A simple guide to the web3 developer stack

A usher to the projects and companies moving to marque web3 improvement arsenic casual as web2

Around the Block, from Coinbase Ventures sheds airy connected cardinal trends successful crypto. Written by Jonathan King, Connor Dempsey, & Hoolie Tejwani

Special acknowledgment to Mike Armstrong, Aaron Henshaw, Michael Atassi, Steven Willinger, and Shan Aggarwal for helping to pass this article.

Despite the emergence of Bitcoin and Ethereum, on with the emergence of caller categories similar DeFi, NFTs, GameFi and DAOs, web3 developers correspond little than 1% of the 31.1M bundle developers globally.*

So wherefore are determination truthful fewer developers successful web3 today? For one, the tools and infrastructure disposable to web3 developers are overmuch little robust than that of web2. This simply makes it much hard to get started building, experimenting, and deploying successful web3. That’s each rapidly changing however, arsenic the fig of monthly progressive web3 developers deed all-time highs astatine the extremity of 2021. And to enactment this increasing contingency, is simply a vibrant ecosystem of teams moving to simplify the full web3 developer journey, which volition yet assistance unlock the adjacent signifier of web3 maturation and innovation.

In this variation of Around The Block, we’ll research the increasing web3 developer stack.

The Web3 Developer Stack

Building successful Web2 vs Web3

Software improvement is the process of gathering machine programs. There are 3 main components to a given program:

1. The front-end (what users interact with)
2. The back-end (what users don’t see)
3. Database (where captious information is stored)

The front-end that a emblematic idiosyncratic interacts with done a mobile oregon desktop browser is fundamentally the aforesaid successful web2 and web3. A web3 app similar Uniswap looks akin to a emblematic web2 app due to the fact that some front-ends are mostly created utilizing React — a fashionable developer model for web and mobile apps.

It’s nether the hood wherever web2 and web3 differ. The backend frameworks and types of databases that marque web3’s defining characteristic — user-defined ownership — possible are caller and unique.

Where web2 applications mostly trust connected centralized databases, web3 applications are built connected decentralized databases (blockchains). This requires wholly caller backends and caller primitives like wallets.

The tools that assistance successful the creation, deployment, and attraction of web2 applications are incredibly developer-friendly, acknowledgment to decades of cumulative development. Out of the container solutions, mature infrastructure, shared codification libraries, and casual to usage frameworks mostly marque gathering successful web2 a breeze.

Web3 connected the different manus inactive requires specialized expertise to interface with analyzable infrastructure and commonly involves galore redundant processes fixed that the stack is little developed, leaving teams to person to reinvent the wheel. That said, the tooling that volition assistance onboard the adjacent 1M+ web3 developers is rapidly improving.

Let’s instrumentality a (non-exhaustive) look astatine the evolving Web3 developer stack furniture by furniture (* denotes Coinbase Ventures portfolio company).

Protocol layer

The archetypal determination a web3 developer has to marque is which blockchain protocol to physique on. Building connected Bitcoin is wholly antithetic from gathering connected Ethereum, and Solana differs from Ethereum, etc.

For faster and lower-cost applications, developers mightiness privation to physique connected a layer2 protocol — Optimism*, Arbitrum*, etc. For applications that request to larboard worth from 1 concatenation to another, developers volition privation to leverage cross-chain bridges similar Hop* oregon Synapse*.

Once these decisions are made, developers tin commencement to incorporated gathering blocks that marque idiosyncratic applications possible.

Infrastructure primitives

The adjacent happening a developer needs to fig retired is how their exertion volition yet interact with the underlying blockchains. This is wherever infrastructure primitives travel into play.

Node infrastructure — Nodes are wherever an app’s enactment with a blockchain “happens.” They’re computers that work the authorities of the blockchain and constitute updates to it erstwhile a idiosyncratic interacts with an application. Node infrastructure providers similar Coinbase Cloud, Infura*, and Alchemy* fto developers easy set-up, manage, oregon entree blockchain nodes, redeeming developers sizeable clip and resources.

Wallet & Key Management — Blockchain wallets, similar Coinbase Wallet, let users to negociate the backstage keys needed to execute transactions wrong web3 applications. Wallet and cardinal absorption providers similar Web3Auth* oregon Pine Street Labs*, alteration developers to physique unafraid connectivity betwixt blockchain wallets and user-facing applications.

Identity — protocols similar ENS* service arsenic a user’s individuality crossed applications. Spruce* provides frameworks and toolkits that developers tin usage to verify idiosyncratic credentials to authenticate actions connected Ethereum. For example, developers tin usage the Spruce ID toolkit to empower users to motion into dApps with their ENS accounts. Additionally, companies similar Lit Protocol supply developer tooling for granting entree to content, software, and different information utilizing their tokens or NFTs.

Decentralized compute — Compute resources supply processing powerfulness that applications trust connected to transportation retired computational tasks. Currently, astir of the web’s compute is provided by centrally owned providers similar AWS. Decentralized compute is simply a displacement towards community-owned networks, successful which compute resources are distributed successful a permissionless mode astatine low-cost. Companies similar Akash Network and Aleph.im person emerged to supply peer-to-peer compute resources that are highly-performant and optimized for astute contracts and blockchain applications.

Decentralized storage — Storing each portion of information associated with a fixed web3 app straight connected blockchain nodes is costly. Rather than storing information connected a centralized database, web3 developers tin usage peer-to-peer information retention protocols similar IPFS, Arweave*, and Ceramic Network* for definite data. For example, web3 blogging tract Mirror is built connected Ethereum, but stores existent blog contented on Arweave.

Oracles — For a emblematic Ethereum application, the blockchain stores transaction past and “state” (balances, astute contracts, and different variables). It can’t, however, natively store and interact with information from outer sources — i.e. transaction past from different blockchains oregon “real world” information similar the upwind successful San Francisco. That’s wherever oracles similar Chainlink oregon Flux*come in, connecting blockchains to on-chain and off-chain data sources.

Interoperability — many antithetic blockchains beryllium but fewer person the quality to speech worth and marque usage of accusation cross-chain. Interoperability protocols similar LayerZero* and Astar Network* supply SDKs and APis for developers to physique dApps that are portable and tin pass with antithetic blockchains.

Developer tools

Atop the infrastructure primitives that let applications to interact with blockchain networks are tools that let developers to much seamlessly interact with the above-named primitives.

Frameworks & IDEs — Developer frameworks dwell of libraries of codification that different developers person created that marque improvement easier. Web3 frameworks similar Truffle, Moralis*, Tatum, and ThirdWeb*, fto developers leverage existing codification for astute declaration applications truthful they don’t person to physique everything from scratch. They besides fto developers trial and deploy applications. Integrated improvement environments (IDEs) similar Foundry and HardHat harvester communal root codification editors, and physique automation and debugging tools into a single, easy accessible interface.

Low-code / No-code — These platforms alteration user-facing applications to beryllium rapidly designed/deployed wholly via drag-and-drop interfaces. Companies similar Settlemint supply developers with astute declaration templates for NFTs to forestall web3 developers from having to reinvent the wheel.

Index & query — Data indexers assistance radical find and entree circumstantial information wrong an underlying database. In Web2, Google hunt is the astir fashionable information indexing work that allows users to query information stored successful online databases with sub-second effect times. In Web3, decentralized indexing services are emerging to assistance dApp developers fetch, process, and query blockchain data. The Graph Protocol*, Covalent*, and Coherent* each supply APIs for extracting and making usage of information from decentralized information retention providers and EVM-compatible blockchains.

Test, simulate, & monitor — It’s important to trial and simulate web3 applications earlier they’re released into the wild. Companies similar Tenderly* and Kurtosis* connection a assortment of tools for simulating however astute contracts and transactions volition behave erstwhile live, arsenic good arsenic tools for debugging immoderate issues. Blocknative* provides dashboards and tools for monitoring transactions earlier they are submitted on-chain.

Security & audit — Given the imaginable for astute declaration exploits, these platforms fto developers use information and audit champion practices to their applications. OpenZeppelin*, Certik*, and Certora* each supply a assortment of services, frameworks, and monitoring tools for developers to mitigate imaginable information risks and vulnerabilities.

Messaging — Web3 apps often impact sending assorted communications to extremity users. For example, a crypto wallet whitethorn privation to propulsion a idiosyncratic alerts regarding transaction confirmations. Companies similar XMTP Labs* and EPNS are gathering unafraid messaging protocols and decentralized connection networks that thrust idiosyncratic engagement and powerfulness these notifications wrong Web3 applications.

Analytics — There’s a big of platforms and services that fto developers explore, analyze, extract, and ocular blockchain data. Dune*, Nansen*, and Messari* each connection a assortment of APIs and reporting capabilities to physique information visualization features wrong web3 apps. Flipside Crypto* offers SDKs (software improvement kits) and APIs to make and stock information insights connected assorted crypto projects.

App Enablement Layer

The exertion enablement furniture ties each of the supra layers into circumstantial web3 uses. NFTs, DAOs, DeFi, and gaming each person their ain bespoke developer solutions.

NFT focused tools connection infrastructure for creating and managing NFT assets. DAO tools connection solutions for DAO instauration (Syndicate*, Samudai*), governance (Snapshot*), and treasury absorption (Utopia Labs*). DeFi focused tools connection APIs that fto developers entree assorted DeFi primitives. Gaming focused tools ( Venly*, Joyride*, Horizon Blockchain Games*) supply solutions for creating virtual worlds and blockchain based games.

The ever-evolving dev stack

The protocols, infrastructure, and developer tools mentioned supra marque up the nascent, yet evolving web3 developer stack. The modular and interoperable quality of web3 means that the stack tin beryllium combined successful endless ways to make caller and absorbing applications.

While the model and layers we highlighted volition apt stay unchanged, we proceed to spot caller developer tooling primitives look and expect the full stack to germinate dramatically successful the coming years.

Coinbase Ventures volition proceed to put successful the adjacent procreation of level and developer tooling that volition yet onboard millions of developers into web3. If you’re arsenic dedicated to gathering retired the web3 dev stack arsenic we are, we would emotion to perceive from you — JK’s DMs are open!

Further Reading

• A elemental usher to the Web3 stack, by Angie Wang, Connor Dempsey, and Justin Mart
• Electric Capital Developer Report 2021, by Electric Capital
• The Architecture of a Web 3.0 application, by Preethi Kasireddy

This website does not disclose worldly nonpublic accusation pertaining to Coinbase oregon Coinbase Venture’s portfolio companies.

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A elemental usher to the web3 developer stack was primitively published successful The Coinbase Blog connected Medium, wherever radical are continuing the speech by highlighting and responding to this story.