foreign
[Music]
okay and our next talk is on positive
Framing and communication for web3 the
talk is hosted by Oliver Renwick Oliver
is a terminologist SBC Enthusiast and
translator he currently lives near
Cleveland Ohio USA with his wife and two
kids he works at consensus creating and
maintaining support documentation for
metamask infrar and other products and
in general tries to explain the madness
of web3 to those who want to know more
he speaks Spanish and English fluently
and he get himself into trouble in
Italian Arabic Catalan and French please
help me in welcoming Oliver to the stage
is this on yes okay cool Hello everybody
um welcome to Tropical Sunset stage
um uh I am Oliver Renwick as was
explained in my introduction
um before I get started uh I just want
to say a shout out to the interpreters
in the booth back there they have been
doing an amazing job all week
um
and I will try to speak
evenly and not use really strange words
um so and one last note um I will be
giving the talk in English the slides
will be in Spanish if you see a slide
that's all in Spanish don't be alarmed
I'm going to say everything that's on it
in English so uh okay so with that let's
get started
okay so uh the current state of affairs
uh here we are it's 2022 uh crypto is
going through its Rises and falls and we
had incredible user growth during 2021
uh
and the ecosystem is expanding outward
and rather than sort of uh homogenizing
and becoming less complex it's opening
up and becoming more complex more people
are doing more different things and uh
we have people who have heard about this
crypto thing and want to get involved or
they've heard about web3 maybe and they
want to get involved so how do we
explain that to them so
um
as a terminologist as a translator I
focus on Words it's my thing and what
I've noticed about uh web3 and the
terminology that we use to describe
distributed or decentralized technology
it has two sort of main features that
Define it first of all it's very
technical right this is the language of
Engineers of computer people and second
of all you can see in the terminology
that we use sort of the origins of this
technology that it was born in a place
at a time that was rejecting the
previous uh generations tech stack and
their philosophy right so as a result
there's this sort of uh what I call
negative theology but in general it's
sort of a negative framing that that
permeates web3
and in its best moments uh it can be
sort of like edgy and cool and like
makes people interested and want to know
more
um but I find especially dealing with
people who are new to the space
um that it just confuses things
um it it makes things impenetrable
there's a lot of jargon sometimes people
use metaphors to describe things that
are a little bit
like unsettling or weird
um and a lot of things just get framed
in negative uh negative ways instead of
in positive ways
so how do we go from the negative to the
positive briefly in this session we're
going I'm going to lay out for you what
I have
um
what I have categorized what I have uh
observed about this terminology
um and then hopefully we'll have a
little bit of time to uh sort of dive in
and I'm going to be like pointing at
people and asking for things as well
hopefully hopefully we can get
interactive
um
so I will say I do have a background in
linguistics I've done qualitative
studies I've done quantitative studies
this is not that
this is more uh you know I've been
working at consensus writing
documentation for end users talking to
people that are new to the space
explaining things to my wife over and
over again
um not because she doesn't understand
but because probably my explanations
need to be improved
um and uh
so uh what you've got here what I'm
showing you is sort of my gut feeling
about where we're at in the space this
isn't meant to be a a prescriptive model
of what we've got going on this is not
Based on data this is trying to start a
conversation
so uh in my time as a word Smith uh as
it were I've gotten a lot of people
saying things like yeah but who cares
man that's just implementation details
right
um that's just words if we make solid
Tech if we make a solid product people
are going to use it right right
um I'm here to argue the opposite
um I'm going to argue that if we want
adoption to increase outside of our
crypto bubble we need to learn to
explain our technology in a clearer
and a more empowering way the empowering
part is important and we'll come back to
it soon
so
um I'm going to now break down a little
bit of sort of what I've observed about
the way we talk about crypto
first of all there's what I've been
calling negative framing or negative
theology
um the second sort of big category of
language is impenetrable jargon that
should be improved
got a laser here
um so yes oh oh it worked okay
okay it's working now
um so uh the third uh so we we all know
what I'm talking about and we'll get
into some concrete examples of that soon
the last one gets into
um sort of marketing or branding a
little bit and it's more subjective
um and that's the question that we all
have to ask ourselves is what I'm saying
edgy and revolutionary and is it going
to energize people or is it like kind of
cringe and like edgelord
so that's that's not who we want to be
okay
gracias okay this is I'm really excited
about this topic so uh
uh negative Theology and negative
framing
um so look at this look at this set of
terms right this is terms that we all
know from being in the space
non-custodial wallet immutable
transactions and things uh governance
free trustless permissionless
permissionless is one of our favorite
words right there's a whole event called
permissionless uh decentralized
censorship resistant and arbitrary
arbitrary is in bold and we'll come back
to it
um
so uh let's see here
uh
can can somebody tell me what
permissionless means
anybody yell it out and I'll repeat it
you don't need permission to use it
yeah I think that's actually what it
means yeah
um but like uh but from from like
imagine like wipe your swipe your brain
clean and imagine you've never heard of
crypto imagine you've never done this
stuff and you're like oh it's a
permissionless computer network
what like that doesn't yeah
you decide how you interact with it
that's a really cool definition but it's
I
I don't feel like that's inherent in the
word
you see what I mean like if I'm
completely tabula rasa like I don't know
what what that means
um
and and trustless is a similar thing
trustless I love right because trustless
is like old Bitcoin OG speak right and
they're like it's a trustless system
and that's so cool and people like I've
had I've used that word and people have
been like that's bad right like you
can't trust it
um and I've had to be like no no it's
because like you don't need to trust it
it's it's provable it's math
um and a lot of this comes down to it
being technical so we'll move on to that
in the next point but I want to talk
about non-custodial because
non-custodial is one of the biggest uh
examples of this kind of language in our
space I I threw up a screenshot of what
is a non-custodial wallet look at all
these explainers bit pay uh Gemini I
can't tell what that one is uh but by
bit
um economictimes.com
um so uh I was up I was upgrading
rewriting the metamask uh documentation
for users last year and I decided to try
and translate some of them into Spanish
and so I sat down with the first article
that I was going to translate and it was
called metamask is a non-custodial
wallet
and I just sat there staring at the
title like
how am I going to say that in Spanish
um and so so I ended up sort of
as they say in Spanish and I ended up
with uh metamask is a self-custodial
wallet
so this is what I was saying about
making our language empowering so if I
say to somebody check out this wallet
it's a crypto wallet and it's
non-custodial
they say what's non-custodial and I'm
like oh the bank isn't the custodian
you're the custodian
so I'm telling somebody this is a good
thing because screw the banks man you're
in charge right so I'm automatically
putting them into this like
power struggle right and that can be
exciting and that can be interesting but
it's also like a lot of information
whereas if I said to somebody here's
this crypto wallet man it's
self-custodial whoa right there I've
given them the power the crypto is
theirs right and they understand it
immediately so that's the difference in
framing things negatively versus
positively
um you don't have to do that mental
gymnastics to work out how the negative
thing is a good thing the same way what
we're saying with permissionless and
trustless right you don't have to figure
out oh I don't have to trust it because
the math proves it and that's a good
thing like anyway so
um okay
gracias okay there's a lot going on here
um impenetrable jargon that should be
improved
um
uh so RPC Network
what's our PC
remote procedure call that's right what
is an RPC Network
a network of computers where you can do
remote procedure calls so where does
this come up this comes up in your
metamask like you're you're like oh I
want to get onto polygon how do I do it
oh I need to add a custom RPC Network
um
it doesn't make sense so RPC RPC is from
Json RPC which is an old web 2 era uh
standard for passing Json blobs which is
a type of data around computers right so
um so we we refer to our evm mostly not
necessarily actually we refer to a lot
of our public blockchain networks as RPC
networks as a sort of technical
shorthand
um and those of us who are like
initiates into this technology we get it
but for users this is this is putting
too much on them we had a lot of
conversations I I brought this up in a
slack Channel and was like we need to
change this
um and we had some conversations and we
didn't settle on anything firm so this
is an area where I think we as a
community could maybe come up with
something better in a way just saying
network is a better option like add a
new network or add a new blockchain
network if you want or or I don't know
a connection Point connection Point
might be good right because sometimes
like let's say you're somebody who wants
to connect to different endpoints within
metamask wallet for the same network we
might need a term there to differentiate
between well yeah I'm connecting to
arbitrum but I'm using a private node
right and so what's the term for maybe
we call it Network endpoint right and
maybe that's a a better option so RPC
network is a great a great example
there's this whole mess
how many of you do you think know the
difference between a wallet versus an
account versus an address versus a
public key private key seed secret
recovery phrase and you use them
correctly every time
you do good job good job
um so like a lot of the time we sort of
shorten it right we're like yeah I sent
it from my wallet yeah you sent it from
your order I sent it from my address or
I sent it from my account like they're
kind of different things
um and getting so I work in customer
success within consensus right so I help
um like I'm writing the documentation
and in coordination with a lot of our
support agents and the support agents
kind of have to work with users who
might be using these things
interchangeably right like the coins got
stolen from my wallet the coins got
stolen from my account what do you mean
so
there's a lot going on there
um so smart contracts they're neither
smart nor contract I know I know I've
read about the history of them I know
where they come from but I'm like a word
geek and I care about that most people
don't care about that anyway smart
contracts I feel like that that ship
maybe has sailed and maybe I shouldn't
fight that battle
um so I wanted to point out this example
though I saw this while I was like
months ago and I was I was like this is
perfect so this is from mirror.xyz and
for those of you who don't know mirror
it's kind of trying to be like the
medium of web3 maybe don't don't at me
um and so this is a little snippet this
was like a clickable thing this was
supposed to make me want to click and
read more for the first time ever convex
users will be able to collateralize
their vlcvx positions allowing them to
earn yield I.E bribes
and leverage their assets at the same
time this will be accomplished through
new technical collaboration with tribe
Dao and redacted cartel
all right
so um
I work in this space and I don't
entirely understand what's going on
there
um
so thank you thank you
um
here's here's another great one this is
from one of my favorite articles uh
front running the Mev crisis or Mev
whatever I don't care how you pronounce
it
um so this is a great article explaining
crazy stuff about uh how Mev Works um
and so what is Mev
definition minor extractable value is a
whole paragraph of definition
um then we get to the next paragraph
the term Mev can be misleading as one is
would assume it is miners who are
extracting this value
foreign
cool cool that just makes me want to be
like I don't I don't know how words work
anymore
um
so uh one one thing that we've been
talking a lot about
um that I've been talking a lot about
during here during the conference is uh
layer twos and ZK snarks
love ZK snarks they are like the most
empowering revolutionary technology not
just for the web 3 space but like web3
plus ZK snarks is we could do so much
with it
um they're called ZK snarks
I don't know what else I need to say uh
so obviously like
any discussion of ZK snarks could be
sort of massaged right so you could be
like okay there's this new technology
it's called ZK snarks this is what it
does what does the ZK snark do
anybody
you don't know
well right that's the whole point right
we don't know that's good
um seriously could anybody offer me like
a succinct succinct explanation of ZK
snarks
prove a true or false statement without
any other information being shared yeah
yeah
um
or or prove prove that you know
something without revealing what it is
or something prove that you know a
secret without revealing the secret
maybe
um
say what
without interactions yeah
um yeah so I don't know that's like I
love the technology and I want to be
able to talk about it better
um and Roll-Ups right Roll-Ups are
really cool
um anyway okay
I'm running out of time I'm getting I'm
getting excited okay last one uh so this
is uh branching out from sort of
terminology into sort of softer stuff
well softer uh marketing branding
perception right
um like I was saying our technology has
the potential to do really amazing
things we can change centuries old power
dynamics with our technology and that's
what a lot of the biggest uh Advocates
and Minds in our space say that we want
to do and say that we're trying to do
that's awesome for some people that's
going to bring them in the door right
they're like I want to I want to burn it
all down I want to start over
other people are like uh
I I don't want to burn everything down
um right so
the question of how you brand your
project is a delicate one
um moloch Dao they're sort of my
favorite example of this uh they're like
a cool public goods now right
um they do awesome stuff and they have
satanic branding
um
uh it's cool Dogecoin maybe maybe they
kind of nailed it with like yeah we're a
coin but we're a meme and apparently
that caught on right
um dark Phi I had the privilege of sort
of encountering them at East Barcelona
over the summer and they had this
awesome patch that had this logo on it
and it said like I don't know something
really sketchy about like you are your
keys you are your Finance or something
in red lettering
um their their Manifesto is really
powerful it goes into some some pretty
hardcore they're they're trying to work
on uh uh more more Anonymous D5 if I
remember correctly
um really cool project uh but like it's
very much like are you into Edward
Snowden this is for you right
uh so there's a lot of people into
Edward Snowden and sure in this room
um
but you gotta you know as as you're come
as you're coming at it you are you are
you pitching for a public audience are
you who are you pitching for
uh I'm gonna I'm gonna chill mildly here
um and say that I feel like ipfs kind of
nailed it they kind of got a middle a
Middle Road for their product
um this is on their home page you scroll
down a little bit you find this the
resolution isn't great but um
they've got sort of these web 2 uh esque
friendly diagrams explaining what their
technology does right it kind of
illustrates it and they've got brief
um
uh
um Pro like like statements about what
their product does uh so this one down
here let me see if I can back up and
read it a little bit read it here uh it
says today's web is addicted to the
backbone ipfs Powers the creation
of diversity resilient networks that
enable persistent availability with or
without internet backbone connectivity
so
that sentence there it's a mixture of
techy people talk and normal people talk
right they say it enables persistent
availability that's sort of like signals
to the people who care about cloud
computing what what it is but then they
they gloss that by saying internet
backbone connectivity right so they're
saying these are these are two different
audiences they're speaking to this means
better connectivity for the developing
World during national natural disasters
or just when you're on flaky coffee shop
Wi-Fi
this is a very powerful like sort of
value added statement right they're
they're breaking it down for you and
they're saying look at what ipfs can do
asterisk what does ipfs stand for
interplanetary file system right so this
is where we get that mixture of like yo
man we're the interplanetary file system
we're ready to go to the Moon
um but but then they bring it back down
to earth and they're like look we're
going to make it better to browse
Wikipedia at the coffee shop
um okay
uh so okay I talked a lot
um
these are these are the takeaways that I
I wanted to sort of dissolve uh distill
all of that down into
um as we're writing as we're talking
about our space as we're branding our
space we need to find ways to phrase
things in the positive rather than in
the negative
overall in general because it empowers
people it it is a lower cognitive burden
right and that's what we want uh we need
to find ways to approach the technical
jargon from the point of view of
somebody new to this base table arasa we
need to use phrasings metaphors and
explanations that assume as little
knowledge on the user user's part as
possible
um making comparisons to web 2 might
help sometimes it might hinder sometimes
um think about whether your users want
to be empowered on their own
so this is the example of like
self-custodial right here it's a
self-custodial wallet now you have the
power versus they were part of a social
political economic technological
movement right like it's non-custodial
because screw the banks right there are
two different
audiences
uh so last Point consider whether you're
you're branding your image your slogans
Etc are culturally bound
um
culturally bound this gets into
translator Theory stuff but um basically
does it translate well is it uh is it
something that means something else in a
different language or sounds like
something else in a different language
and if you think I'm overreacting ask a
Spanish speaker about the Mitsubishi
Pajero
uh okay this is this is the the final uh
the final run here siente before
this is a comedy in three parts this is
from Twitter if you guys remember when
the axi chain got hacked like a year ago
um so much money got stolen so this
guy's
this ape is narrating it you cannot make
this up hacker steals 600 million in Eve
from Ronin blockchain the one underlying
axi hacker then goes short Ronin and
axis axi token knowing as soon as news
breaks that tokens will plummet but no
one notices and they get liquidated on
short before news breaks
seconde
what is Eve who is ronin what's an axi
what's axi token no clue what short is
what language is this
um and then somebody very helpfully
explains it's a cryptocurrency it's a
blockchain network it's an nft it's
another cryptocurrency and says asserts
that this is English
um
I have my doubts
[Applause]
um
so this I I thought this is a really
good illustrator a really good
illustration right of like we're on
crypto Twitter we're like oh my God they
shorted the position and they liquidated
in the Arbitrage and the I don't know
like
um and and normal people are like I'm
gonna learn about crypto oh I hear it's
big on Twitter I'm gonna follow people
on Twitter
okay
okay I'm done
um so now is the time for Q a I've got
four minutes here
um I have lots of examples but questions
with respect to at educating designers
and people who work in crypto ux how
would you best want to disseminate this
knowledge through like workshops or like
blog posts or companies
um yeah no that's that's a good question
um
uh
yeah I mean this space is supposed to be
the space that's all about how do we
collaborate together right
um I don't know are there are there
already like
ux Dows is that a thing yeah okay so I'm
just still informed
um so I don't know um as a terminologist
like my approach to this is very much
like I'm gonna make a glossary and I'm
gonna study the terms and I'm gonna say
this is what this means this is these
are synonyms these are homonyms and I'm
gonna map it out and make decisions
about which one I like and then I'm
going to with an iron fist enforce it
um so that's maybe not the most crypto
attitude
um I don't know I don't have a good
answer to that beyond that
one more super quick question I hate to
put you on the spot it is a super quick
question yeah uh if you could uninvent
one word with using this space what
would be the one word oh man sorry oh no
no what was it I was talking about it
this morning oh man
um no no there is one huh mining oh God
it is it is harmful but don't worry
about it we're on proof of stake now
that's fine
um
uh
I don't know I I hate so much of it
um
oh come on I mean I said okay I'm I'm
All About clear communication right so I
don't know I'll think and
uh so real quick there is something that
I failed to mention um I had lots of
examples but obviously I'm not gonna
have time uh one thing so within
consensus we're we're aware of all this
we're looking at this we're seeing this
um this education Gap and I think across
the field lots of people are seeing the
education Gap right and what I'm excited
to see is that during this bear Market
lots of people are bringing out
educational resources
um and if any of you saw the my
colleague James Beck speak a couple days
ago uh he pitched a thing called
metamask learn
um it's a thing he and I are working on
together along with a lot of people at
consensus um and uh it's we are sort of
relearning a lot of these lessons in
there we're writing we're trying to make
um sort of that intro that intro
platform to the people who maybe maybe
bought some eth but don't know about
web3 right
um so that's going to be launching
hopefully at the end of November and
we're very excited about it so
um man
oh yes on Twitter I am mapachuro like
mapa m-a-p-a churro like the cinnamon
sweet stick
uh thank you all very much I'll get off
the stage thank you so much
[Applause]