Over the last 3-4 years, I’ve been learning more about the inner workings of Bitcoin and all the tech & finance surrounding it. In this post, I’d like to share the resources I used to get a better understanding of how Bitcoin works, its strengths and weaknesses.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, if you have resources you prefer I’d love to learn about them!
^(Note: some of these links contain affiliate references, I will get paid if you purchase any of these books.)
Books#
These books show the history of money, its importance in todays society and how Bitcoin can play a potential role.
Non-technical#
These books focus on the concepts of money, its origins, its use in our every day life etc.
I never thought I’d become interested in seemingly simple questions like “where does money come from”, but it’s opened a whole new world for me just reading about this.
- The Internet of Money by Andreas Antonopoulos
- The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous
- The Little Bitcoin Book by Timi Ajiboye, Luis Buenaventura, Alexander Lloyd, Jimmy Song, Alena Vranova, Alex Gladstein
I recommend these wholeheartedly.
Technical#
These books focus on the technology of Bitcoin, which is mind-bogglingly fascinating and extremely complicated.
- Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain by Andreas Antonopoulos
These let you answer questions like “what is a Bitcoin?”, “how does value get transmitted” and “how can you build smart money (‘smart contracts’)”.
Podcasts#
In no particular order, these are the podcasts I enjoy on the topic. Not every episode is equally good, but the good thing about podcasts is you can just pick the ones whose topic appeals to you.
Non-technical#
These help with a variety of topics: the current economic state, the influence government has over money, the role Bitcoin already plays in other countries, …
- What Bitcoin Did Podcast by Peter McCormack
- The Pomp Podcast by Anthony Pompliano
- What Grinds My Gears by Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson
Technical#
Audio isn’t always the best form to learn, especially for complex technologies like Bitcoin, but most of these episodes do a really good job at explaining in audio-form.
- The Stephan Livera Podcast
- Flippening by Clay Collins (semi-technical, no longer publishing but the back catalogue is still up)
Would love to add tech-podcasts to the lists, but they’re hard to find.
Newsletters#
Well I do love newsletters . :-)
There’s really only 1 that I can recommend: Bitcoin Optech . They feature summaries of new merges, BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) & tech for Bitcoin Core. It’s highly technical.
They did a series to explain bech32 spread over a couple of weeks that really helped see the implementation details, gaining a little more understanding every week.
Online content#
These alone could keep you occupied for weeks:
- Jameson Lopp’s collection of resources
- Andreas M. Antonopoulos : his site is full of videos & explainers
What else would you recommend?