Metamask with Dan Finlay

 

Decentralized applications can be built on the Ethereum blockchain. Just as the Bitcoin blockchain is a distributed, append-only ledger of financial transaction history, Ethereum is a distributed, append-only ledger of computational transaction history.

New kinds of applications can be built on the Ethereum blockchain—and just like every new technology, we need an interface to bridge that new technology and our existing technology.  We can use a pure Ethereum browser like Mist—or we can use a Chrome extension like Metamask to turn our normal browser into an Ethereum interface.

Dan Finlay is the lead developer of Metamask. In today’s episode, we explore why you would want to interface with decentralized applications and the different ways of doing so. A few examples we explore—simple transactions like transferring Ether from one person to another; or transacting with a smart contract.

My personal anecdote: I recently used Metamask for the first time to fund a GitCoin issue. GitCoin is a way to put up financial rewards for people solving open source issues. I locked up $42 in an Ethereum smart contract, and it became the bounty of that issue. The issue was solved, and I released the $42 from the smart contract to be sent to the developer who solved it. In this example, Ethereum served as a simple escrow service. To send my Ether, I used the Metamask plugin on my Chrome browser. If you are a little confused—don’t worry. We explain it all in this episode.

Transcript

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