So last month I decided to invest some serious time into understanding bitcoin. I don’t want to rehash (pardon the pun) all the great information on bitcoin, so what follows is a list of links to resources that I found useful in my quest to understand more about crypto-currencies. If you didn’t get my little hashing joke above, then you really have some serious learning to do.
- Wikipedia is the obvious place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_protocol
- This is a pretty nice article that starts from nothing and builds towards bitcoin. http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol-actually-works/ (Thanks to my buddy Matt Kraning for sending this my way.)
- Of course, at some point you’ve got to read the original white paper that kicked the whole bitcoin experiment off in 2008-09: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- You’ve also got a listen to the first song dedicated to bitcoin (with some delicious harmonica action in there): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQ2nPSL5-0 (it’s pretty awesome.. and I just realized it’s sort of a love ballad to bitcoin.
- The “Let’s Talk Bitcoin” Network and Podcast (Adam Levine and crew have done a great job here): http://letstalkbitcoin.com/episodes & https://soundcloud.com/mindtomatter & http://www.youtube.com/user/LetsTalkBitcoinChan
- Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) #446 with Andreas Antonopoulos – This entire podcast is about Bitcoin and Andreas is currently the most well-known and vocal Bitcoin cheerleader out there. (http://podcasts.joerogan.net/)
- Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) #445 with Peter Schiff – The entire podcast is fascinating, but the discussion of bitcoin, gold, and money begins at 02:36:00 and ends at 02:48:00 (although they continue to discuss money and gold until the end of the podcast at 03:00:00). Peter’s a sharp economist so I found a lot of value listening to him try to poke some holes in the bitcoin ecosystem. (http://podcasts.joerogan.net/)
- How bitcoin works under the hood. A solid 20 minute video of how bitcoin works a few layers deep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx9zgZCMqXE
- Great quick explanation that explains mining well http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/18q2jx/eli5_bitcoin_mining_xpost_in_eli5/
- All about bitcoin addresses: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_Bitcoin_addresses
- An entertaining 60+ min talk about bitcoin and China. Definitely not required reading.. viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piasa1WgHjA
- Bitcoin Mining Calculator: http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator
- Join a mining pool quickly by checking out both of these sites (you’ll need some patience too): http://fabulouspanda.co.uk/macminer/ & https://www.triplemining.com/
More coming soon, bellay