The Blockchain Toolkit 1.0

An in-depth learning guide to the blockchain wonderland

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

A Quick Intro: What am I doing here?

Rest assured. While the space might seem mad, the people in it are most certainly not (or perhaps we are!). The blockchain space is both wondrously vibrant and amazing, but also confusing, stressful and downright odd at times.

Having fallen down the rabbit hole myself, I have come to learn that one of most challenging aspects in this space is the knowledge or information barrier, especially for beginners. By barrier I do not mean a lack of knowledge sources, but rather, an ever-growing mass of information that can be very difficult to process.

With so much information at hand, the hardest step to this adventure is often the first. How can I learn all of this? How do I keep up with the developments in the space? How can I distinguish good from bad, legit from scam when I don’t really know enough about blockchain? I know that blockchain will change things, but where do I start?!

My goal in this piece is to first present personal learning from my side that can possibly serve as a guide for others. I then list a number of articles, resources and sources to begin or continue your learning.

It might seem dark and mysterious, but what a world Blockchain is. (GIF from Giphy)

Personal Learning: Don’t worry, it’s not too late.

While I have had my fair share of confused moments, either not understanding anything or feeling overwhelmed, this space has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. It is for this reason that I so actively encourage others to go out and learn about blockchain.

Join because of the hype and everyone is talking about ‘this blockchain thing’, stay because…

It’s like nothing we have ever seen, and it’s fascinating.
You learn a lot about yourself, and about learning in general.
The community is vibrant, active and empowering.
The technology is not only disruptive, it is foundational. Saying that it will change the world is not an understatement.
We are still in the very early days. Any investment now in time and learning will. pay. off.

Blockchain = Usain Bolt at warp speed

Blockchain is a very fast-moving space. It is often tough to keep up with all the developments and stay in front of the moving wave. Don’t rush and don’t worry. You’ll soon realize that you can’t always keep up to speed, that there is always something more to learn. That’s fine!
As difficult as it might be to keep up with the sheer speed of development, I urge you to go out and learn as much as you can, by your own means. Do not follow what others claim, and be wary of people who call themselves experts. Learn to ride your own bicycle.

Put Some Skin in the Game

Invest in the space if you can. Yes, it is volatile, yes it is tough to follow. But investing your own money incentivizes you to learn more. See it as a tuition fee of sorts. Try using an exchange, sending crypto to a friend (or even better — purchasing something with crypto!), get a feel for the system.
Invest in terms of knowledge too. Stick your neck out, dare to make mistakes. Share your knowledge, encourage disagreement and seek to identify your weaknesses.

Learn. Explain. Be Challenged. Improve. Repeat.

Develop a solid base of knowledge that you constantly renovate, stress-test, and share for feedback. By doing so, you will soon learn to understand other viewpoints, and have very interesting discussions with others. There will always be that zinger of a question someone asks that will catch you off guard. When that happens, it’s back to the drawing board.
Learn for yourself first, share with and teach others next. Aside from actual tech development, continuous learning and teaching are the two most important things anyone can do in this space. Adoption and growth will only come when others begin to understand the tech. Be a guide, even if it is for one person, and even if you might not know everything. More often than not, you will end up learning a lot from the experience.

This list is my Anti-Library

I believe in Nassim Taleb’s ‘Anti-Library’ (for more, see The Black Swan, pages 1–2): A significant amount of the content I provide below is in my own personal reading/research list too. The more you read, the more you find more things to read and learn, and the more you realise you don’t know much. I still have a lot to learn and have not yet found how to transform a 24-hour day into 72 hours…

Nobody is an Expert

Rather, the term ‘expert’ should be reserved to a very, very select few in this space. So take this in two ways: Beware of those who claim to be experts. At the same time, don’t worry, keep learning. Stay humble and hungry for the opportunity, and seek like-minded individuals with whom to share, discuss and learn mutually.

A Final Tip

There are many ‘blinding factors’ in the space that can be quite distracting, from highly volatile market prices to huge ICOs. These factors often contribute to the first impressions the general public might have of the space: It’s a scam, a pyramid scheme, or as Charlie Munger would put it, “trading freshly harvested baby brains” (I don’t know either…).
I started there too. A while back, I was the first person to dismiss bitcoin and cryptos, scoffing from my high horse. And now, well… here I am. In that spirit, here is a final piece of advice on your learning journey: Try to set aside your first impressions, however strong they may be. Ignore prices, investment possibilities, all the blabber, and your own personal biases. Put on your figurative sound-cancelling headphones and focus on understanding the tech and the ideas behind the tech. Once you start learning and understanding — no pressure though, you don’t need to be Satoshi — take off those headphones and rejoin the crypto world with a more balanced understanding.

Toolkit 1.0

With that now having been said, here is what I offer to you today. Below I have created a first version of a ‘toolkit’ or library of relevant reads, fascinating personalities, and excellent places to begin (or continue) your learning in this space.

I would be thrilled to receive feedback, criticism, and possible additions to this page. I will personally be spreading this post as much as possible with the intent of gathering insights and feedback from some of the people mentioned in the coming list, to reduce possible learning/teaching biases of mine, and to expand the possible knowledge base. You can find my contact details at the end of the post, don’t hesitate to reach out!

A list of lists — Listception?

As is usually the case in most spaces, this is neither the first, or the last of such repositories of knowledge. A few others I have found in my research:

Getting started with Bitcoin, blockchains, and cryptoassets (Stephen McKeon) — Stephen provides a great overview of what you can research using what material and how you can break it down time-wise.

Crypto Canon (Andreessen Horowitz) — I fell on this close to finishing this article. Had I seen it earlier I might not even have written the rest of the piece… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Ultimate Cryptoeconomics Guide (The Blockchain Evangelist) — A beautiful website of great resources, organized in chapters. Cryptoeconomics is one of the (very) fundamental aspects of blockchain technology, and one of the possible ‘angles of attack’ for learning.

Bitcoin Resources (Jameson Lopp) — Bitcoin specific, but a great repository of knowledge nonetheless.

High-Level Learning Guides

The Inner Game of Crypto (Alex Hardy for Hackernoon) — I wish I had read this at the beginning of my personal journey. The key (powerful) messages are the following: 1) Yes, Crypto is a crazy rabbit hole. 2) No one knows everything, it’s normal, so don’t feel discouraged. 3) Learn, be open, be flexible.

Why It’s Hard to “Get” Bitcoin: The Blockchain Spectrum (Dhruv Bansal for Unchained Capital) — This excellent piece shows the sheer size of the spectrum of fields involved in this new technology. Don’t feel discouraged if you feel lost or confused, there is a lifetime’s worth of studying when it comes to blockchain :)

Introductory Material

What is Blockchain? Blockchain 101 as explained by different sources.

WTF is the Blockchain? (Mohit Mamoria for Hackernoon) — The ultimate 16-minute, 3500-word guide in plain English to understand blockchain. This is by far the best article I’ve seen so far on this topic.

What is Blockchain? (Blockchain Hub) — A great visual introduction to the blockchain.

Got more questions? Everything You Need to Know About Blockchain But Were Too Embarrassed to Ask (Nicky Woolf)

Learning about Bitcoin?

Explain bitcoin to me like I’m five (Freecodecamp) — An albeit dated (2013…), but great introduction to bitcoin and digital scarcity. Simplified, non-technical, and interesting.

Read the Bitcoin Whitepaper. 9 pages of technical bliss.

Want more? Please, serve yourself! A Guide To Bitcoin’s Technical Brilliance (For Non-Programmers) (Digital Asset Research).

What about Ethereum?

Smart Contracts for Dummies (Freecodecamp) — Explaining the foundational qualities of the blockchain and the concept of smart contracts on Ethereum.

Understanding Ethereum — a full guide (Thijs Maas for Hackernoon)

For an in-depth technical explanation of Ethereum, look no further: How does Ethereum work, anyway? (Preethi Kassireddy)

For those true techies out there, the whitepaper is again an option.

What about the 1595 other cryptoassets?

Well, for that my friend, I leave you to your own research. Hopefully with this article, you will realize the sheer number of diverse topics, opinions and developments. The same of course applies to the current cryptoasset market. Look up projects, start with some in the top 10, and by then you’ll be down the rabbit hole :).

A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptoassets (Linda Xie) — A good place to begin. For people who know about/understand bitcoin and want to learn about other cryptoassets.

Messari — Messari is an open-source data library providing information and research on several different projects in the space. Their goal is to provide an open and transparent platform to help improve decision making and understanding of the industry.

Distributed Ledger Technology

I thought we were talking about the blockchain here?!

Well, yes. Sort of. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is the class of technology, while blockchain is a subset in that class.

Distributed Ledgers are either permissioned (private), or permissionless (public). Think of intranets versus internets. A permissioned DLT enables individuals or organizations who already know and trust each other to use a DLT as their infrastructure. Conversely, a permissionless DLT, or blockchain (in most cases), is a trustless system that anyone can use and take part in. These public DLs (blockchains) use a combination of peer-to-peer network technology, cryptography, and game theory (or cryptoeconomics).

Blockchains & Distributed Ledger Technologies (BlockchainHub) — A great explanation of the different types of DLTs and their properties.

Tokens, Cryptoeconomics, Valuations

Think cryptoassets, not cryptocurrencies: Token Classification

Seriously. While cryptocurrencies are what most people associate with the entire blockchain space, they only represent one subset of possible types of tokens on the blockchain. Thus, what are tokens? How are they classified?

Cryptographic Tokens (Blockchain Hub) — Another visual/explanatory article from Blockchain Hub. What are tokens, what can they represent, how can they be used?

The Token Framework (Untitled Inc) — A multi-dimensional tool for understanding and classifying crypto tokens/assets. This framework is a great start to this angle of research, highlighting how many possible tokens exist (with many other types to come)…

A General Taxonomy For Cryptographic Assets (Brave New Coin)

Cryptoeconomics

One of the most fascinating aspects of blockchain technology is how incentives fit in the very ‘DNA’ (for lack of a better term) of the technology. One of the primary reasons for this being that the only way to ensure trust in the system — in the case of a public and permissionless blockchain that everyone can access — is to have incentives to ‘guide’ actors towards honest and trustworthy actions.

In the Bitcoin protocol for example, the security of the blockchain is a ‘perpendicular’ by-product of actors financially incentivized to mine blocks of transactions for personal gain. Such incentive structures are not only found in the consensus and protocol levels, as many applications or platforms seek to incentivize platform stakeholders. Having such incentive structures engrained so deeply (and transparently) in the technology is extremely powerful. Welcome to cryptoeconomics.

Cryptoeconomics 101 (Nick Tomaino) — A brief into with some great further reading.

Making Sense of “Cryptoeconomics” (Josh Stark for Hackernoon) — Along with Nick Tomaino’s piece, good place to begin.

The Blockchain Economy — A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics (Cryptoeconomics, RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub)

A Crash Course in Mechanism Design for Cryptoeconomic Applications (BlockChannel) — For the nitty gritty details on mechanism design and cryptoeconomics.

The Ultimate Cryptoeconomics Guide (The Blockchain Evangelist) — If you find yourself in love with this field, then again, I insist on this list.

How do we valuate cryptoassets? Preliminary approaches.

I say preliminary because none of these techniques or approaches are final products. As others have echoed, blockchain networks and token valuation in particular could be research subjects for future Nobel Prize winners in Economics.

Chris Burniske provides an excellent first take at this puzzle: Cryptoasset Valuations (Chris Burniske)

Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro) — One of the driving theories in cryptoasset valuations.

Introducing NVT Ratio (Bitcoin’s PE Ratio), use it to detect bubbles (Willy Woo) — As described in the title, the NVT ratio can be a good metric to use. Developed by Willy Woo and Chris Burniske.

Rethinking Network Value to Transactions (NVT) Ratio (Dmitry Kalichkin) — Dmitry provides another take on the NVT, and outlines the main metrics used by CryptoLab Capital.

Placeholder Investment Thesis Summary — For a more general investment thesis for the space, written by the two co-founders of Placeholder VC (who are none other than Chris Burniske and Joel Monegro).

Are we there yet? Challenges, Bottlenecks and Potential Solutions

2018 is the new 1994. Imagine Netflix offering a streaming service back then: “You can watch five seconds of video, with only one hour of loading time!”. We are still very early in the space, and there are many technical and societal challenges that will need solving.

Fundamental challenges with public blockchains (Preethi Kasireddy) — A great place to begin. Preethi presents the problems and possible solutions for each hurdle.

The DCS Triangle (Trent McConaghy) — Understanding the ‘trilemma’ of tradeoffs between decentralization, consistency, and scalability.

A quick note here: With the speed at which things develop in this space, I am probably missing some good articles or important topics, and I might be providing incorrect or inaccurate explanations. Please, please, please do post extra resources or relevant topics in the comments, or DM me with any feedback. I would be happy to edit the toolkit to include any further good reads.

Scalability

What if I told you that every time you bought a coffee you’d have to broadcast the transaction to a stadium full of people who’d all need to update their transaction list? Doesn’t sound very efficient, right?

Blockchains don’t scale. Not today, at least. But there’s hope. (Preethi Kasireddy for Hackernoon) — From SegWit to Sharding and Plasma, Preethi covers the potential solutions that are currently being developed to solve the scalability problem.

Making Sense of Ethereum’s Layer 2 Scaling Solutions (Josh Stark)

Bitcoin Lightning Network — 7 Things You Should Know (Lukas Schor for Argon) — A good intro to one of the more promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin.

Governance

“Blockchain governance is like trying to herd cats” — Alex Tapscott @ Zurich CryptoSummit 2018

Blockchain Governance: Programming our Future (Fred Ehrsam) — An overview of the importance of blockchain governance design, the potential approaches, and more.

Governance Deep Dive (Blockchain at Berkeley) — The title is pretty self-explanatory.

Blockchain Governance: A Reading List (Spencer Noon) — For more reading into this fascinating topic.

(True) Decentralization

There are still a number of challenges in this space in terms of decentralization, from the consensus systems used to centralized exchanges.

From ‘Are we there yet?’ to ‘Are we decentralized yet?’

The Meaning of Decentralization (Vitalik Buterin) — What are the types of decentralization? Why do we need decentralization?

Why Decentralization Matters (Chris Dixon)

Consensus Mechanisms

PoW vs. PoS vs. DPoS… DYGI? (Do You Get It?)

Proof-of-Work, Explained (Cointelegraph) — A good introduction to the original consensus mechanism, Proof-of-Work.

A Proof-of-Stake Design Philosophy (Vitalik Buterin) — Vitalik exposes his viewpoint and reasoning behind his vision for Proof-of-Stake.

Delegated Proof-of-Stake: Features and Tradeoffs (MultiCoin Capital)

Seeking Consensus on Consensus — DPOS or Delegated Proof of Stake and the Two Generals’ Problem (Ian Grigg on Steemit) — An introduction to the consensus problem, its evolution, and the current possible solutions for blockchain technology.

Ethereum Casper 101 (Jon Choi) — An in-depth look at Casper, the Proof-of-Stake project for Ethereum.

Put some skin in the game!

Although it can be daunting in the beginning, actually investing in the space and trying out the tech yourself is one of the more valuable things you can do. By investing, you essentially incentivize yourself to learn more. Start slowly, but surely. Set up your own wallet, send cryptos to some friends, test and investigate.

Some good websites to check prices and market caps:

Coinmarketcap — (a.k.a sort of the incumbent).

Coin360 — A great visualisation of the state of the market.

Coincheckup — Also provides a detailed scoring system for each crypto.

Onchainfx — Cryptoasset valuations and metrics.

A few exchanges (in no particular order):

Some good reading resources with regards to trading

How to Start a Crypto Portfolio (Robert Leshner) — A great place to begin. Robert provides guidance for some of the main questions newcomers have with regards to crypto trading.

‘Toshimoku’s Trading Tips & Tricks (Carpe Noctom) — Like many other financial markets, crypto is full of traders, each with their own opinions and ideas. This article is a good start to get an idea of what some are even talking about. From timeframes to technical analysis, he’s got it all.

10 Things to Know/Do Before Investing in Cryptocurrencies (Gokul N K for Hackernoon)

If you’re really into trading: The Ultimate Resource List for Crypto Traders & Investors (Lucas Wyland for Hackernoon)

A List of Good Sources

News Platforms

Coindesk

CoinTelegraph

CCN

Twitter

The space is so fast-moving that Twitter is often the best place to get up to speed after a day. Between hilarious memes, deep threads and strong thought leadership, CryptoTwitter is a great way to stay tuned as to what is happening in the space. A list of personal follows can be found further down.

Medium

As you might already have noted from the above content, Medium is one of the primary sources for thought leadership/relevant reading for this space. I provide a list of good pages/profiles further down. More than Crypto, Medium has a vast swathe of articles and writers for a ton of different topics, worth the subscription!

Podcasts

A personal favorite, podcasts are great for the daily commute, or to listen to fascinating discussions. There are a good crop of podcasts that revolve around innovation and blockchain that are worth the listen for any one wanting to get up to speed and learn, or stay informed with regards to current events in the space. Here are some of my favorite podcasts, and a few good episodes to get you started:

Unchained Podcast (Laura Shin) — By far the best in my opinion. Laura is an excellent host and interviews some of the greatest minds in the space.

Some notable episodes:

a16z Podcast (Andreessen Horowitz) — The famous VC firm has a great podcast feed that treats a large variety of subjects, with some episodes focusing on blockchain and crypto, here are a few of those:

Epicenter Podcast — This podcast focuses more on technical discussions with development teams, nonetheless very interesting.

Blockchain Insider — A great weekly podcast that combines weekly news with interesting discussions with actors in the space.

Youtube

Although not the medium I most use, Youtube still has a wealth of excellent videos and explanations of the technology. If you’re more into videos, Andreas Antonopoulos is a great start. The Ethereum Foundation also has a channel with a number of explanatory videos from Vitalik himself, and recordings of past conferences. With these two there is already quite a lot, and I trust Youtube to come up with some great suggestions for what to watch next.

Books

While some might argue that books are too ‘slow’-moving of a medium for this space, they can still be a good starting point.

Digital Gold (Nathaniel Popper) — An excellent starting point in the form of a written history of the rise of bitcoin, by Nathaniel Popper of the New York Times.

Blockchain Revolution (Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott) — The father and son combo of Don and Alex Tapscott provide an overview as to how blockchain can be developed, what potential use cases arise, what showstoppers remain to be addressed, and much more.

Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond (Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar) — Chris (mentioned above) and Jack provide a first take at how to invest in the space, and how to evaluate cryptoassets.

The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology (William Mougayar)

Not about blockchain, but some of my personal favorites (and very relevant in the current space)

Zero to One (Peter Thiel) — While I have gotten mixed reviews from others, I am a huge fan of this book, which provides a glimpse into Thiel’s thinking with regards to startups.

The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) — NNT provides a fascinating deep dive into the world of statistics, human biases, and philosophy revolving around the extremely improbable, momentous but overlooked events known as black swans.

Twitter List

Some of the notable follows I have. An alternative can be for you to have a look at Naval’s list for Crypto. To make this list a little more readable, I’ve tried to (roughly) organise accounts by category. Halfway through creating this list, I realised that pretty much everyone on this list is a thought leader in this space. Many of these people also have Medium profiles (list further down).

Nick Szabo’s Blog:

Unenumerated_Millions of millennia ago, in our own Milky Way galaxy, but far upstream of where we are today, two neutron stars…_unenumerated.blogspot.ch

Erik Vorhees’ Blog:

Money and State — “Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes its laws.”_Update June 2017: The basic concept behind Lerner’s SegWit2MB has evolved into “SegWit2x” and an agreement reached by…_moneyandstate.com

To the person who made it all the way down here: you have my eternal admiration.

If you have any further questions, requests for new additions or feedback, feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment! You can find me here:

Philippe Henderson (@PhilHenderson95) | Twitter_The latest Tweets from Philippe Henderson (@PhilHenderson95). Formerly Ecosystem & Marketing — Thomson Reuters…_twitter.com

Philippe Henderson — Blockchain & ICO Analyst — QUORUS GmbH | LinkedIn_View Philippe Henderson’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Philippe has 10 jobs jobs…_www.linkedin.com