New Textbook on Blockchain and Web 3.0 Co-Written by UW’s Lupien

A textbook co-written by the director of the University of Wyoming Center for Blockchain and Digital Innovation provides students and teachers with insights into the future of blockchain and Web 3.0.

Steve Lupien co-wrote “Blockchain Fundamentals for Web 3.0” with Mary Lacity, a distinguished professor of information systems and director of the Blockchain Center of Excellence in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. The textbook was published this fall by the University of Arkansas Press.

Lupien teaches several courses in UW’s minor in blockchain degree program. Lupien says he and Lacity were motivated to write a textbook due to the fast-evolving nature of blockchain, which made many available books dated. While there are numerous books on blockchains, crypto and digital assets, he and Lacity focused on blockchain applications for Web 3.0.

“That was one of our real motivations for creating this textbook,” Lupien says. “It’s for people who want to learn about blockchain and, more importantly, learn how to use blockchain.”

In the book, Lacity and Lupien explain the movement to establish online trust through the decentralization of value, identity and data ownership.

“This movement’s part of Web 3.0, the idea that individuals rather than institutions will control and benefit from online social and economic activities,” Lupien says.

As blockchain technologies are the digital infrastructure for Web 3.0, the book’s target audience is students, professionals and managers who want to learn about the overall Web 3.0 landscape -- the investments, the size of markets, major players and the global reach as well as the economic and social value of applications.

Lupien says he and Lacity approached writing the book in a way that those with a more casual interest in blockchain can appreciate.

“It’s not a coding book,” Lupien says. “We don’t tell you how to code, as there are other books and other programs for that. This is about how to do businesses and operate in this new Web 3.0 environment.”

The textbook outlines applications that use Web 3.0 technologies to unlock value in DeFi, NFTs, supply chains, media, identity, credentials, metaverses and more.

The “Blockchain Fundamentals for Web 3.0” textbook is being used by undergraduate and graduate blockchain fundamentals courses at UW, the University of Arkansas and other universities around the world. Faculty interested in adopting this book for instructional purposes are welcome to contact the authors for supporting instructional materials.

The textbook was supported by American Rescue Plan Act funds through the state of Wyoming. It also is intended to be used in blockchain fundamental courses by Wyoming community colleges, Lupien says. Any proceeds from the book earned though Lupien’s involvement are being donated to UW.