sagitariusrexon Hacker News • Recommends
On “A Guide to Crypto Currencies”
For a quick video intro I recommend this video from 3Blue1Brown ("youtube mathematician") link to this video IMHO the best intro to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
0:00 / 0:00
#bitcoin#blockchain#proofofwork
But how does bitcoin actually work?
3Blue1Brown
8.7M subscribers • 42 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 15 people: 15 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2017 to 2024.
- Presented by Grant Sanderson, creator of 3Blue1Brown
- Linked in the description3b1b/manim
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
18M views9 years ago15 recommendations
Distributed systemsSecurityCryptographyConsensus: Raft and PaxosAlgorithms
Grant Sanderson explains the mathematical and cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin, building up a decentralized ledger from first principles.
The math behind cryptocurrencies. Help fund future projects: patreon.com/3blue1brown An equally valuable form of support is to simply share some of the videos. Special thanks to these supporters: 3b1b.co/btc-thanks This video was also funded with help from Protocol Labs: protocol.ai/join/ Some people have asked if this channel accepts contributions in cryptocurrency form. As a matter of fact, it does: 3b1b.co/crypto ENS: 3b1b.eth 2^256 video: youtu.be/S9JGmA5_unY Music by Vincent Rubinetti: soundcloud.com/vincerubinetti/heartbeat Here are a few other resources I'd recommend: Original Bitcoin paper: bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Block explorer: blockexplorer.com/ Blog post by Michael Nielsen: goo.gl/BW1RV3 (This is particularly good for understanding the details of what transactions look like, which is something this video did not cover) Video by CuriousInventor: youtu.be/Lx9zgZCMqXE Video by Anders Brownworth: youtu.be/_160oMzblY8 Ethereum white paper: goo.gl/XXZddT Timestamps: - Introduction - Ledgers and digital signatures - The ledger is the currency - Decentralization - Cryptographic hash functions - Proof of work and blockchains - Double spending - Block times, halvenings, and transaction fees - Thanks Thanks to these viewers for their contributions to translations Italian: @lcl45 ------------------ Animations are largely made using manim, a scrappy open-source python library. github.com/3b1b/manim If you want to check it out, I feel compelled to warn you that it's not the most well-documented tool, and has many other quirks you might expect in a library someone wrote with only their own use in mind. Music by Vincent Rubinetti. Download the music on Bandcamp: vincerubinetti.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-3blue1brown Stream the music on Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/1dVyjwS8FBqXhRunaG5W5u If you want to contribute translated subtitles or to help review those that have already been made by others and need approval, you can click the gear icon in the video and go to subtitles/cc, then "add subtitles/cc". I really appreciate those who do this, as it helps make the lessons accessible to more people. ------------------ 3blue1brown is a channel about animating math, in all senses of the word animate. And you know the drill with YouTube, if you want to stay posted on new videos, subscribe, and click the bell to receive notifications (if you're into that). If you are new to this channel and want to see more, a good place to start is this playlist: 3b1b.co/recommended Various social media stuffs: Website: 3blue1brown.com Twitter: twitter.com/3Blue1Brown Patreon: patreon.com/3blue1brown Facebook: facebook.com/3blue1brown Reddit: reddit.com/r/3Blue1BrownWhy it's here
15 people recommend thisWhat people say. Widely recommended as the absolute best and clearest visual introduction to how blockchain and Bitcoin work.
ahussainon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Blockchains explained visually (part 1 of 2)”
The best explanation of blockchain has to be (unsurprisingly) 3Blue1Brown: link to this video Would highly recommend watching this video for anyone who hasn't already.
gnarbarianon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Demystifying Blockchains”
this video is the best explanation for how mining and blockchains work IMO: link to this video It's long but very clear and thorough.
RichardCAon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Nobody knows what's going on”
> As someone that works in the crypto industry, I feel this every time I see the news or articles report on it, or comments here talking about it. It was the same way during the 90's Dot-Com era, journalists would explain the World Wide Web with word salad, e.g., the "Graphical portion of the Internet". With regard to Crypto, I decline to discuss it without mentioning the 3Blue1Brown video, sometimes the gambit works and triggers a better discussion: link to this video And I love the comments in that video about being "Confused, but on a higher level".
agreenon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?”
Intro: 1. link 2. link 3. link to this video 4. link 5. link 6. link Build Your Own Blockchain: 1. link 2. link 3. link Resource List for an Advanced Understanding (Multidisciplinary Approach): 1. link --- Additionally, here is some advice from Balaji Srinivasan (source: link ): 1. First, I'd master database and cryptography fundamentals, with something like Dan Boneh's course for the latter 2. Then, I'd read the Bitcoin.org and Ethereum documentation 3. Then, you should write short Python or Go scripts to do things like printing out the blockchain, formatting and signing a transaction by hand, managing private keys, that type of thing. This will give you a feel for the raw data str…
AdrienCheyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?”
As a quick and visual introduction, I would recommend the great "Ever wonder how Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) actually work?" youtube video from 3Blue1Brown link to this video
ddebernardyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Bitcoin mining uses more energy than Ecuador – but there’s a fix”
Mining and facilitating transactions, by which I'm assuming you're meaning certifying that transactions are legit, are the same thing. Here's a short video by 3Blue1Brown on how cryptocurrencies work: link to this video
afarrellon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Best online resources to learn about Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency?”
For a high-level introduction, this article in The Economist is where I'd advise someone to start: link Then, to make things feel more grounded, watch this video of a maths teacher walking you through the mechanics of what actually happens. He starts with "four friends who sometimes spot each other $5 for lunch" and then builds from there with great visuals, so it is quite accessible. link to this video
j_son Hacker News • Recommends
On “Understanding Ethereum Smart Contracts”
Just over a month ago, HN user DennisP answered the question "How did you get into contract ethereum development?". link If you are starting back at the idea of the Bitcoin blockchain, see ahussain's recommendation of 3Blue1Brown a day later: link link to this video
drexlspiveyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “How I became Leonardo da Vinci on the Blockchain”
This video does a very good job explaining what exact problems you would face if you tried to create a decentralized payment system and how bitcoin solved these problems. link to this video
axbyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Blockchain 101: The Simplest Guide You Will Ever Read”
I really liked this video by 3Blue1Brown explaining how blockchain works: link to this video Things that I didn't realize until I watched the video: * "Mining" bitcoin means processing transactions for other people. Miners do time consuming operations to process transactions. I had never heard of 3Blue1Brown before someone showed me that video, but he has a bunch of other good math videos. I liked the one about pi showing up in weird places.
grog454on Hacker News • Recommends
On “My First Impressions of Web3”
…the biggest unsolved problems in Bitcoin right now.. But somehow I can't even get past what a cryptographic ledger is and how it's beneficial on this forum, of all forums. Yikes. I've been patiently explaining my understanding of the ideas behind crypto. 3Blue1Brown seems to be favorably received on this forum, so maybe this will help educate you: link to this video NFTs are a natural extension of a cryptographic ledger as it's explained in that video. It's just adding non fungible tokens to the otherwise fungible bitcoin tokens being exchanged on the blockchain, and we'd like those non fungible tokens to represent real world objects, rather than just USD. Aside: I feel like we're in the dark age of cr…
jstx1on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Should I learn the tech behind crypto even if I don't want to own any?”
If you're interested, watch a youtube video or two about it (e.g. link to this video ). You don't need to get super deep or spend too much time on it.
cowtoolson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Blockchain.com cuts 25% workforce amid crypto bear market”
…transactions (for example allowing them to replace their past transactions and double-spend). They cannot change the way in which users interpret blocks (for example, they cannot spend another user's outputs, change the value of a given output such as a coinbase output, or otherwise alter the tokenomics). I recommend watching 3blue1brown's video: link to this video >For the end user just trying to make a payment, it's irrelevant whether it's intentional or not, either way he is now faced with the spitting of his coins and the resulting chaos. Any reasonable vendor will wait for X amount of blocks to pass before accepting a transaction. You're describing a well known vector called a "Finney Attack", wh…
cowtoolson Hacker News • Recommends
On “The Ethereum merge is done”
Here is a good video that basically explains everything: link to this video This is not a very good explanation, but basically, you can have a "currency" using just asymmetric key cryptography: users simply sign "transactions". The problem is that you need a central authority to confirm the order of transactions, otherwise the recipient of a "transaction" will not know if the funds associated with that transaction have already been spent to someone else ("double spending"). You can solve this using hashcash to make the transaction order hard to reverse- creating a "proof-of-work" by doing something that is easy to verify but hard to determine (like reversing a hash function). Another method is "proof-o…
cowtoolson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Bitcoin is not a store of value”
…and discarding "insecure" and invalid chains. They do this by selecting the chain with the highest amount of PoW associated with it. If the network hashrate is low relative to an attacker, then any attacker will be able to easily overpower the network and decide which chains are invalid. If you are new, I recommend this video on bitcoin's design: link to this video…