Bitcoin Ecosystem Culture: A Beginner’s Guide
| KEY TAKEAWAYS: |
| — Bitcoin is a promising technology that is redefining finance as we know it. It has the potential to disintermediate every financial transaction and create a more trustworthy ecosystem for exchanging value between wallets. — As Bitcoin shows its potential to the world, more people are flocking to this space. While some only want to make a quick buck, there are so many who are genuinely interested in learning about this fascinating technology. — This article is for the second category of people. And if that’s you, we will share with you the most interesting and comprehensive resources. |
Looking to get into crypto and buy Bitcoin but don’t know where to start? We’ve put together a Bitcoin beginner’s guide to help you on your journey!
The history of Bitcoin and it’s evolution is fascinating — now more than ever. Yet, it can be a nightmare for you if you just follow the hype without understanding its fundamentals. It would be fair to say that Bitcoin is complex and is nothing like other financial innovations. From understanding the basics of the technology, to grasping its market dynamics, it can all be overwhelming for beginners.
To help you with that, we are giving you the ultimate toolbox of resources you’ll need to achieve that mission. Let’s start by breaking the ice between you and Bitcoin before providing you with a comprehensive bitcoin beginner’s guide.
What’s Bitcoin?
So, what is Bitcoin? Put simply, Bitcoin is a blockchain-based digital currency and a peer-to-peer payment system. It negates the need for middlemen in financial transactions, thus offering a faster, cheaper, and global mode of payment.
Instead of middlemen, Bitcoin miners located all over the world process transactions in a decentralized manner. The network requires these miners to solve complex cryptographic puzzles using high-power computing devices to validate Bitcoin transactions. The miner who solves the puzzle corresponding to a new set of transactions wins freshly mined Bitcoins as a reward. If you want to learn more about Bitcoin and why it’s hot right now, we strongly recommend you watch this School of Block episode.
Bitcoin Beginner’s Guide: Propel Your Bitcoin prowess
Thousands of people and publications write, record, and publish content about Bitcoin every day. But reliable information to keep you on top of the game may be hard to find. That’s why we sorted out some of the top Bitcoin resources to guide you in your journey to financial freedom.
Best Sites For Bitcoin News
The best way to closely follow the Bitcoin space as it grows is to know the most trusted web media platforms. Speaking of that, we found you three of the top platforms:
1. News.Bitcoin.com: News.Bitcoin.com is a media publication managed by the Bitcoin wallet provider Bitcoin.com. While it also covers news stories around some altcoins, its primary focus lies around the latest updates of the Bitcoin market.
2. CoinMarketCap: CoinMarketCap is one of the most widely used crypto price-tracking platforms.
But just like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, Ledger covers top cryptocurrency price charts along with the latest Bitcoin news from across major crypto publications, you will find everything about BTC on our Bitcoin price page.
3. CoinDesk: CoinDesk is the gold standard for news reporting in the crypto and blockchain space. This is the place for you to get the quickest and most accurate updates related to Bitcoin.
Top Podcasts Covering Bitcoin
Podcasts are a very dynamic way of gaining knowledge on the go. They don’t require you to stop doing what you do, sit in a quiet corner, and focus your mind on just one thing. So, for the busy bees, there’s nothing better than these two:
1. Bitcoin Fundamentals: Hosted by Preston Pysh, Bitcoin Fundamentals is a podcast that covers all things Bitcoin. It is a flagship podcast of The Investor’s Podcast Network. On Bitcoin Fundamentals, Pysh interviews prominent crypto leaders to share their knowledge and expertise with the crypto community.
2. What Bitcoin Did: The podcast host Peter McCormack interviews leaders of the crypto industry to bring the most interesting bits of Bitcoin information to his audience. “The Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin” is McCormack’s comprehensive set of podcasts to fill you in on everything you need to know as a Bitcoin beginner.
Best Newsletters About Bitcoin
If opening your email is the first thing you do when you wake up, newsletters surely are your thing. How can you then possibly miss out on some of the most rip-roaring Bitcoin newsletters? Here are our favorite picks:
1. Crypto Long & Short by CoinDesk: Sent out by CoinDesk, Crypto Long & Short is dedicated to delivering weekly Bitcoin updates to your email. It covers the latest Bitcoin news, core updates related to the Bitcoin blockchain, some technical analysis, and a few other things in between.
2. The Held Report: Sent out by the popular crypto entrepreneur Dan Held, The Held Report has more than 170,000 subscribers. In his newsletter, Held delves deep into the concepts of Bitcoin, answers questions of his subscribers in his Q&A newsletter, and shares market analysis of Bitcoin and altcoins.
3. Anthony Pompliano: Popularly known as Pomp, Anthony Pompliano is one of the most liked figures in the Bitcoin community. He’s a technology entrepreneur and an investor in multiple crypto projects who never misses a chance to praise Bitcoin and educate people about it through his tweets and newsletter.
Bitcoin Social Media Influencers
Crypto is packed with awesome people, and no matter how many names we mention here, we’ll miss out on someone or the other. But anyway, here are two absolutely amazing Bitcoin proponents you can’t miss to follow on Twitter:
1. Aantonop: Aantonop is a YouTube channel run by Andreas M. Antonopoulus. It offers unbiased educational material related to Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto world. If you’re keen on learning the various aspects of Bitcoin, this channel can be an entertaining place for you to hang out.
2. Plan B: PlanB (@100trillionUSD on Twitter) is a former institutional investor sharing his 25 years of experience with the crypto community. While he’s the most active on Twitter, PlanB also hosts a podcast and shares his market analysis through popular crypto news publications.
3. Nic Carter: Nic Carter is a popular Bitcoin proponent, he speaks extensively about the doubts related to Bitcoin’s energy consumption on Twitter as well as on his Medium profile. His Twitter feed is an interesting place to find relevant updates and well-thought-out opinions.
4. 99Bitcoins: Dedicated to sharing the latest news on Bitcoin, 99Bitcoins’ YouTube channel is an interesting place to learn about Bitcoin. Its “Learn Bitcoin with 2 Minute Videos” is a 21-video playlist that explains the technology behind Bitcoin in the simplest terms. You can also follow their playlist “This Week in Crypto” for weekly updates on the crypto space.
5. Michale J. Saylor: Saylor is the man behind the major business intelligence firm MicroStrategy. At the time of writing, it holds 92 thousand of Bitcoins. And as you may guess, he is a firm Bitcoin proponent who absolutely loves sharing his Bitcoin knowledge with his Twitter fam.
Bitcoin Books & Readings
The deeper you dive into Bitcoin, the more interesting it gets. So, for the voracious reader, there’s nothing better than books and white papers.
1. The Bitcoin Standard: The Bitcoin Standard offers the most straightforward and intuitive explanation of Bitcoin and its underlying technology. Rated 4.7/5 on Amazon, the book compares the existing financial system with the one made possible through the invention of Bitcoin and then goes on to explain why the latter makes a stronger case for being the future of finance. The author of the book, Dr. Saifedean Ammous also hosts a podcast under the same name where he shares finance and Bitcoin-related content.
2. Digital Gold: Authored by The New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper, Digital Gold is a book that offers the most explicit details of how some misfits and rebels reinvented money. It takes you back in time by sharing first-hand accounts of core players of the Bitcoin revolution while also teaching you about this new-age currency.
3. Bitcoin White Paper: What better way to learn about Bitcoin than to read about it in the words of its creator? While we may never get to know the person behind the name Satoshi Nakamoto, we can explore their vision through the Bitcoin white paper Satoshi published. It is the rawest explanation of Bitcoin you’ll ever find on the internet. And although it was originally published in English, it is now available to read in 36 languages.
Your Bitcoin Beginner’s Guide, Your Financial Freedom
Your time is precious. Don’t waste it scrolling through the clickbaity Bitcoin videos on YouTube or shuffling through Google search pages looking for legit resources. It’s time for you to take charge of your learning journey and be in control of the content you consume. With the resources we shared above, we can assure you that you’ll be in the right hands when it comes to learning about Bitcoin. So go ahead, explore, evolve, and experience financial freedom.
Knowledge is Power
