In 2020 a decentralized currency is more important than ever. This guide aims to help everyone from beginners getting their feet wet to veteran developers looking to get started with programmable money.
These are the best books on digital currency we could find filtered by their ideal target audience, Beginner, Intermediate or Expert.
If you have only heard of Bitcoin before you will be best served starting at the beginning but if you have programmed before or even bought and sold a little, jump straight to the intermediate or expert books aimed at developers or the already initiated.
Why Bitcoin?
With many predicting the Petrodollar ready to be dethroned amidst the Covid chaos, Bitcoin, now 10 years old, is waiting patiently on the sidelines to take reigns as wold reserve. Personally, I am all in on Bitcoin and it is is without a doubt still the most important digital currency, Ethereum is nipping at its heals and the countless others are not far behind. If you’ve been in Bitcoin since day one or you are just now buying your first Satoshi, starting with Beginner and moving to more advanced material here is our list of the best and most important Bitcoin reading material.
TL:DR List:
1) Book of Satoshi: Collected Writings of Satoshi Nakamoto by Phil Champagne
2) 21 Lessons: What I’ve Learned Falling Down the Rabbit Hole by Gigi Holms
3) Cryptocurrency In A Nutshell: The Basics of Blockchain by Greg Somlok
4) Cryptoassets The Innovative Investor’s Guide by Chris Burniske
5) Bitcoin Billionaires, A True Story of Genius by Ben Mezrich
6) The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous
7) Bitcoin White Paper by Satoshi Nakamoto
8) The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab
9) Truth Decay: Unveiling the Path to Financial Freedom by Victor Jones
10) Bitcoin Technology and the Future of Money by
11) Bullish On Bitcoin: 37 Strategies To Profit In The New Crypto Economy
12) Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
13) The Death of Money by James Rickards
14) The Internet of Money Volume Three by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
15) Ethereum: A No-nonsense Analysis of Ethereum
16) Tor and the Dark Art of Anonymity by Lance Henderson
17) American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
1) The Book of Satoshi: The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto
This is the place to start to understand everything about the blockchain generally, and bitcoin specifically. The first three chapters are indispensable as a start up guide “quick start”. Thereafter each chapter deals with distinct and very interesting FAQ type issues. They can be dipped into for insight in each subject’s turn, as and when required.
I read the greater part of the book on Kindle, then bought it on Audible, and listened to the rest in the car while travelling between cities. The Audible version is a bit repetitive, as the concept of summarizing quoted (in-bedded) forum entries is beyond the intellect of the Audible producer. But that aside, the content of the work is superb.
Get it now. Highly recommended.
2. 21 Lessons: What I’ve Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole
by Gigi Holms
Falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole is a strange experience. Like many others, I feel like I have learned more in the last couple of years studying Bitcoin than I have during two decades of formal education. The following lessons are a distillation of what I’ve learned. First published as an article series titled “What I’ve Learned From Bitcoin,” what follows can be seen as a third edition of the original series. Like Bitcoin, these lessons aren’t a static thing. I plan to work on them periodically, releasing updated versions and additional material in the future.
Bitcoin is an inexhaustible teacher, which is why I do not claim that these lessons are all-encompassing or complete. They are a reflection of my personal journey down the rabbit hole. There are many more lessons to be learned, and every person will learn something different from entering the world of Bitcoin. I hope that you will find these lessons useful and that the process of learning them by reading won’t be as arduous and painful as learning them firsthand.
3. Cryptocurrency In A Nutshell: The Basics Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency
by Greg Somlok
Understand Cryptocurrencies And Blockchain In Less Than A Day! Did you know that if you had invested $41 in 2010, you’d have over $87 million right now?This is how the price of Bitcoins has changed over just 10 years — a dramatic, unparalleled development. Cryptocurrencies have taken the world by storm. Today, there are over 1600 of them, and they attract new investors and traders every day — though some people consider cryptocurrencies to be scams and speculative bubbles. So… what are cryptocurrencies? Are they a promising solution to the challenges of capitalism? Will they eventually replace national currencies?
First and foremost, they are a major technological breakthrough.The technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is truly fascinating, but it can appear weird and suspicious when you first hear about it. So if you’re new to cryptocurrencies, you’ve probably got a lot of questions and quite a few doubts.How do cryptocurrencies function without a centralized governing body?Who determines the exchange rates?Are cryptocurrencies as safe and anonymous as they’re claimed to be?
4) Cryptoassets The Innovative Investor’s Guide
Cryptoasets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide, provides a clear, concise overview of a rapidly emerging market and group of tools that will impact our lives for the better. Context is everything. I am not a professional trader or investor. Prior to getting involved with cryptoassets, I wasn’t even remotely a hobby trader. I contributed to my retirement through work in typical mostly hands-off ways i.e 401k or mutual funds. I got involved with Bitcoin because I liked the technology and the societal implications. Once that hooked me, I had to figure out how to put that interest to use. That is where Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar come in with Cryptoassets. The authors provide a timely description of the investing landscape without turning over every stone or looking behind every tree. They paint with broad brush strokes using various cryptoassets to articulate a point. Without getting bogged down in too many details that change quickly in cryptomarkets, they filled in significant knowledge gaps and helped me understand how much I did not know about investing or how cryptoassets compare to conventional assets. There is a place for the highly technical description of cryptoassets or investing. That is not this book.
5) Bitcoin Billionaires, A True Story of Genius
by Ben Mezrich
After reaching a multimillion dollar settlement with Mark Zuckerberg (for allegedly stealing their idea for an Internet social network), the Winklevoss twins start a venture capital firm, hoping to make their mark in the business world. Surprised to learn that their money is unwelcome in Silicon Valley (entrepreneurs are afraid of antagonizing Zuckerberg), they discover Bitcoin. Convinced that cryptocurrency will be the “Next Great Thing,” they invest in a Bitcoin exchange start-up run by an unstable but brilliant young man, and they also buy directly large amounts of Bitcoin. The resulting wild and crazy ride (for both the volatile value of Bitcoin, and the fortunes of the main characters) becomes the central story of this well-written and fascinating book. On the plus side, the author does an excellent job of explaining the basics of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
6) The Bitcoin Standard
This is not a good book on Bitcoin, it is however the missing treatise on “Why Blockstream?”. It is not technical from a coder’s point of view; however, it is technical on its treatment of economics. Don’t let that scare you away. If you ever considered “getting into Bitcoin”. If you never heard of Bitcoin. If you are a long-time holder of Bitcoin and don’t want to think too much about why, this book is for you. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for final settlement of large payments — a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.
7) Bitcoin White Paper
Satoshi Nakamoto stated in his white paper that: “The root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”
The White Paper returns to Nakamoto’s canonical text as a Rosetta Stone that can serve as the compass for a rapidly shifting terrain of contemporary techno-politics. Crypto-economist Jaya Klara Brekke provides a guide and commentary, contextualising the paper for a wide readership and revealing the far-reaching implications of decentralisation.
8) The Fourth Industrial Revolution
by Klaus Schwab
This is an excellent assessment of social and technical developments coming in the next decade. It is rooted in current research and development. Schwab makes a convincing case that the next 10 years will create a paradigm shift in our lives similar to the shifts of industrial revolutions 1.0. 2.0 and 3.0. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope, and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital, and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries, and governments and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.
9. Truth Decay: How Bitcoin Fixes This: Unveiling the Path to Financial Freedom
Additionally, are you aware that the gravity of the wars around the world in the last one hundred years depended on our money and the different theories of how our money should be managed? In our current world, all the local population can do, while managing their place in the economic cycle, is sit and watch in horror while the debate about economics and war is conducted by governments on their behalf.
In 2008 the financial system broke catastrophically. Many millions of people’s lives were turned upside down. They blamed the banks for acting irresponsibly and formed the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Much was said, but on the surface not much has changed. What could even be done?
10) Bitcoin Technology and the Future of Money
by Alan Wright
Have you noticed that we live in turbulent economic times?Additionally, are you aware that the gravity of the wars around the world in the last one hundred years depended on our money and the different theories of how our money should be managed? In our current world, all the local population can do, while managing their place in the economic cycle, is sit and watch in horror while the debate about economics and war is conducted by governments on their behalf. In 2008 the financial system broke catastrophically. Many millions of people’s lives were turned upside down.
They blamed the banks for acting irresponsibly and formed the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Much was said, but on the surface not much has changed.
11. Bullish On Bitcoin: 37 Strategies To Profit In The New Crypto Economy
by Mish Yurchenko
The euphoric end of year for the Bitcoin in 2017 will have made thousands of people dream. Attracted to the market by their greed, many people invested without counting when they had no idea of the world of cryptocurrencies. The result was catastrophic for many of these people. Anyone with an internet connection and a curious mind can take advantage of the dozens of both shorter and longer term strategies to profit in the new crypto economy — all that I’ve outlined in the book.
12. Mastering Bitcoin
The book Mastering Bitcoin from author Andreas M. Antonopoulos lays out in-depth how bitcoin works from a technical computer science perspective. This book is an essential read to understand the inner workings of the bitcoin blockchain and why bitcoin can be considered as a scarce digital good with a fixed supply.To this end, the book dives into the actual source code of the bitcoin protocol and goes to great lengths to explain many important concepts relating to public-key cryptography which are essential for bitcoin.Even though Mastering Bitcoin is mostly intended for coders, the book is written in a way that it can be read and understood by anyone (i.e. even if you don’t have any knowledge about writing code). As such, I highly recommend reading this book to both coders and non-coders alike, in order to gain a deep understanding bout bitcoin.
13) The Death of Money
by James Rickards
This is a great book, the second I have read by James Rickards. He’s written the previous best selling book, “Currency Wars”. Mr. Rickards has had a career in varied realms, he has degrees in Int’l. Economics (went to grad school with the likes of Timothy Geitner) and several legal disciplines. He’s a regular on many MSM including CNBC where I first saw him about 8 years ago. He’s an insider in more ways than one. Six years ago he pointed out that China was bent on accumulating gold to diversify their assets (boy was he right). Then 3 years ago he began talking about plans to revive an old 1960’s era monetary maneuver which he called “Operation Twist”, sure enogh a couple of months later the Fed announced Operation Twist which entailed buying long term US Treasury debt and selling short term.
14. The Internet of Money Volume Three
While many books explain the ‘how’ of Bitcoin, The Internet of Money series delves into the ‘why’ of Bitcoin. Following the world-wide success of Volume One and Volume Two, this third installment contains 12 of his most inspiring and thought-provoking talks over the past two years, including:Universal Access to Basic FinanceMeasuring Success: Price or PrincipleEscaping the Global Banking CartelLibre Not LibraUnstoppable Code: The Difference Between Can’t and Won’tAround the world, governments and corporations are increasingly pursuing a reconstruction of money as a system-of-control and surveillance machine.
Despite the emergence of an interconnected global society and economy through the decades-long expansion of the internet, the trajectory of these bureaucratic policies foreshadows dire consequences for financial inclusion and independence.Andreas contextualizes the significance of Bitcoin and open blockchains amid these socio-political and economic shifts.
15. Ethereum: A No-nonsense Analysis of Ethereum, Smart Contracts & 7 Other Coins Which Could Represent the Future of Cryptocurrency
If you had invested $100 in Ethereum at the beginning of 2017, you would have made over $7,000 by the end of the year. And this is just the beginning. Ethereum represents a unique event in the cryptocurrency market.
Because unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is much more than just a digital currency
It’s a revolutionary use of blockchain technology with game changing consequences for hundreds of industries
Headed up by a genius, dubbed “The cryptocurrency prophet” and “The next Mark Zuckerberg”. You see, 80% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies are built using Ethereum technology. And there may be as many as 10x the number of Ethereum based apps launched in the next 2 years. Many Hedge Funds, Wall Street analysts and top financiers are predicting Ethereum could overtake Bitcoin as the #1 cryptocurrency by the end of the year. Which means Ethereum, and the apps developed using it, could be your cryptocurrency “golden ticket”. The chance to transform your financial future. In Ethereum: The No-Nonsense Guide you will discover: How even a technophobe can buy Ethereum (and other cryptocurrencies) in under 10 minutes, using your debit or credit card.
16. Tor and the Dark Art of Anonymity
Now I know why the NSA and others want to ban Tor. I had wondered why so many in law enforcement and those who “protect us” by surveilling us want to get rid of this browser which was, incidentally, originally funded by the US military and they released it.
I knew something about TOR but 90% of the information in the book was new to me. I’m a writer and don’t actually use TOR myself but I was astounded by the information the author put together after what is clearly exhaustive and personal research. This book does what few books like this do: it tells you what, why and then tells you specifically “how to”.
17. American Kingpin
by Nick Bilton
This book covers both the broad strokes of the Silk Road that you might have missed as the story was unfolding as well as the small nuances that you almost certainly didn’t know even if you were one of the participants.
Bilton takes a balanced reporting perspective and describes both the highs and lows of the building and ultimate downfall of the Silk Road as well as the investigative efforts that brought it down.
Probably the most striking element is the number of small mistakes that lead to setbacks and victories on both sides of this cat and mouse game. This is a well written book that will fill in many of the holes left by other sources.
…I know Bitcoin.
Well, maybe not yet but you have all the tools you will need to become the next Bitcoin Billionaire! Thanks for reading and take care!
vary well writing dear sir keep it doing