Literature about altcoins and cryptocurrency overall

[mettalmag]

I'm looking for any good literature about alcoins and cryptocurrency overall, technical details and the concept of work itself.
The idea is to rise the awareness of my people and to give the newcommers easy understanding on what's going on. (I have my own interests as well)
Russian and English language will do it's job as well, I'm trying to translate information in Georgian and hoping to make a guide or something like that, from A to Z.

[iamnotback]

You will benefit greatly from reading my whitepaper when it is published (hopefully Q1 2017). Because I cover a lot of educational aspects and give a holistic view from my perspective.

Hopefully some others could suggest some other resources.

Afaik I don't think anyone has written any comprehensive material, because the technologies are too new and the very few people who understand it all don't have time to write it all down. And especially to write in a way that laymen could even understand.

My white paper is already 19,000 words with 115 cited references and cost me weeks of effort.

I am hoping my white paper (and any other resources) can inspire someone to write a book about the altcoins. We need a holistic insight into all the competing technologies.

If anyone knows of other existing resources, I am eager to become aware of them. Please post in this thread.

[mettalmag]

You will benefit greatly from reading my whitepaper when it is published (hopefully Q1 2017). Because I cover a lot of educational aspects and give a holistic view from my perspective.

Hopefully some others could suggest some other resources.

Afaik I don't think anyone has written any comprehensive material, because the technologies are too new and the very few people who understand it all don't have time to write it all down.

My white paper is already 19,000 words with 115 cited references and cost me weeks of effort.

I think it would be enough to cover briefly the history behind bitcoins, blockchain, altcoins and mining process itself, also some useful stuff like why do we need them, how to mine, economics, trading etc.
Can't wait your whitepapers, I'm trying to collect all information ever written on this subject.

[iamnotback]

I think it would be enough to cover briefly the history behind bitcoins, blockchain, altcoins and mining process itself, also some useful stuff like why do we need them, how to mine, economics, trading etc.
Can't wait your whitepapers, I'm trying to collect all information ever written on this subject.

If someone could wade through all my 18000 posts and somehow distill it down, they'd have a boatload of the technological insights (yet still not comprehensive). But I just don't think that is a reasonable task. I would attempt it except I am too busy trying to be an altcoin developer.

I think we also need a holistic insight into the technologies and genres. You may find this post of mine helpful on one perspective for a taxonomy (and some of my subjective ranting):

...

At this time, we basically have 4 main genres of innovation coming from altcoins:

1. Anonymity/Privacy (Monero, Zcash, ...)
2. Smart Contracts (Ethereum, ...)
3. Microtransactions/Scaling (DPoS, e.g. Steemit)
4. Decentralization (all shitcoins bullshit thus far)

The other shitcoins are very technologically weak innovations (egregious flaws which I have detailed in my posts) which attempt to incorporate some of the above innovations but do so with flawed technological bullshit. Examples include:

Vcash
Dash
CloakCoin
MaidSafe, Sia, StoreJ
NEM
CounterParty, Rootstock

There are centralization wolves in sheepskin (and network effects die with centralization):

Lightning Networks, KimDotCom's BitCache

There are copycoins which are lower-quality ripoffs of others:

ShadowCash

There are also the social networking shitcoins which have no prayer in hell (for reasons I have written about) of being widely adopted because they are conceptually flawed:

Steemit
Synereo
Yours.network
Ark
etc...

The problem for the serious (non-shitcoin) altcoin attempts listed for #1 and #2, is they haven't solved #3 and #4. Also #2 haven't solved safety and killer apps yet. And #1 (by itself) is not a mass adoption market.

So we are in a situation where we need a developer (or developers) who able to seriously address #3 and #4 combined and provide some real mass adoption case which is actually a serious threat to Bitcoin's dominance and current adoption stagnation. #1 is an optional feature to add. #2 is a potentially huge market to explore after fixing #3 and #4.

[iamnotback]

For example, I have a recent post where I explain my claim that NEM's Proof-of-Importance is just an obfuscation of Proof-of-Stake.

It gets very complex to discuss these technological aspects. My white paper attempts to provide some objective taxonomy for categorizing the technologies, because I try to explain where my technology fits into the space of the prior art.

Note because it isn't relevant to my technology, my white paper doesn't discuss Proof-of-Storage/Retrievability which the storage coins rely on (e.g. MaidSafe, Sia, StoreJ), but I have a series of posts and even a long debate with StoreJ lead dev in these forum archives wherein I explain I was the one of the first on these forums to attempt that technology in 2013 and I dismissed it as unsound. And I explain my logic. But I don't feel like digging for that now.

Also I don't discuss anonymity in my whitepaper, but note I did a lot of research in that area also.

[iamnotback]

This post about anonymity is a reasonably good summary.

Perhaps some others would object to a few issues there, I didn't read it carefully now, because I don't have time.

[mettalmag]

For example, I have a recent post where I explain my claim that NEM's Proof-of-Importance is just an obfuscation of Proof-of-Stake.

It gets very complex to discuss these technological aspects. My white paper attempts to provide some objective taxonomy for categorizing the technologies, because I try to explain where my technology fits into the space of the prior art.

Note because it isn't relevant to my technology, my white paper doesn't discuss Proof-of-Storage/Retrievability which the storage coins rely on (e.g. MaidSafe, Sia, StoreJ), but I have a series of posts and even a long debate with StoreJ lead dev in these forum archives wherein I explain I was the one of the first on these forums to attempt that technology in 2013 and I dismissed it as unsound. And I explain my logic. But I don't feel like digging for that now.

Also I don't discuss anonymity in my whitepaper, but note I did a lot of research in that area also.

I don't think I want to go that deep into every aspect explanation. I was thinking to answer popular questions, to gain peoples trust or even interest who doesn't even heard about cryptocurrencies or the technology behind.
Even tho we have two maybe the largest farms of bitfury there still is no interest at all, this is due to lack of information. I myself am managing two small farms one for bitcoin and other for zcash, ethereum etc. We are small country with a small electricity costs, so my goal so far is to cover all these at once, with simple language and easy reading and understanding for everyone.
Thank you for your time and support

[ttookk]

I have a similar problem; I'd love to have a good book, explaining the technical details in non-technical terms (not necessarily for me, but more to find good ways to explain it to others), but I haven't found one yet.

I've read a bit of "Blockchain Revolution", but that is not really about tech, it's about what you can do with blockchain technology. Frankly, it's a little too over the top optimistic for me. It reads like an advertisement. But if you want to get people excited, maybe it's not so bad?

[mettalmag]

I have a similar problem; I'd love to have a good book, explaining the technical details in non-technical terms (not necessarily for me, but more to find good ways to explain it to others), but I haven't found one yet.

I've read a bit of "Blockchain Revolution", but that is not really about tech, it's about what you can do with blockchain technology. Frankly, it's a little too over the top optimistic for me. It reads like an advertisement. But if you want to get people excited, maybe it's not so bad?

What I have in mind is to make a little presentation like book, which will cover the most basic information and techniques and answer the most wanted questions (what are cryptocurrencies, what is blockchain, what are the benefits of it, how to mine, ho to trade etc.).
After a few days of searching the internet I came up with an idea to write down the main questions and answer them, then translate it to Georgian and somehow make it easy to read book effect, but I won't stop searching for now, first of all I need a good questionnaire I think.

[garciaor2002]

Can someone come up with a book answering common wallet problems encountered when installing them?

[mettalmag]

Can someone come up with a book answering common wallet problems encountered when installing them?

for that kind of problems I think Andreas M. Antonopoulos - mastering the bitcoin I think
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cryptocurrencies/dp/1449374042/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

[jacaf01]

I think the best way to go about it is to get your hand on some Altcoins that interest you and study them, then open the reference link for more information

[mettalmag]

I think the best way to go about it is to get your hand on some Altcoins that interest you and study them, then open the reference link for more information

I'll do that of course, but I wanted to cover everything in some simple steps. Starting from bitcoins ending to what will happen in 100 years

[ratatatat]

Books like that are just opinion-pieces. Essays. If they claim to be more than that they become scams. I wouldn't have money or time for such books. Anyone who is unable to form their own independant opinion on things shouldn't be investing.

By the time it goes to printing it's already outdated btw. Target audience is extremely small.

Likely not worth the hassle currently.

[mettalmag]

Books like that are just opinion-pieces. Essays. If they claim to be more than that they become scams. I wouldn't have money or time for such books. Anyone who is unable to form their own independant opinion on things shouldn't be investing.

By the time it goes to printing it's already outdated btw. Target audience is extremely small.

Likely not worth the hassle currently.

I totally agree if this goes for detailed information and explanation like "how to", i.e. how to build ETH mining rig with H81M-K and three RX480 GPUs and etc.
What I actually want is to gather detailed and specific information about what is ETH, BTC or cryptocurrency overall, why it is good or bad to learn more about it, what is mining and etc.
I understand that the book or whitepaper will be outdated in February if you print it now and it goes only for detailed how to I already mentioned.

[ttookk]

Books like that are just opinion-pieces. Essays. If they claim to be more than that they become scams. I wouldn't have money or time for such books. Anyone who is unable to form their own independant opinion on things shouldn't be investing.

By the time it goes to printing it's already outdated btw. Target audience is extremely small.

Likely not worth the hassle currently.

Blockchain as a concept doesn't outdate that quickly. Granted, algorithms and hardware does, but the main idea doesn't.

I'd love a book that explains just that: how does it work? I don't mean SHA256's exact algorithm in print, I mean stuff like how is consensus reached? What does that even mean? What is this magical "open ledger" blockchain?

Before you start: I know this stuff. I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking to better explain it to others and to give recommentations to those who prefer to read, rather than hear some over-the-top enthusiastic talk about it.

[Cryptotraider16]

Anonymity/Privacy (Soon you will be able to add LEOcoin) !