Crypto Curriculum: Digging into the Rabbit hole

At its core, blockchain is a disintermediation and coordination technology that allow the emergence of a new economic system that is fairer and more transparent for a large majority of humans. The end game is a system where many traditional corporations are replaced by Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and where value creation is distributed much more efficiently between the various participants that all own a share of the networks and applications they use (i.e. narrowing the wealth distribution gap).

Typically, people come to crypto for the money, but then stay for the values. It’s a long and fascinating learning journey that requires to understand many facets of the functioning of the world and current economic system, and it can be sometime overwhelming to find a place to start. Below, I have put a curated list of resources that will help you start your journey. Altogether, this represents tens of hours of content, but it will be time well spent and your understanding of the world will likely be materially different after you have consumed all of this. Explore at your own rhythm and enjoy the ride 😊

Foundations

Some good foundational readings/videos about crypto and macro, important to set the stage and build some bricks of knowledge that are all interconnected:

• Why are we here? Speech by Erik Voorhees at Permissionless conference, Sep-2023.
• The Ownership Economy: Crypto & The Next Frontier of Software, article by Jesse Walden of the Variant Fund, original version from Jul-2020
• All the opinionated essays from Arthur Hayes (co-founder and former CEO of BitMEX) about Macro and Crypto; Those are long read, but it will probably transform the way you see the world to some extent; I would advise starting from the very first one and going through in order.
• Crash Course by Chris Martenson, on money, the banking system and the state of the world.
• Hidden Secrets of Money by Mike Maloney, another series of videos on the mechanics our current monetary system and its systemic flaws (if you want a shortcut, watch episode 4).
• Pragmatic Musing, shameless plug — my own shorter reads on macro & crypto; read them in order.
• Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, video by legendary investor and macro strategist Ray Dalio.
• The Illusion of Democracy, documentary that gives a good sense of the libertarians’ arguments against the plutocracy organised by big governments and corporations.
• A Response to SBF and Principled Crypto Regulation, some thoughts by Erik Voorhees on regulation and basically the opposing views of a decentralised/libertarian world vs. a centralised/authoritarian world. Trying not to add to much to this already long list, but if you like it, all his other writings are also worth a read, Erik is a great spirit!
• Introduction to the Exponential Age videos by Raoul Pal (CEO of Real Vision, former Global Macro Hedge Fund manager), Part 1 and Part 2.
• A Crash Course on Crypto Economics in 1 Hour by Natascha Che.
• The Fat Protocols thesis by Joel Monegro, Aug-2016.
• The Thin Applications thesis by Joel Monegro, Jan-2020.
• Moai, Arthur Hayes’s essay on crypto, DAO and AI (in case you did not read it all already).
• Fun game theory experiment to understand the importance and challenges of trust (and therefore the value that smart-contract enabled trustless systems can bring to the world).

Bankless podcasts/videos

A very good source to hear first-hand information from builders and participants in the space. They have a collection of long-form interviews (1–2h each), so it takes time to go through (and there are some annoying sponsor breaks), but it is worth consuming if you want to dig deeper and broaden your understanding of what blockchain/crypto is really about. They cover a lot of topics, from tech to history to macro-economy to philosophy, all relevant to crypto. Their podcast is a good place to start (it was very much focused on Bitcoin/the monetary use case in the first episodes, but progressively expands into Ethereum and the application layer). Here is a little selection:

• Welcome to Bankless.
• The Evolution of Monetary Policy.
• Going Bankless with Maker with Mariano Conti (just to learn about an actual decentralised application use case).
• A Bankless Nation (Part 1).
• The Ownership Economy with Jesse Walden.
• Crypto is Empowering with Phil Bonello.
• The World is Waking Up to Crypto with Raoul Pal.
• WTF Happened in 2020? with Meltem Demirors.
• Crypto-Civilization with Balaji Srinivasan.
• The Crypto Renaissance with Josh Rosenthal.
• How To Own The Internet with Li Jin.
• Blockchains are Cities with Haseeb Qureshi.
• The Crypto Revolution with Josh Rosenthal.
• Rise of the Network State with Balaji Srinivasan.
• The Cosmos Thesis with Sunny Aggarwal & Zaki Manian.
• Who Stole the Wealth? with Ben Hunt.
• How Do We Regulate Crypto? SBF vs. Erik Voorhees debate.
• Is the Fed Corrupt? with Christopher Leonard.
• Why Are We Here? with Erik Voorhees.
• What is Money in the Digital Age? with Brendan Malone.
• Can an NFT Project Lead to a Country with Chika and Eche.
• The Blockchain Trilemma — ETH Vs SOL Vs ATOM with Mike Ippolito.
• Masterclass On Money with Lyn Alden.
• How Crypto Saves The Internet with Li Jin & Eugene Wei.
• Can AI and Crypto Save the U.S.? with Sam Hammond.
• Vitalik Buterin’s Philosophy: d/acc.
• Bitcoin is Freedom Technology with Robert Breedlove.
• Why Consensys is Suing the SEC with Joe Lubin and Matt Corva.
• Guide to Survive The U.S. Dollar Collapse with Lyn Alden.
• The Frontier of Digital Onchain Universes with Justin Glibert.

Going deeper

• Finematics: A collection of short and simple videos good to understand blockchain and DeFi.
• a16z Crypto Startup School: a16z is one of the best VC in the space and they have put together a collection of videos that give a good overview of the various components of the space.
• Vitalik Buterin’s blog: He is the creator of Ethereum which he started when he was 19 years old, he is probably one of the smartest humans currently alive; he writes extremely well, in a way that is clear even for technical topics; his articles are a mix of crypto/technology, economics, philosophy, game theory… and many other things. You can start reading them in order and you will learn tons along the way, or just pick some on topics that interest you.

Good luck in your leaning journey, and if you came across anything that you think should be in that list, please share with me — I will aim to update that curriculum regularly.