Learning About Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is all the rage these days. From Bitcoin to Ethereum to Ripple, to some silly sounding thing someone will come up with tomorrow, it’s something people want to know about.

At the risk of sounding like a super noob, what’s a good introduction to crypto? From the basics through understanding current landscape

— Benny Wong (@bdotdub) January 5, 2018

So you’re looking to learn a little something about how these new technologies work? Well Benny (and anyone not named Benny), I don’t have all the answers, but I do have two resources that people who are interested in the technical aspects should check out.

If you want to learn about the blockchain, I would start here. The video is only 17 minutes, and yet covers everything you need to know about how a blockchain is built and works.

If you want to learn about Bitcoin, I would start here, at the time marker 41:55. Everything I learned about Bitcoin in this episode of Security Now still holds up today, six years later. Steve Gibson was very early in understanding what makes the protocol interesting, along with its upsides and downsides. The only real thing that’s changed since this was recording is the addition of exchanges like Coinbase, Gdax, Kraken, and others into the marketplace, as a way to centralize trading.

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A personal note, if you’re just looking to invest in some cryptocurrency you probably don’t need to understand the underlying technology. The investment side currently is a speculative market based on projecting who the winners and losers in this space are going to be, and for the most part that’s relatively disconnected from the technology.

And one more note, if you’re going to invest in cryptocurrency right now, only put in however much money you’re willing to lose. No one knows how the market is going to play out so I’d equate the whole thing to gambling at best.