A Living list of blockchain learning resources

Interest in the Blockchain technology is ever growing and so is the technology itself. At Wharton and UPenn, we have had industry led full house sessions on blockchain and its application and a lot of students have reached out to learn more about this space. In fact, with every day interesting developments at the protocol, platform, and application level, it’s hard to keep up even for people actively involved in this space.

I have compiled below a living list of resources (Podcast/YouTube/blogs etc.) to give an overview of the technology as well as promote continuous self-learning. The list also includes information on key companies and people in this space in case you would like to follow them on Twitter/Medium. Please do share feedback and help improve this list. 

Finally, for beginners, re-sharing a link to my previous post explaining “Bitcoin and Blockchain through board games”. I am new to twitter (@vivchauh) but plan to use it to continue to learn and share about this space.

The Blockchain technology is still in its nascent stage and 2018 is going to be an exciting year.

HODL your breath!!

1) How Bitcoin works: Basics of the blockchain technology as used in Bitcoin. Great place to start.

2) Cryptography behind blockchain: An overview of public key cryptography and RSA encryption algorithm which secures the exchange of value on a blockchain

3) Hashing used in blockchain: Great overview of Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA) used in blockchain to construct the database

4) Game theory and Network attacks: One of the most important pillars of public blockchain networks is game theory. Game theory incentivizes anonymized and distributed participants to cooperate. The first 30% of the video also discusses Miners, who are one of the most important players of the public blockchain.

5) What’s a smart contract: Neither Contracts nor Smart, but Smart contracts truly unleash the power of blockchain technology.

6) What is Proof of Work? Proof of stake?

• Simplified explanation
• Detailed explanation

7) Public Vs Permissioned Vs Consortium Blockchain: An overview of 3 common implementations of technology.

8) Common misconceptions about blockchain: Worth glancing through the listed common misconceptions.

9) Do you even need blockchain? Blockchain is not suitable for all applications. In-fact blockchain is useful for only certain business processes. Please see a flowchart below from the article to check.

10) Other interesting reads:

10.1) A glimpse of consulting/Finance industries view on the technology:

        i. Deep Dive by BCG

        ii. Goldman’s deep dive into blockchain

        iii. Overview by Deloitte:

       iv. Some Articles from Mckinsey:

a. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/how- blockchains-could-change-the-world

b. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/the-promise-of-blockchain

       v. Bain on Blockchain in Financial Markets

       vi. Accenture’s “What every CEO should know about blockchain”

10.2) Academic coverage of the technology

        i. Harvard Business Review articles:

a. https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain

b. https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-blockchain-will-do-to-banks-and-law-firms-what-the-internet-did-to-media

        ii. Academia adoption blockchain

10.3) Legal coverage

         i.     Blockchain’s big hurdle by Stanford Law Review

         ii.     Overview of key issues by DLA Piper

iii.     Joshua Ashley Klayman’s take on the need for new legal models to adapt to rapid growth in this space

11) Use cases of Blockchain: There are many use cases of the technology and companies are already well beyond the proof of concept stage. Sharing some interesting article to get started (do check out the “interesting read” section above)

•  An amazing list of non-financial use cases along with info of startups working on it
•  Coindesk's Coverage: https://www.coindesk.com/information/applications-use-cases-blockchains/
• https://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blockchain-cm901636
• Starting 16 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHe_ow9v094

12) Keys companies and disruptive start-ups to follow

12.1) Permissioned blockchain and consortiums:

• IBM and Hyperledger Fabric: One of the market leaders on enterprise blockchains, IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric is an open source blockchain implementation for enterprise and one of the Hyperledger projects hosted by the Linux Foundation. From supply chain to financial services, IBM is actively working with market leaders across industries on blockchain real-world use cases and have already run many successful proof of concepts. Along with infrastructure capabilities like Cloud, Watson, IoT etc, IBM has been able to capture the mindshare of a lot of enterprise clients. Some links below.

a) Quick Intro to Hyperledger fabric

b) Great Youtube series on Hyperledger fabric by Ivan

c) One stop shop for all info on Fabric (including the white paper)

• There are other Hyperledger frameworks such as Hyperledger Sawtooth, Hyperledger Burrow etc. You can find more information here. Also, here is a link to an interesting podcast on Hyperledger.
• Microsoft: Microsoft has been platform agnostic and working across platforms like Ethereum, Hyperledger, R3 etc. to facilitate business applications by leveraging the Azure infrastructure.

a) They have also developed the Coco framework for enterprise blockchains.

b) Interesting podcast on Coco

c)  For more info on Azure Blockchain Services check this link

• R3 and Corda: R3 is a distributed database technology company and leads a consortium of financial institutions in R&D of distributed ledger technology (DLT) use case for financial services. Their open source DLT platform is called Corda and is customization of blockchain fundamentals to suit financial services implementations.

a) For more info on Corda, including the whitepaper check this

b) Here a great podcast on Corda

• Ripple and XRP: Ripple is an RTGS system, currency exchange, and remittance network. It is technically a public blockchain but is privately controlled through centralized ownership of the underlying currency. Their underlying technology, Ripple Protocol, is based on shared public ledger and enables movement of value directly between financial institutions across different networks, geographic borders or currencies. XRP, the native cryptocurrency in the Ripple network, facilitates the flow of value across the network. XRP is also the 3rd largest Cryptocurrency by market cap.

a) To learn more about Ripple and its product check this.

b) Here is a link to a great podcast on Ripple

12.2) Public blockchain platforms/companies:

• Ethereum and Consensys: Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality. It has quickly established itself as the preferred platform for the development of decentralized applications (DApps). With more than 50% market share of new project launches and a rapidly growing community of DApp developers, Ethereum has successfully grabbed mindshare of the blockchain community. Ether, the native cryptocurrency in the Ethereum platform, is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

               i. TechCrunch coverage of the platform

              ii. Great interview on Decentralizing everything with Ethereum

              iii. Ethereum and Decentralized future

              iv. Evolution of Ethereum and steps ahead

v. An interesting take on the value of Ether

Consensys, currently the epicenter of blockchain activities, started as a blockchain venture product studio that builds decentralized applications on the Ethereum platform. Over the last year, it has spread across the blockchain ecosystem with JV’s, Partnerships, Consensys Capital, Consensys Labs etc.

i. Short overview of Consensys

ii. Slightly longer overview of Consensys

iii. Consensys houses more than 35 startup’s working on blockchain applications.

• NEO: Popularly dubbed as the Ethereum of China, NEO has lately grabbed a lot of developer attention and differentiated itself based on speed and its modified Proof of stake consensus protocol. It also has the 3rd largest follower base on Reddit and is among the top 10 Cryptocurrencies.

i. Neo Founders public address: Great place to start

ii. How does it differ from Ethereum

iii. Interesting article advocating for NEO

•  Other platforms like Cardano (dubbed as Ethereum of Japan), Stellar (similar to Ripple), and EOS are also developing quickly.

13) Favourite Podcasts/Youtube channels: There are some amazing podcasts covering blockchain and cryptocurrencies. They are not only a great way to be in touch with the rapid developments in this space but also a source of in-depth discussions about blockchain projects, new developments, ideas, and stories. I have listed some of my favorites below.

• Unchained
• Epicenter    
• The Ether Review
• Blockchain Curated
• Blockchain Innovation

14) Keys people/feeds I follow:

• Vitalik Buterin: Co-founder of Ethereum and one of the most renowned person in this space.
• Naval Ravikant: CEO and a co-founder of AngelList
• Joseph Lubin: Co-founder of Ethereum and Consensys
• Brian Armstrong: CEO of Coinbase
• Ari Paul: CIO of BlockTower Capital
• Brad Garlinghouse: CEO of Ripple
• IBM Blockchain twitter feed
• Consensys Medium account
• Marco Santori: Chief Legal officer of Blockchain.com
• https://www.coindesk.com