I liked this for a technical introduction:
http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol-a...
Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
41–50 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#42Blockchains are just databases rebranded to be something interesting when cryptography is applied. There's no magic to keeping transactions in 'folders'. Database journaling, and message signing has been performed since the 80's (or older)
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#43Everything in Bitcoinlandia is fairly superficial, since everyone is trying to sell Bitcoin and make himself rich. So it's like reading multi-level-marketing books. That being said. What's actually kind of good (with actual technical specifications) is Bitcoin wiki, even when it's slightly outdated; then official bitcoin website; and sometimes bitcoin stack exchange website (but that can become outdated too). I don't…
Learning about blockchains can certainly be disconnected from Bitcoin. Go read the Ethereum docs for example.
There are no uses for turing complete smart contracts. Multisig and nLockTime perform all the same functions with lower risk and greater scalability.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#44I've found that getting a wallet and sending some Bitcoin is a great first step. This course introduces Bitcoin and also surveys an array of other decentralized, blockchain projects: https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/bitcoin-decentralized-te... (caveats: self-promotion, pay-walled, but the free trial allows you to watch 95% of it). Bear in mind that the word "blockchain" is an evolving word; almost every definition…
Blockchain is now a buzzword that means 'good database'
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#45Set up a full node at home and run it for a while. Turn on logging and watch the messages there.
You'll need (at present) about 80 GB of disk space to hold the blockchain. The full node client will download it for you or you can torrent a recent snapshot of the blockchain and then synchronise from there (quicker).
The software you can obtain from here:
https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node
Or you can use git to pull the source code from GitHub and compile it yourself. I've done both, and found the developers on GitHub friendly and responsive to pull requests, even helpful to a newbie submitting a first pull request.
Beware that running a full node will try to eat all your upstream bandwidth. It takes a few days for the Bitcoin network to notice the existence of your new full node, but the number of connections will grow (others asking you for pieces of the blockchain, as well as transaction verifications). You can learn a lot about the Bitcoin ecology this way.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Learning about blockchains can certainly be disconnected from Bitcoin. Go read the Ethereum docs for example.
There are no uses for turing complete smart contracts. Multisig and nLockTime perform all the same functions with lower risk and greater scalability.
Looking forward then to the deluge of DApps coming to Bitcoin using Multisign and nLockTime, just go to http://dapps.ethercasts.com/ and copy paste ideas to Bitcoin using Multisign / nLockTime, should be easy peasy. Oh yeah, and all can be done with Multisign & nLockTime, so I wonder why Counterparty and now Rootstock are implementing Ethereum's virtual machine, strange.
Wish you and your partner in crime stopped spreading false information and just focused on Bitcoin. It should stand on its own merits not on dishing other projects.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#47I assume you have read the the original Nakamoto paper on bitcoin. I will put it here for reference purposes. It is a seminal paper on blockchain and fairly accessible. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
The Nakamoto paper is surprisingly accessible.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#48as others have mentioned, the princeton course videos + _homework exercises_ are a great entry point. also read satoshi's paper and then other resources
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#49I assume you have read the the original Nakamoto paper on bitcoin. I will put it here for reference purposes. It is a seminal paper on blockchain and fairly accessible. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
and in html: http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/
Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about the blockchain?
#50Building the minimum viable block chain: https://www.igvita.com/2014/05/05/minimum-viable-block-chain... That's where I would start.
reading through this now, finding it very well written and informative.