Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Reading List

I host a Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Meetup in DC. Our study group is made of technologists retraining into blockchain technology. If you want to understand the capabilities of this tech, and would like a foundation to carry out your own projects, this reading list is for you.

Introductory books

Option 1 - read a great technical book + a great business book.

Mastering Bitcoin - Andreas Antonopoulos - This book explains how the bitcoin protocol works, with examples of how to get your first bitcoin, how a transaction works, mining, the Bitcoin Core reference implementation, and thorough explanations of the bitcoin implementation of a blockchain. 

The Business Blockchain - William Mougayar - a fairly well written book that explains why the blockchain is a disruption and what industries it will disrupt. Thought provoking. You will see this book quoted in a ton of ICO white papers.

Option 2 - read a good comprehensive book.

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive introduction - Arvind Narayanan- This book covers both the technology, applications and broader societal impact. The author, a Princeton professor, also runs the Coursera course recommended below. 

Other books

Introducing Ethereum and Solidity - Chris Dannen - this book gets pretty bad reviews, but it’s the only published book that I know of that covers Ethereum and Solidity. There’s an upcoming Mastering Ethereum book by Antonopoulos/ O’Reilly but it won’t be published until 2018

Cryptoassets - Chris Burniske - if you want an introduction to cryptocurrency from an investor perspective and want to understand how others evaluate projects for their future return potential, this book is above average. Chris also publishes lots of interest content on Twitter.

Almost all the other books in the space are pretty bad - the tech is just too new.

Online courses

• Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies - Aravind Narayanan - Princeton/Coursera
• Stanford CS251 - Syllabus
• Generalist 2h online course - Scott Driscoll / Pluralsight
• Getting started with Ethereum development 2h30 course - Jan-Erik Sandberg / Pluralsight

Tutorials

• If you don’t have a technical background - Coindesk’s Beginner’s Guide to Blockchain Technology
• Solidity Tutorial - learn how to develop on Ethereum’s blockchain 

Selected Academic Papers

• Satoshi paper and The Complete Satoshi
• Ethereum white paper and yellow paper
• Research Perspectives and Challenges for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies

References

• Bitcoin Developer Guide
• Solidity Developer Guide

Metaresources

• MIT Digital Currency Initiative Getting started reading list
• Jameson Lopp's Bitcoin Resources page
• A16Z Crypto Canon reading list
• Blockchain @ Berkeley Ethereum Deep Dive

Websites / Blogs worth reading

• Coindesk
• Bitcoin Magazine

Video from conferences and talks

• Consensus 2016
• Consensus 2017 (registration required to view videos)
• Token Summit
• Epicenter
• ICO Summit 2017 (long unedited video)
• Construct 2017 (developer conference)

About me

I'm a software product designer and entrepreneur. I run a tech startup focused on telephony, and also a consulting practice focused on blockchain. If you have an interesting project, reach out.