What is Ethereum? UNILAG street interviews.

Filmed by Kafani · Lagos · 10 min

Answers What is Ethereum? · see how other cities answered →

Kafani takes one question to the University of Lagos, finds that most students have never heard of Ethereum, and ends the video by setting up a stranger’s first wallet on camera and sending him five dollars.

The first student half-knows it. “Is it not, like, I don’t know, a cryptocurrency?” Then she tells a story that turns the piece serious. Years ago a friend told her mother to get involved, and she was the one who wrote the phrase down for her. They have lost it. What it was worth then and what it is worth now are not the same number. Kafani has to say the hard part out loud: you cannot recover a seed phrase once it is gone.

From there she teaches rather than tests. What the thing is for, what a wallet is, what it costs to start. “You can buy as low as one dollar worth.” She names the apps she would recommend and the ones she uses.

Two students have never heard the word at all. One has never heard of Web3 either, and offers Forex as the nearest thing she knows. A third, Bori, gets as far as “Is a money? Bitcoin money.”

The last one is the reason to watch it to the end. He has never heard of Ethereum, has no wallet, and cheerfully agrees he is “literally not a web three person”. So Kafani onboards him live: downloads the app, creates the account, and stops to deliver the only real warning in the video. Never share your seed phrase with anybody, ever. He picks a username, gets his first wallet, and she sends him five dollars in ETH.

She closes by reading out the textbook definition, having spent nine minutes demonstrating that a definition was never the useful part.

What is in it

Jump straight to a moment.

0:00One question, taken to the University of Lagos
0:53A student whose mother lost the phrase
1:24What it is for, and how you would actually start
3:23Never heard of Ethereum, never heard of Web3
3:55Bori: “Is a money? Bitcoin money.”
5:10“I’ve never heard of it in my life”
6:00Setting up his first wallet on camera
6:14The one real warning: never share your seed phrase
7:45Sending him his first Ethereum
8:43The definition, read out at the end

Transcript

Auto-generated by YouTube, names corrected. Where YouTube masked a word it shows as [bleeped]; that is YouTube's, not ours. Published in full so it can be read, searched and quoted. Search every transcript →

0:00This is OPO and we them media. What is Ethereum? Hi guys, I’m Kafani and today I’ll be going to the University of Lagos to ask students a question. What is Ethereum? Let’s go. Hi guys, it’s Kafani here and today I’ll be asking students of the University of Lagos what Ethereum is.

0:40Hi. Hi. I would like to ask you guys a question. Um, what is Ethereum? Ethereum? Yeah. Is it not like I don’t know a cryptocurrency?

0:53Yes, a cryptocurrency. How do you feel about Ethereum? from my mom. How come? How come? How does your mom through a friend? I remember like some years back a friend told her to I don’t know what they told her to do but she was doing it and I was the one that helped her to write down the phrase but she has we’ve lost or you’ve lost cash is now worth a lot money actually it’s one of the leading um cryptocurrency alongside Bitcoin and um that’s very sad

1:24but you can’t recover your face once you use it but okay our mom was a OG educ transaction on the blockchain. You can use it to mint, you can use buy um you can buy, you can use, you can do that, you can actually make purchases on blockchain. So now you know. Thank you so much. If I want to buy now, um, you can buy when you create a wallet. You have to create a wallet.

2:05And is it very expensive to buy? Yeah. Onearium is about um almost $3,000 right now. Yeah. But you can buy you can start small. You can buy um you can buy as low as $1 worth of

2:22So, all you need is to create a wallet. I recommend using the P app. You have an onchain wallet here and it’s like a social media app as well. You can also use metam mask or rainbow wallet as well and um you just put your card or and then you buy or you can also buy a device app on supported in Nigeria as well. So yeah or somebody can even send you

2:49Abraham. Okay. Um I have a question for you. Um what is your You’ve never heard of before? Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Bye. Hi, I’m Kafani and we meet. Hi, F. You look so beautiful. Um, I have a question for you. Um, what is Eter? What is Earium? I have no idea. What? You’ve never heard of Eterum before?

3:23No. Not at all. Have you heard of Webp? No. Cryptocurrency? Yes, I’ve heard about it, but like I can’t actually define us or like explain what it means to you.

3:35Yeah. Um, but what have you heard of any type of cryptocurrency? I doubt I’m not really wise like I’m not sound cuz I know I know they talk about like what’s it called? Forex all those stuff, but is it crypto and what you said earlier? I can’t remember. I don’t. Yes, I don’t think. Hi, I’m Kafani and with me is

3:55Bori. Hi. Hi, I’m Bori. I would like to ask you a question. Um, what is Ethereum? Is a money? Bitcoin money. Okay. Okay. You’ve not heard of Bitcoin?

4:08Bitcoin. I’ve heard about I’ve heard of those things, but like what they are, how they just know they’re common guys and everything. I don’t know.

4:18Um, but you know, ladies still use cryptocurrency. Oh yeah, we do. I use I use Ethereum and Ethereum is a um type of cryptocurrency that you use to create um do transactions and um transactions which include minting, doing gas fee, buying stuff all on the blockchain. So it’s like a type of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin like meme coins, dodgecoin, USDT, USDC, those are all cryptocurrencies.

4:47Yeah. So now you know or you have an idea of what is. So I hope you take the time to actually check and like read about what

4:55Hi guys, I’m Kafani and with me is to Okay. Hi to like the song Mo I don’t know but that’s an actual song. Um I have a question for you. Um what is Ethereum?

5:10I’ve never heard of it in my life. But you’ve heard of cryptocurrencies? I heard of cryptocurrencies. What um cryptocurrencies do you know? Bitcoin. Dogecoin meme coin like

5:24well Eterum is also a cryptocurrency um yeah you can use it to um do transactions on the blockchain um you can swap you can do gas fees and basically it’s a cryptocurrency and so would you like to use Ethereum? I would like to

5:42somebody I don’t know. But you don’t you don’t even know what Ethereum is. Do you do you have a wallet? No, I have a wallet.

5:51So you you literally are not a web three person. You have no knowledge of web three? Nope. I have never Okay. So um should I send you some Ethereum?

6:00Yeah, send me some Ethereum. Okay. Um let’s do this. Um I’m going to be creating Professing some Ethereum. Okay. So, you’ll need a wallet to get Ethereum. And um I recommend you downloading today’s app to get your first ever Ethereum app.

6:14Yeah. On the app store. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s it. This app for Coinbase. Okay. He has downloaded this app. Um settings and I think you have to save your password and your seed phrase. You do not do it to anybody cuz you can get hacked. Never share your seed phrase ever. And so you save it or you save the pass key for your base app and you sign in and basically you have your wallet.

6:39You want to sign in? Yeah. Yeah. I will send you. Welcome to the B app. Can you see it? Okay. So create an account. He’s signing in and he will be having his first ever wallet. My username should be

7:00Well, you can pick whatever username you like. and he has created his first ever wallet on base on the base app and now I will be sending him Ethereum. Okay, so um to has opened his first ever wallet on the base app and now I’ll be sending him $5 worth of Ethereum on the base app. Um yeah, so um what do you have to say?

7:28Was it good? No problem. Um, so you just send me your wallet address. Um, send it on WhatsApp. Let me add you myself on WhatsApp. Uh, so I am going to like get it on my WhatsApp

7:45as Yeah. So this is his address. Okay. I’m going to copy it and send you um Ethereum. This is Ethereum. We’re going to be sending him some Ethereum. $25 on debt.

8:43Okay. Have you seen it? And yeah. Okay. I’m glad I unboarded you to I’m glad I on boarded you on chain and I’m glad you now know what Ethereum is. According to Google, Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain platform that acts as a world computer for running smart contracts and DABs without intermediary. If you’ve watched this video to this point, now you definitely know what Ethereum is. You’re welcome. I’m Kafani and I’ll see you in my next video. Bye.

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