The Web3 Stack

Web3 is easier to understand as a stack than as a buzzword. Different layers do different jobs, and most confusion comes from mixing them together.

This chapter is the centerpiece because nearly every topic ahead fits into one of these layers: the app you touch, the protocol rules, the chain underneath, and the tokens moving through the system.

If a product feels easy to use, that is usually the application layer doing good design work on top of more complex infrastructure.

As you move through the course, keep asking which layer a concept belongs to. That habit makes Web3 systems much easier to reason about.