An evolving starter kit for blockchain - Disclaimer: Heavy Ethereum lens.
Blockchain
Blockchain is a generic system using cryptography and a ledger which allows for immutable "transactions". A distributed ledger is usually peer-to-peer and requires consensus for validating new blocks.
Recommended Reading: 3500 Word Plain English Guide to Blockchain
Recommended Play: BlockchainDemo
Bitcoin
The first blockchain was presented in a whitepaper under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The design was implemented into the form of a cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. Nick Szabo is known for ushering in a new concept around "smart contracts" which laid the foundations for Ethereum.
Recommended Reading: Bitcoin Whitepaper
Recommended Reading for Bitcoin History: Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Recommnded Play: TxHighway
Ethereum
Ethereum is an open source, public, Turing-complete, blockchain-based, distributed system featuring smart contracts. Vitalik Buterin wrote the white paper in 2013. Amongst the co-founders is Gavin Wood (Parity Technologies), Charles Hoskinson (Cardano), and Anthony Di Iorio, Joe Lubin (ConsenSys).
Recommended Reading: Ethereum Whitepaper
Recommended Reading: Illustrated Guide to Ethereum
Recommended Play: Cryptozombies https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/01/23/ethereum-now-going-public/
- Technologies to support intense cryptographic functions are here!
- Data can be "digital currency"
- Private corporations and software are ruling the world
- A call for financial reform
Recommended Reading: Three challenges for the web, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Recommended Reading: Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Recommended Watch: MakerDAO- A New Hope for Financial Reform
Blockchain is a means of getting to something. So the shouting you hear is about unlocking/reforming some hefty the values around:
- Identity
- Governance
- Privacy
- Ownership
- Public goods
- Open Source
- Transparency
- Coordination
Anyone can make a blockchain, but not everyone can foster a community. What are the values of the blockchain serving as north stars?
Recommended Reading: Why Blockchain is Hard
Challenge #1: Scaling!
Current state: Ethereum is in the middle of moving from current (proof-of-work) system to ETH2.0 (staking) which will require a lot less computation, so you'll see a lot of the development split and in flux.
Projects tackling this challenge: Near Protocol, Flow (by Dapper Labs)
Challenge #2: Hacks, Bugs, Scams
Current state: There's an increase of hacks and scams every year, particularly in decentralized exchanges. One aspect is that due to its complexity and lack of industry experts, there are very few who are able to properly audit systems.
"THE DAO" "Parity multi-sig"
Projects tackling this challenge: OpenZeppelin, Trail of Bits
Challenge #3: Creating common standards!
Currently: As new blockchains are being created, cross chain interoperability is becoming a bigger need.
Tackling this challenge: Cosmos, Polkadot
The deeper you are in this stuff, the easier it is to get lost, so this is ordered in: basics at the top. If it's too easy, move ahead! If you're lost, try a step down!
101
- Smart Contracts
- Full Node
- Validator
- Gas
- Proof of Work
- Proof of Stake
- Merkle Tree
- Decentralized Applications (DApp)
- Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAOs)
- Decentralized Exchange (DEX)
- Solidity
- Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIPs)
- Layer 1: "On-chain" Every transaction is confirmed on the chain.
- Layer 2: "Off-chain" solutions
- Side-chains
102
- Sharding
- Wrapped ETH (WETH)
- Meta-Transactions
- Token bonding curves
- State Channels
- Oracles
- IPFS: "InterPlanetary File System", a decentralized version of HTTPs
103
- cDai
- Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZNARKs, STARKS): Intro to Zero Knowledge Proofs
- Vyper
- Blockchain Gaming
- Decentraland, Cryptokitties, Crypto Kaiju: Digital meets physical, Axie Infinity, Gods Unchained
- Curation Markets & Intersection of Art x Crypto Primitives: Simon de la Rouviere
- Artist's Dictionary for the Blockchain
- Artist Guide to Blockchain 101
- Cool Projects: (Dada, Superrare,KnowOrigin, ArtProject/Doge, Clovers Network)
Architecture stack (https://entethalliance.org/technical-documents/)
Some say it's the leading use case because of all the intermediaries and well, if you've ever tried to send money or live in a volatile economic country, you know why.
Concepts:
- Stablecoin
- Peer to Peer Loans
- Private Transactions
- Decentralized Exchanges "DEX"
Projects: Defiprime and Consensys rallies the growing ecosystem
Classic Whitepapers
Books
- Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
- Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
- Radical Markets by Glen Weyl (maybe check out his video before)
- Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum- A chunk of this info is outdated but good basic and historical info.
Watch
- Financial: MAKERDAO - A New Hope for Financial Reform
- Societal: A Conversation with Stewart Brand
- Web3 Foundation (Parity Technologies)
- Ethereum Foundation
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Bitcoin Foundation
- Zcash Foundation (Electric Coin Company)
Events end up being really important and very global because it's a global-first culture (yay open source!). So they become meeting points for teams (some who work together for months/years and never meet til an event)
- Devcon - Ethereum's annual gathering.
- Web3Summit - Web3 Foundation's annual event in Berlin.
- ETHGlobal - Hacking is highly recommended if you're a learn by doing type. Lots of hackers who are new to Ethereum, but also small enough there are OGs available for inquiries. Free to attend, really great people.
- Blockchain weeks (NY blockchain week, SF blockchain week, Berlin blockchain week, etc.)
- Stanford Blockchain Conference(Research focused)