Lab: Score a Chain in the Terminal

Back to: Certified Decentralization Analyst

Now you’ll apply all four pillars to a real chain. This is a hands-on lab: open the Decentralization Terminal and practice the analyst’s workflow.

Step 1 — Open a chain

Open the terminal and click a chain you’re curious about (try Solana — almost every pillar has a clear weakness; then Polkadot — very different story).

Step 2 — Read each pillar

Answer, in your own words:

– Infrastructure: how many validators? How concentrated? Any cloud/region dependence? What does its Nakamoto Coefficient say? – Capital: how evenly is stake spread? Do a few pools/exchanges dominate? What was the initial distribution like? – Governance: on-chain or off-chain? Is there a multisig, a foundation, a council with special power? – Software: how many clients? What’s actually making the blocks?

Step 3 — Find the weakest link

A chain is only as decentralized as its worst pillar. Write one sentence:

“Solana’s weakest pillar is _______, because _______, and the practical
> risk is _______.”

Step 4 — Run a stress test

Use the terminal’s outage simulator (e.g., take down the top cloud provider, or the top staking-pool/">staking pool) and watch the network’s reaction. Ask: is there a single point of failure the simulator exposes?

Step 5 — Compare to the published audit

Now open `content/chains/sol.md` (or the chain you chose) and compare your independent reading with W3D’s published pillars. Where you differ, go check the methodology — this is how seasoned analysts catch stale or wrong data.

Deliverable for this lesson

Fill in the table:

You’ve now performed, start to finish, the exact analysis the W3D terminal
> automates — with your own eyes instead of a scorecard.