What is Crypto? How to Choose Tokens? A Summary for a Total Beginner

What is crypto and how does it work?

• Crypto is a new form of value that starts on the internet, not in the tangible world.
• Crypto runs on the rails of blockchains: a peer-to-peer network on the internet that manages property. It’s a community-owned database.
• Tokens are the value on those blockchain networks. They serve as a new tool to facilitate economic activity that otherwise would be difficult to achieve.
• A crypto token represents a digital economy. We have hundreds of competing digital economies: Solana, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, etc. As a comparison, if you want to buy the S&P 500, then you’re betting on the economy of the U.S. or the economy of Europe. That’s the analogy that I think of cryptocurrencies as, and Solana is a booming digital economy, and that’s what I think is truly interesting.
• Tokens’ security is safeguarded by software code, not by law.
• Token value depends on adoption, market conditions, community members, investors.
• Tokens are the fuel that power Web3 networks. Web3 will help us move to a more P2P economic system to directly connect creators and consumers. It won’t have extractive intermediaries as much as Web2 has.
• Users own the networks via the tokens they own. Some investors speculate by buying these tokens, believing we have already run the experiment of corporate-owned networks and now…