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Ask HN: How do I get started with learning about crypto?

17 points by shry4ns ↗ HN
I'm a graduating CS major and I've been generally interested in what crypto is, but I think the concepts are a bit obscure and I don't fully understand it.

I want to start by learning the fundamentals and then more advanced concepts. I'm not looking to learning programming in crypto -- just looking to learn and read more. Thanks for the help, HN!

12 comments

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keiferski
I have been collecting a huge to-do list of resources to study it myself. Apologies if this list is too large or difficult to navigate. It includes both "keywords to research" and actual links or books.

Edit: I just put the full list here: https://justpaste.it/4x4ga

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jrehor
Andreas Antonopoulos' books Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum are fantastic. I'd recommend starting with those to get a good handle on the basics.
strstr
Do you mean cryptography or cryptocurrency?
athoscouto
If you have the technical background and is interested in a general and short introduction I strongly recommend Ethereum White Paper (https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/).

Haven't went through it in a while, but I remember only having a clear understanding of how Bitcoin works after reading it.

openfuture
It's kinda sad that the question never explicitly says cryptocurrency and could just as easily be about cryptography but the answers immediately assume the former.

I'd say read the bitcoin paper and then meditate on it a bit. After that go study authenticated datastructures and distributed systems.

For cryptography I'd suggest rolling your own crypto and doing an ICO. /s

askafriend
Buy some ETH so that you'll be incentivized to learn more about it. Nothing beats being invested in the asset as a driver to learn more about it.
captswag
I am also in the same boat. Always wanted to learn about it, but at the same time never really took the time to look into it. I bought some ETH couple of months back and now I’m continuously perusing and updating my knowledge about cryptocurrency.