A monster resource list for the intrepid crypto learner
If you only have 20 minutes:
- A letter to Jamie Dimon (Adam Ludwin, CEO of Interstellar ex. Chain)
Easing into it:
Foundations:
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The bitcoin whitepaper, audio (Satoshi Nakamoto)
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Bitcoin's academic pedigree (Arvind Narayanan)
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Shelling out: the origins of money (Nick Szabo)
Why crypto?:
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Bitcoin and the separation of money and state (Eric Voorhees)
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Why decentralization matters (Chris Dixon)
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Crypto tokens: A breakthrough in open network design (Chris Dixon)
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Thoughts on tokens (Balaji Srinivasan)
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Crypto tokens and the coming age of protocols (Albert Wenger)
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Why bitcoin matters? (Marc Andressen)
The Basics:
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Blockchain 101 (Coincenter): https://coincenter.org/learn
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WTF is a blockchain?: https://hackernoon.com/wtf-is-the-blockchain-1da89ba19348
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Hashpower, a three-part podcast by Patrick O'Shughnessey: http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower/
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Blockchain tokens and the dawn of the Decentralized Business Model (Fred Ehrsam): https://blog.coinbase.com/app-coins-and-the-dawn-of-the-decentralized-business-model-8b8c951e734f
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What do we mean by “blockchains are trustless”? (Preeti Kasireddy): https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/eli5-what-do-we-mean-by-blockchains-are-trustless-aa420635d5f6
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Tim Ferris podcast Nick Szabo and Naval Ravikant: https://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-szabo/
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Ethereum in 25 minutes (Vitalik Buterin) - note, skip to 2min in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66SaEDzlmP4&feature=youtu.be
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An intro to crypto: building blocks (Linda Xie): https://a16z.com/2018/05/04/intro-to-crypto/
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Blockchain: the revolution we're not ready for (Haseeb Qureshi): https://haseebq.com/blockchain-the-revolution-were-not-ready-for/
ICOs/Token Sales:
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Funding the evolution of blockchains (Fred Ehrsam): https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/funding-the-evolution-of-blockchains-87d160988481
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Analyzing token sale models (Vitalik Buterin): https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/06/09/sales.html
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Blockchain project ecosystem: https://medium.com/@josh_nussbaum/blockchain-project-ecosystem-8940ababaf27
Use cases:
- We already know blockchain's killer apps (Haseeb Qureshi): https://haseebq.com/we-already-know-blockchains-killer-apps/
Valuation
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Frameworks:
Fund Investment Theses:
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Placeholder: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmZL4eT1gxnE168Pmw3KyejW6fUfMNzMgeKMgcWJUfYGRj/Placeholder%20Thesis%20Summary.pdf
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Iterative: https://iterative.capital/thesis/
Fat Protocols Dialogue:
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Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro): http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols
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CoinFund retort ^ Fat protocols are not an investment thesis (Jake Bruhkman): https://blog.coinfund.io/fat-protocols-are-not-an-investment-thesis-17c8837c2734
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Thin protocols (Teemu Paivenen): https://blog.zeppelin.solutions/thin-protocols-cc872258379f
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Putting an end to thoughtless heuristics (Aleksander Bulkin): https://blog.coinfund.io/invest-in-protocols-or-applications-putting-an-end-to-thoughtless-heuristics-8cb477575db1
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Fat protocols aren't new (John Backus): https://medium.com/@jbackus/fat-protocols-arent-new-42d2c538db41
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Fat protocols vs fat dapps vs fat wallets (Jeremey Liew): https://medium.com/lightspeed-venture-partners/fat-protocols-vs-fat-dapps-vs-fat-wallets-4d33ead29130
Topic Drill Down
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Bitcoin
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Visions of bitcoin (Nic Carter, hasufly): https://medium.com/@nic__carter/visions-of-bitcoin-4b7b7cbcd24c
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The bullish case for bitcoin, March 2018: https://medium.com/@vijayboyapati/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1
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Bitcoin: we don't expect new highs in 2018 (Tuur Demeester): https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/bitcoin-we-dont-expect-new-highs-in-2018-97e6a7a385f7
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The great bitcoin scaling debate: a timeline: https://hackernoon.com/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-debate-a-timeline-6108081dbada
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Extensive bitcoin resource list (Jameson Lopp): https://lopp.net/bitcoin.html
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Ethereum:
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Ethereum whitepaper: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper
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What is ethereum?: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/What-is-Ethereum
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A prehistory of the ethereum protocol (Vitalik Buterin): https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/09/14/prehistory.html
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The bull case For ethereum with Spencer Noon, Cyrus Unesi and Tony Sheng: https://www.spreaker.com/user/10197011/spencer-cyrus-tony
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Privacy Coins:
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Zcash vs. monero: blockchain’s fundamental need for privacy: https://medium.com/theblock1/privacy-blockchains-fundamental-need-acf0a1c52cb4
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A monero introduction for beginners: https://steemit.com/monero/@sgp/7yjqso-a-monero-introduction-for-beginners
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What are zk-SNARKs? (Jay Graber): https://z.cash/technology/zksnarks.html
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Privacy on the blockchain (Vitalik Buterin): https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/01/15/privacy-on-the-blockchain/
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Smart Contract Protocols:
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The evolution of smart contracts: https://hackernoon.com/are-smart-contracts-the-future-1d9028f49743
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The difference between app coins and protocol tokens (Will Warren): https://blog.0xproject.com/the-difference-between-app-coins-and-protocol-tokens-7281a428348c
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A red ocean for smart contract protocols (Tony Sheng): https://www.tonysheng.com/red-ocean
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A deep look into cosmos (Julian Koh): https://medium.com/@juliankoh/a-deep-look-into-cosmos-the-internet-of-blockchains-af3aa1a97a5b
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Stablecoins:
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The search for a stable cryptocurrency (Vitalik Buterin): https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/11/search-stable-cryptocurrency/
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Stablecoins: designing a price-stable cryptocurrency (Haseeb Qureshi): https://haseebq.com/stablecoins-designing-a-price-stable-cryptocurrency/
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An overview of stablecoins (Myles Snider): https://multicoin.capital/2018/01/17/an-overview-of-stablecoins/
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Maker for dummies: A plain english explanation of the dai stablecoin (Gregory DiPrisco): https://medium.com/cryptolinks/maker-for-dummies-a-plain-english-explanation-of-the-dai-stablecoin-e4481d79b90
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Stablecoin resource list (Myles Snider): https://stablecoinindex.com/stablecoin-resources/
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Security Tokens
- The security token thesis (Stephen McKeon): https://hackernoon.com/the-security-token-thesis-4c5904761063
Concepts
Interdisciplinary nature of cryto:
Why it’s hard to “get” bitcoin: the blockchain spectrum: https://blog.unchained-capital.com/blockchain-spectrum-806847e1c575
Cryptoeconomics:
- Economics back into Cryptoeconomics: https://medium.com/econaut/economics-back-into-cryptoeconomics-20471f5ceeea
- Making sense of cryptoeconomics (Josh Stark): https://medium.com/l4-media/making-sense-of-cryptoeconomics-5edea77e4e8d
- The Blockchain Economy: A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics: https://medium.com/cryptoeconomics-australia/the-blockchain-economy-a-beginners-guide-to-institutional-cryptoeconomics-64bf2f2beec4
- Cryptoeconomics is hard (Aleksander Bulkin): https://blog.coinfund.io/cryptoeconomics-is-hard-ad401b2428b9
Decentralization:
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The meaning of decentralization (Vitalik Buterin): https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274
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The decentralization promise (Aleksander Bulkin): https://blog.coinfund.io/the-decentralization-promise-5b8fbc496c66
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Quantifying decentralization (Balaji Srinivasan): https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e
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Decentralization in bitcoin and ethereum: http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/
Crypto Primitives:
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The emergence of cryptoeconomic primitives (Jacob Horne): https://blog.coinbase.com/the-emergence-of-cryptoeconomic-primitives-14ef3300cc10
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TCRs
- Introducing curation markets (Simon de la Rouviere): https://medium.com/@simondlr/introducing-curation-markets-trade-popularity-of-memes-information-with-code-70bf6fed9881
- Tweetstorm from Fred Ehrsam: https://twitter.com/FEhrsam/status/958388803655184386
- Curate this: token curated registries that don’t work (Aleksander Bulkin): https://blog.coinfund.io/curate-this-token-curated-registries-that-dont-work-d76370b77150
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Cryptocollectibles
- Digital collectibles and the weird future of “digibles” (Josh Stark): https://hackernoon.com/digital-collectibles-and-the-weird-future-of-digibles-f75f4bf0f9aa
Consensus Mechanisms
A distributed systems primer for non-experts
The Markets
High level:
- Comparison to dotcom bubble: https://money.cnn.com/2000/11/09/technology/overview/
- Technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms (Carlota Perez), note, this is the shortened paper version: http://e-tcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/PEREZ-Carlota-Technological-revolutions-and-techno-economic-paradigms1.pdf
Development
- The authoritative guide to blockchain development (Haseeb Qureshi): https://haseebq.com/the-authoritative-guide-to-blockchain-development/
Newsletters
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Token Economy: http://weekly.tokeneconomy.co/
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Proof of Work: https://proofofwork.substack.com/subscribe
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ARK Disrupt: https://ark-invest.com/disruptive-innovation-research
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Marty's Bent: https://twitter.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=67eb93253df610fc7b047c270&id=1cdbed15b1
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Relayer Report: https://0xprotocol.substack.com/welcome
- A biweekly update on the 0x ecosystem
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Satis Group Crypto Week in Review: https://satisgroup.io/
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MIT Chain Letter: https://www.technologyreview.com/newsletters/chain-letter/
Charts
- NVT Signal: http://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-nvt-signal/
Blogs
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Elaine's Idle Mind - Elaine Ou: https://elaineou.com/
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Unenumerated - Nick Szabo: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/
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The Back of the Envelope - Preston Byrne: https://prestonbyrne.com/blog/
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Learning Slowly - John Gleeson: https://www.learningslowly.co/
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Vitalik Buterin: https://vitalik.ca/
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Tony Sheng: https://www.tonysheng.com/
Podcasts
Data Resources
Ecosystem:
- Epicenter: https://epicenter.tv/episodes/
- Beginner guides to cryptoassets: https://medium.com/@linda.xie/beginners-guide-series-on-cryptoassets-d897535d887
ICOs/Token Sales:
ICOs/Token Treasuries:
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Santiment: https://app.santiment.net/ethereum-spent
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Project transparency (Santiment): https://projecttransparency.org/
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Dapp capitulation (needs work): http://www.dappcapitulation.com/
Exchanges:
General:
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Onchainfx: https://onchainfx.com/
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Coinmetrics: https://coinmetrics.io/
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Sifr data: https://www.sifrdata.com/
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Are we decentralized yet?: https://arewedecentralizedyet.com/
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Messari: https://messari.io/
Reading List
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Digital Gold - Nathaniel Popper
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Cryptoassets - Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar
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The Sovereign Individual - James Dale Davidson
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Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Academic foundations:
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The Ethics of Money Production, Jorg Guido Hulsmann: https://mises.org/sites/default/files/The%20Ethics%20of%20Money%20Production_2.pdf
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The Byzantine General's Problem (Lamport, Shostak, Pease 1982): https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~luca/cs174/byzantine.pdf (add more digestable version)
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The Idea of Smart Contracts (Nick Szabo, 1997): http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/idea.html