1
Front Matter
5 chapters2
Part I: Foundations — What Is This and Why Does It Exist?
6 chapters- Part I: Foundations — What Is This and Why Does It Exist?
- Chapter 1: What Is a Blockchain? The Problem of Trust in a Trustless World
- Chapter 2: Cryptographic Foundations: Hashing, Digital Signatures, and Public-Key Cryptography
- Chapter 3: Distributed Systems Fundamentals: Consensus, Fault Tolerance, and the CAP Theorem
- Chapter 4: The Money Question: What Is Money, What Is Currency, and Why Does It Matter?
- Chapter 5: The Landscape in 2025+: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the Broader Ecosystem
3
Part II: Bitcoin — The Original Protocol
6 chapters- Part II: Bitcoin — The Original Protocol
- Chapter 6: Bitcoin Protocol Deep Dive: Blocks, Transactions, and the UTXO Model
- Chapter 7: Mining and Proof of Work: How Bitcoin Achieves Consensus
- Chapter 8: Bitcoin Network: Nodes, Propagation, and the Peer-to-Peer Architecture
- Chapter 9: Bitcoin Scripting, Taproot, and Programmability
- Chapter 10: Bitcoin's Economic Model: Scarcity, Halving, and the Store of Value Thesis
4
Part III: Ethereum and Smart Contracts
7 chapters- Part III: Ethereum and Smart Contracts
- Chapter 11: Ethereum Architecture: The World Computer Concept
- Chapter 12: The Ethereum Virtual Machine: How Smart Contracts Execute
- Chapter 13: Solidity Programming: Writing Your First Smart Contract
- Chapter 14: Advanced Solidity: Patterns, Libraries, and Production-Grade Contracts
- Chapter 15: Smart Contract Security: Vulnerabilities, Exploits, and Auditing
- Chapter 16: Proof of Stake: How Ethereum Validates Without Mining
5
Part IV: The Broader Blockchain Landscape
5 chapters- Part IV: The Broader Blockchain Landscape
- Chapter 17: Alternative Consensus Mechanisms: DPoS, BFT Variants, DAGs, and Beyond
- Chapter 18: Layer 2 Scaling: Rollups, State Channels, and Sidechains
- Chapter 19: Interoperability: Bridges, Cross-Chain Communication, and the Multi-Chain Future
- Chapter 20: Permissioned Blockchains and Enterprise Use Cases
6
Part V: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
6 chapters- Part V: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Chapter 21: DeFi Foundations: What Decentralized Finance Is Actually Trying to Do
- Chapter 22: Decentralized Exchanges and Automated Market Makers
- Chapter 23: Lending, Borrowing, and Yield: Aave, Compound, and the Interest Rate Machine
- Chapter 24: Stablecoins: The Bridge Between Crypto and the Dollar
- Chapter 25: The DeFi Risk Stack: What Can Go Wrong and How to Evaluate Protocols
7
Part VI: Tokens, NFTs, and Digital Ownership
4 chapters8
Part VII: Regulation, Law, and Society
5 chapters- Part VII: Regulation, Law, and Society
- Chapter 29: Crypto Regulation: The Global Landscape and the Fight Over Classification
- Chapter 30: Crypto Crime, Fraud, and the Failure Cascade: Mt. Gox to FTX
- Chapter 31: Privacy, Surveillance, and the Paradox of Transparent Money
- Chapter 32: The Environmental Debate: Energy, E-Waste, and Sustainability
9
Part VIII: Building and Analyzing
5 chapters- Part VIII: Building and Analyzing
- Chapter 33: dApp Development: Building a Full-Stack Decentralized Application
- Chapter 34: On-Chain Analytics: Reading the Blockchain Like a Data Scientist
- Chapter 35: Evaluating Crypto Projects: The Critical Thinking Framework
- Chapter 36: Wallets, Custody, and Personal Security: Protecting Your Own Keys
10
Part IX: The Frontier and the Big Questions
5 chapters- Part IX: The Frontier and the Big Questions
- Chapter 37: Zero-Knowledge Proofs: The Cryptographic Breakthrough Reshaping Blockchain
- Chapter 38: Central Bank Digital Currencies: When Governments Build Blockchains
- Chapter 39: The Future of Blockchain: What Might Actually Matter in 10 Years
- Chapter 40: Forming Your Own View: A Framework for Thinking About Decentralized Systems
11
Appendices
0 chaptersExplore Related Books
More open-access textbooks from our library
Advanced COBOL 305 pages Advanced Data Science 299 pages AI Ethics 304 pages AI Literacy 40 pages AI & ML for Business 304 pages AI Engineering 307 pages Algorithmic Addiction 303 pages Applied Psychology 303 pages Learning Assembly Language 299 pages College Football Analytics 213 pages Creator Economy 318 pages Pattern Recognition 322 pages Data & Society 305 pages data-visualization-python 275 pages Ethical Hacking 318 pages Fandom 332 pages History of Appalachia 324 pages How Humans Get Stuck 291 pages Handling Confrontation 306 pages how-to-learn-anything 298 pages How Your House Works 306 pages IBM DB2 282 pages Intermediate COBOL 339 pages Intermediate Data Science 278 pages Intro CS Python 44 pages Intro to Data Science 266 pages Introductory Statistics 216 pages Learning COBOL 322 pages Prediction Markets 316 pages Metacognition 222 pages Media Literacy 314 pages NFL Analytics 182 pages pascal-programming 304 pages Physics of Music 316 pages Political Analytics 324 pages popular-psychology 305 pages Basketball Analytics 214 pages Soccer Analytics 230 pages Propaganda 304 pages Python for Business 298 pages Quantum Mechanics 303 pages RegTech 307 pages Science of Seduction 320 pages Sports Betting 322 pages Architecture of Surveillance 304 pages Science of Luck 306 pages Vibe Coding 316 pages Why They Watch 308 pages Working with AI 316 pages