the energy spent to obtain it. Currencies work because people trust them, and cryptos work exactly the same way.

Jacques Favier does not see the separation of money and the State as imagined by the followers of the Austrian school, but he can become a standard of value. For Louis-Alexandre, Bitcoin is more like a common good to which all users unanimously recognize a value.

A piece of advice from Jacques to those who join the blockchain: “Get your hands dirty. We do not master everything in cryptos, but no one asks us to understand everything and it is necessary to experiment to come out with words of authority. »

The corner meal
The corner meal

Revolutionizing the data market with the blockchain

Such is the ambition of Jonathan LLamas. We had the pleasure of listening to it as part of the Week 8 Talk Alyra.

After 5 years in investment banking, Jonathan wanted to do something else. So he turned to entrepreneurship and then launched not one, but two businesses. The first in gold trading and the second in audiovisual production. When the gold market crashed in 2013, he got into fintech. This adventure will end in 2017, when he made the leap into the world of blockchain. After working as a blockchain consultant with large groups and banks, Jonathan left everything to focus on Vetri Foundationa non-profit organization that campaigns for a fair data economy.

Through an application that already has nearly 300,000 downloads, Vetri Foundation allows its users to have full control over their data. Concretely, the application helps them to make their data anonymous by encrypting it and to monetize it according to their preferences. This application thus comes to play a crucial role in a market where users increasingly oppose the processing accorded to their data.

“We must focus on the use we can make of the blockchain today and not necessarily try to find out what tomorrow will bring… Currently, it offers multiple opportunities, so we just have to look for the added value that ‘we can bring it and that’s it’advised Jonathan.

Vetri app
The Vetri app

A look back at the last two weeks of classes

In my last post on training at Alyra, I covered questions about the architecture and operation of a blockchain, the anatomy of a block, and why Ethereum is; by nature, the most suitable network for the development of decentralized applications (DApps), due to the advantages it offers. Three key points that allowed us to improve our skills on the blockchain and to better control the difference between the first two cryptos. Over the past two weeks, we’ve covered some equally interesting notions. These are smart contracts and other public protocols and blockchains.

Smart contracts

Smart contracts, or intelligent contracts, are self-executing contracts or computer programs with a specific function. Here, the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller are written directly in the code. More clearly, smart contracts are based on a computer program that automates business processes in a legally secure way. They are based on blockchain technology and take advantage of the benefits of this technology, such as transparency, protection against counterfeiting and availability. The course teaches us that “Smart contracts are to DApps what blocks are to blockchain. That is to say the basic element, the essential brick, the building unit”.

Later, we talked about the types of smart contracts, the freedom and accessibility linked to smart contracts (anyone can create a smart contract), the design of a smart contract, etc. To capture the practical part of smart contracts, we discussed Uniswap, a decentralized protocol for crypto exchanges. It is generally cited as a benchmark for smart contracts.

Other public protocols and blockchains

After talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum, we looked at other protocols and blockchains. But before digging into these notions, we talked about consensus, an essential, even fundamental, notion of blockchain technology and cryptos.

We then discussed the notion of Trilemma. Blockchains can only process a limited number of transactions per second. If blockchain technology is to be used globally, it needs to be able to process a lot more data and at faster speeds, so more people can use the network without it being too slow or too expensive. However, the basic design of many decentralized networks means that scaling tends to weaken decentralization or security. This is known as the Blockchain Trilemma. So far, no blockchain has managed to tick all of these boxes.

Finally, we talked about the competitors of Ethereum and anonymous protocols and blockchains: Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC).

To conclude

Once again, I can confirm that the training takes place in a great atmosphere. The trainers take their time to ensure that the information is well understood by everyone and are listening, listening to us. In short, the pedagogical approach is irreproachable.

In my next post, I will mainly talk to you about my end-of-training project. I am working with 5 classmates on a non-custodial, seedless & multiblockchain and secure B2C wallet mobile application that eliminates barriers to entry and democratizes access to digital property (documents and assets) and its management on the blockchain through an educational, ergonomic, and simple interface, with complete and scalable functionalities. See you very soon…

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