Dean

Welcome to the inaugral post on our brand spanking new Cryptorials blog! Thank you for visiting and for taking the time to read this article. bitcoin 101 book The whole purpose of this blog is to help people to learn about distributed and decentralized technologies, with a particular focus on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. So with this in mind, it seemed appropriate for our first post to be about just that – learning all about bitcoin, the block chain and crypto technology. Of course you wouldn’t expect us to be able to put everything that we ever want to publish on this site into a single post, so don’t expect this article to actually tell you everything you wanted to know about bitcoin either.

Although you can expect many of our future posts to be self-contained tutorials you can use to learn everything about s single topic in one place, we also plan to publish many posts which will effectively act as roadmaps: giving you the best directions to find the best information and resources; this post fits into that latter category.

Because this information needs to cater to a lot of different visitors with different backgrounds, levels of knowledge and areas of interest, I have decided to break it up into sections – please scroll down to find the section which is most relevant to you. And of course I have to say this – the best way to learn all about Bitcoin is to bookmark this subscribe to this blog (leave a nice comment below and it will give you the option to subscribe), bookmark it in your browser, follow us on Twitter and generally do what you can to check back here often and read our latest tutorials and guides.

Crypto 101: Beginners’ Guides to Learning All About Bitcoin

Many people develop an interest in Bitcoin but don’t really understand it in any detail – and don’t really know where to start. So if that sounds like you don’t worry, you are in exactly the same boat as most people are when they first set out to understand cryptocurrency. Let’s start off with a few websites that are well worth a visit.

Educational Bitcoin Websites
  • Bitcoin.org – An educational website run by the Bitcoin Foundation, which is the closest thing to a central authority which Bitcoin has (not very close still) and is controversial for precisely that reason.
  • The Bitcoin Wiki – a community written and edited online encyclopedia, with lots of accessible information on every aspect of the cryptocurrency.
  • The Coindesk Information Center – Coindesk is actually a news publisher, but they also run this really quite useful information center on their site with over twenty different sections covering everything a newcomer to cryptocurrency may want to know.
Bitcoin 101 Articles You Really Need to Read
  • Wikipedia’s Bitcoin Page – Wikipedia is usually a pretty good place to start learning about any topic, and this one is no different.
  • How To Explain Bitcoin To Your Grandmother – Written as a guide to help bitcoin enthusiasts to explain the digital currency to non-tech-savvy friends and relatives, this is actually a pretty good place to go to start learning about the subject yourself too.
  • 12 Questions About Bitcoin You Were Too Embarassed To Ask – All of the most common beginner’s questions are covered in this handy guide by Timothy Lee of the Washington Post
  • Advantages and Disadvantages – a summary of some of the pros and cons of bitcoin compared to fiat. Personally I think this is incomplete, but its the best around for the moment (I will write something myself as soon as I get the time).
Asking Question: The Best Community Websites
  • BitcoinTalk – This forum is the original BTC community website and is still regularly frequented by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Trust Nobody.
  • Reddit – A very active communuity with a well used ‘tip bot’.
Bitcoin Courses for Beginners
  • Coin Academy – The number one provider of Bitcoin courses suitable for the complete beginner. There are three general interest courses to choose between, plus one aimed at merchants thinking about accepting digital currency payments.
  • Bitcoin 101 @ Udemy – A fairly extensive course complete with quizzes and the option for 1-1 tuition via Skype.
  • Bitcoin Course – A free online course created by Draper University in collaboration with Zap Coin, and aimed at people who do not have a technical background.
  • The Khan Academy – An excellent series of educational videos explaining how block chain technology and digital currencies work.
  • Future Money – A comprehensive online course run by the University of California, Irvine.

Learn About Bitcoin Technology

If you are a bit more geeky than the average beginner, or if you already know a little bit about software development and other such technical subjects, then you may want to take a look at some of these resources. They are a bit more technical and in-depth than what I’ve included so far and relate purely to the technology itself rather than its use.

Websites, Articles and Books About Bitcoin Technology
Bitcoin Courses for Programmers and Techies
Tech Tools for Beginners
  • Bitcoin IDE – An Integrated Development Environment dedicated to BTC programming, and meant primarily as a convenient way for newbies to experiment and learn.

Learn About Bitcoin Law & Regulations

What do you mean you don’t want to get arrested? Oh, well ok then, in that case you should probably take a look at these:

Websites and Articles About Legal Issues and Regulations Relating to Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin Related Legal Courses

Learn About Bitcoin Economics

Because its all about the money…

Bitcoin Econmics Articles, Books and Websites
Courses About Bitcoin Economics
  • Money and Society – A free online MOOC from the Institute of Leadership and Sustainability.

About this page: This post is actively maintained and regularly checked to make sure that it is accurate and up to date. Please help me to improve this article: suggestion for links to include are welcome in the comments section for via twitter, just as long as they are on-topic and they for sites with genuinely useful content. Spam will be eaten.