Jun 3, 2021
Blockster — Going Central for the Decentralized!
So where do you go when you want to look up details about a specific crypto or blockchain platform?
If this was 2016 then perhaps the answer would have been something like BitcoinTalk or perhaps look up on Medium (though it would have been a rarity). Some really exceptional minds would have said that they would prefer to look up the documentation.
Be it 2016 or 2021, some things are still the same. There is no one specific place to find everything related to Distributed Ledger Tech. It’s all scattered. And while that does seem comically providence that information regarding a technology that brings decentralization would be scattered and not be found in one specific place, it does beg the question — How easy would it be for an average, non-tech-savvy new enthusiast to get “up and running”?
Well, that’s the question Blockster looks forward to answering. And so the article’s title. It’s not “going central” as in a centralized store of all things blockchain but rather consolidating everything and making a network out of fellow enthusiasts.
In the interest of not making this article sound like an 800-word sales pitch, let me get you “up and running” with what Blockster is and why I think it is something that every geek, developer and investor should pay attention to. It’s not really a secret that while the community of Blockchain developers and Crypto Holders is very much motivated and supportive, the resources are not exactly easy to find and understand.
Blockster
Many new projects don’t have good documentation. There are some platforms that many would consider giants in this field for how long they have been around. But even then, such giants suffer from not having documentation which a layman can comprehend. If you look at the AI/ML community and the popular frameworks like TF, Pytorch, ONYX and more, their docs are something even a grade-schooler might understand (and this is not really stretching too far). And you can really find tons of articles about every fundamental topic relating to AI/ML online. Be it Medium or AnalyticsVidya or Kaggle, one can always rest assured that there won’t be any scarcity of information and support.
While the same may not be necessarily true for Blockchain and allied topics, the problem still remains that there is no specific image or entity you can point to where you can get all the help. And that’s what Blockster aims to be. It’s not really trying to be just the next “Medium” for Blockchain and related niche topics or just the next BitcoinTalk or Telegram Group or your go-to YouTube Channel. It’s trying to become all of these aforementioned things. That might be a bit too ambitious you might say, but you also have to agree that it is required.
The need of the time is a consolidated place where you can find like-minded developers as well as crypto enthusiasts and investors. A place where you can find everything related to Cardano Blockchain but at the same time be assured that there are similar articles that cover Polkadot. A network or a forum to address happenings and discuss the current state of Blockchain. And this comes from someone who has actually suffered a bit when trying to learn about this so-called ‘nascent’ tech.
Believe it or not, I am a few of the rare ones in our whole college who knows about how the Blockchain works and which projects are getting reared up and the path would have been a lot easier if I had someone to rely upon while getting started. I had tried a lot to search for articles relating to Hyperledger Fabric (something that piqued my interest back then and still is one of my favourites). I looked up articles on Medium and tried to find forums and tech communities. While I did eventually learn how to develop using HF, the problem which I faced is still around.
You can throw a stone in any classroom of any undergraduate college in India and the chances are the student who gets hit would know about how to call modules from Scikit-learn, Keras and how popular clustering algorithms work. The same cannot be said for Blockchain though. And it is way past time to make it happen in my opinion.
Yes, but what more?
Well, this article is not meant to be the full guide to what Blockster is (that should serve as a reason to check them out even more). But I would say that Blockster is a promising approach. It is trying to become an all-in-one space for all-things-Blockchain and also has plans to introduce an NFT marketplace. And with all that, it brings to the table its own token — Blockster Utility Token (BXR). It is backed by Digitex Ltd. through Blockfunder and has plans to list the native token on Uniswap as well. All-in-all, I would say that Blockster is something we as a community need and therein lies its chances of success — a community of, for and by Blockchain enthusiasts (not just techies). Check them out here.
