Free, community-driven Bitcoin education project

[vvdhout]

Hi everybody,

The past couple of months I have worked on creating a free, open-source curation of resources to help newcomers better understand Bitcoin in a meaningful way.

The desire to do so originated from an experience that to many of us will be familiar. As I went through my own Bitcoin journey over the past 4 years, I have had many conversations with the people around me trying to convey the deeper implications of the technology. What I noticed is that helping them really understand why Bitcoin exists and why it can be so impactful for people all over the world, was what shifted their ideas about Bitcoin from "How can this help me get rich?" to "How can this new technology improve lives?", even if ever so slightly. I think it is important that there is more of this type of understanding, also in developed countries where the trust issues of money feel very foreign to many.

In my opinion, although there are so many excellent resources out there, this fundamental understanding of "why" is not often focused on. On top of that, because Bitcoin is such a complex topic with so many implications for the world, it can be incredibly overwhelming to start learning about it with so many different points of entry.

My goal with this curation was to help newcomers first understand why we are even talking about Bitcoin in the first place and why this might be something for them to be excited about - even if they feel it is not directly valuable to themselves. Only then does it go into how it works and what it is. Because it uses existing resources from excellent educators in the field, it also immediately provides readers with creators and authors to learn more from if they wish to do so.

My hope is that this will become an open-source project that is collaborated on, as such that it can grow with the best content and it can remain updated over time. It is hosted on GitBook with an underpinning Gitlab repo which should makes this easier.

I thought this would be a great place to share it. I would love to hear the feedback you all have and I invite anybody to fork the underpinning Gitlab project and create pull requests with modifications or additions if you see ways of improving it. I am not entirely sure yet how to best organize this but I will try to figure this out.

You can find the GitBook here: https://btcjourney.gitbook.io/start/

Hope this can be of value, and appreciate your time.

[franky1]

8+ pages in and its still talking about nodes and numbers of nodes

usually newbies want the elevator pitch.. the 2 minute explanations..
in in basic normal common language, not jargon

imagine it like 3 chapters..
elementary school speak, highschool speak and university speak

that way people can learn at any level


RG
what is blockchain
"imagine payments like cheques, but the clearing houses are not owned by institutions. they batch up the transactions into blocks of transactions and chainlink the blocks together by including the previous blocks ID in the next block. hence blockchain. the ID's are created using 'mining' process"

what is mining
"mining is the use of energy and equipment to churn through difficult workload (complicated math) to find a difficult to find result which becomes the ID of the latest block.. which inside the block includes a reward for that work in the form of fresh 'bitcoin'"

what is a bitcoin
"a bitcoin is a allotment of 100,000,000 satoshis, a satoshi is the smallest unit of measure on the network. which people can assign to a recipient by spending i, if they themselves had some first to then make a transaction"

what is a transaction
"its the main mechanism that moves bitcoin/satoshi units around it includes the source of the units assigned to the person wishing to spend it. the destination they want it to go and a signature that proves they are authorised to move the units to the destination"

..
after you done the brief common speak descriptions of the main parts. then you can have a different chapter then then goes into finer details using more jargon based words

[AnotherAlt]

I appreciate your effort in creating such things to help newbies. I didn't read the whole project/book. But I read the Intro, which is fantastic. I am not an expert, so I didn't find anything wrong. But there are a lot of Veterans who can point out something if they look into it. Yeah, We see a lot of questions in the Bitcoin discussion and Beginner and Help Board. Apart from this forum, Other people will be benefited from your project. Apart from Bitcoin Discussion, Your thread Fits in Project Development and Beginners and Help sections. Unfortunately, Multi Posting is not allowed. But, if you can write something different. I would suggest you create a thread on Project Development. A Lot of veterans there.

[OgNasty]

I didn't take the time to read through everything, but the site appears well done.  You linked to articles and had a lot of information along with a great layout.  You can tell that a lot of work was put into making it.  I think with a catchy URL this could be found and used to help a lot of people learn about Bitcoin and how it effects real life situations linked to in the articles.  Nice work.  A lot of people still have a lot to learn about Bitcoin, so these types of sources on the internet are most definitely helpful.

[Upgrade00]

The website layout looks very well done and the information contained therein, accurate, for the most part that I read. Great job OP on creating this resource.

I'll definitely be visiting it more often to preen through the other pages in the work.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

It is pleasing to see bitcoiners taking it upon themselves to educate others about bitcoin and it's usefulness, and this one I must say is very unique when compared to other initiatives users of this forum have posted in the past.
I visited the gitbook site and I must say that I am pleased with the whole arrangement, OP definitely put alot of time and effort into getting everything there together and it's one that should be appreciated, overtime, that can turn out to be a very good source of knowledge of bitcoin and it's history.
Kudos op, keep it up.

[vvdhout]

Thanks everybody for the kind words. I really appreciate it.

usually newbies want the elevator pitch.. the 2 minute explanations..
in in basic normal common language, not jargon

I do definitely agree with your general take here, although the danger is that by trying to cut it down as bitesized as possible you automatically start making a lot of concessions. As a result, it risks becoming very generic quickly and not really providing any new or profound insight. At least, this has been my experience. The result is that, indeed with the Journey as is, a newcomer has to push through perhaps a little more, and I do think that in its current state it requires at least some initial commitment and real desire to learn more about Bitcoin. Nevertheless, I will be thinking about creating shorts/snippets ancillary to the journey that are a little easier to digest in a short amount of time, which then hopefully piques the interest to dive deeper. I'll have to think about whether this would become part of the journey itself or whether it would be content to pull people in. Your point is absolutely well taken nonetheless and hopefully we can make that transition to the deeper content a little easier.

[franky1]

but thats the thing though

i love to waffle and have walls of text explanations.. but i found many people just dont bother reading unless they are spoon fed answers in small direct couple sentence length snippets

you presume that people will apply alot of commitment and time to really push through..

keep this one fact in mind
with inventions like google, youtube, and even this forums search box.. people can type in a question and hope to get an answer
but most of the time they are redirected to lengthy books, length videos . and waffly blogs.

so they come here and just ask "what is a blockchain"
now ask yourself how far into your website do users have to go just to get to the same basic understanding of the word blockchain as my elevator pitch describes
yep its not in the first 4 chapters

take most of the other posts.. they looked at it and liked the layout but didnt take time to read it all. they just congratulated your effort and moved on with their day. when people say 'i see you put alot of effort into it' thats positive spin of, "i see alot of writing"

i actually did push through. and read multiple pages
many many pages about money in general and banks and stuff.. and by the time you actually got to the point of bitcoin to describe bitcoin

it was just talking about the software and database running on computers
which you then contradict with notes saying the computers are not computers but specialist machines dedicated to single tasks
and then saying nodes,

then the software  saying how first you call it a database, then redefine it as a ledger then redefine it as a blockchain.. without going into why is a blockchain a blockchain

you talk about how the computers are over 100,00 ALL spread out over the world ALL storing all transactions.. etc

but then on next chapter you change the definition again..
you even add in the video. of AA saying about a node is a full node
or a fully validating node, then immediately then you go to the chapter about a full node..  and even then you take a extract of AA book about a full node being one that maintained a full blockchain.. which you contradict it, by saying that not all full nodes are fully validating archival nodes and some only store small amounts..
and then want to redefine a full node being a full blockchain node
and then you go and say the software thats not full blockchain nodes is light wallets.

to a newbie this is all just too confusing to be sent into a spin of redefining before even getting to the good bits
heck even you then take full node and redefine it again into full blockchain node vs light wallet

and by this point.. sooo many pages in..
you have not even got to what is an elevator pitch of what is a bitcoin(currency unit) or blockchain (the linked batches of transactions, boxed up and tied together by the box id's)

your whole journey has been to try to teach them the jargon by redefining the jargon but skipping passed how each part does its job

yep through out the multiple leaps of redefining software, node, full nodes, full blockchain node
no where did it really bother to say that each computer receives transactions in a certain format and needs to check they the data match all the rules and all the balances tally out and all the movements are properly signed
and then on receipt of a block, that the block contents tally up and meet the rules and such, and blah blah
and that the id's of transactions in the blocks are calculated together to match a header identity of the transactions(transaction merkle) and long side the id of the previous block, as well as some other data and reward and nonce/extranonce its then matches the latest solved ID of the latest block to make sure everything matches, checks out validates and fits all the rules to then declare that block as a confirmed acceptable block to add to the blockchain

yep by the time you have confused people with what jargon to use to describe the software, you didnt explain the security aspect of peoples value/coins.

you took it as a stepping stone approach in a marathon..telling people jargon term. before even trying to just explain what the stuff does on a basic level

it would be better to:
rather than run a marathon expecting readers to train and persevere
to instead split the parts out as separate choices of paths to begin from. starting at basic level . where by you explain the function first not the jargon. and then you can reference the other parts once you describe the function and then jargon when other parts become relevant to the description

think of having chapters not as mile stones of a single path.. but a map of road junctions which people can explore depending on their needs.

peopel that know nothing about bitcoin wont have the "commitment" to go on a multiple chapter adventure just to find out if they want to get into bitcoin

use bitesize snippet explanations
its like dating you do go on multiple dates just to work out if you want to get into a relationship..
most people can figure out if they want to go on future dates via the first few minutes of first date..

so try the speed dating intro. get to know bitcoin in a short time period. where you can then offer proper lengthier interactions as a second stage

[BITCOIN4X]

The site is still under development as there are some incomplete content categories, but I think your idea is good and should be supported.
To be honest, I didn't read the whole thing but at least I've spent about 5 minutes reaching a conclusion before replying to you here.

I quoted one of your points in the introduction, but is this really the most phenomenal reason?

Some reasons as to why you might want to learn about Bitcoin:
1. Bitcoin is being used by people to protect themselves from human rights violations.

[goldkingcoiner]

Its very nice to hear that you have put in so much work into what you believe in! I think however, if you were to move this post to the Project Development subforum, then you would get more hints, tips and advice on your project than you would posting this in the Bitcoin Discussion subforum.
Here is the link to the mentioned PD subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=12.0

You will find many capable and extremely professional developers who have walked the path that you wish to walk. I suggest crowdsourcing your knowledge a bit from them.

If you need help navigating the forum, you can just ask here on this thread or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=help.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

This is awesome work you did here because I just check the link and I must say the journal which you wrote there is okay, but I guess there were some statements you made that I didn't quite understand regarding reasons why you might want to learn about Bitcoin.

Example,  

Bitcoin is being used by people to protect themselves from human rights violations.

I guess this is the first time hearing Bitcoin is been used by people to protect themselves from human rights violations. But literally, with your funds in Bitcoin it is solely independent on its own, as government or its central bank has no control over it.

Bitcoin is the fastest thing to be worth $1trillion, within 12 years of its invention.

I guess by this you mean the total market capitalization price of the entire 21million Bitcoin and not a single Bitcoin, because we all know Bitcoin A.T.H is $68,000 after 12yrs and not $1trillion

The creator of Bitcoin disappeared. Nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

And Satoshi's disappearance was indeed the best decision ever made for the growth of Bitcoin, because as a digital currency who promise to make our transactions independently anonymous, it was best its creator remains anonymous, even with the likes of Craig Wright claiming to be Satoshi, which we all know is not true

Bitcoin helps people save and plan for a better future, even if the financial system of their country is in disarray

And it is also worth it saving in Bitcoin, because it protect us from the inflation which affects fiat currencies over time due to government policies

[Lucius]

Any project that aims to make Bitcoin better understood by an average person is valuable, but as always the problem is how to make such a project visible and also very important how to localize it so that it is understood by as many people as possible. English is the language in which we communicate in most of the international communication, but even on this forum, we can see that many members have greater or lesser difficulties to fully understand it.

If the project manages to take off on a serious scale, it would be good if it was translated into at least a few more world languages. Maybe some of the forum members who deal with translation will be interested in contributing to this project.

[The Cryptovator]

Well-done and well written as well. No matter a lot of sour e about Bitcoin learning. You tried your best to introduce Bitcoin which would help newcomers to understand Bitcoin. It's quite important to realize what is Bitcoin actually and how it works. Otherwise, people just think it's a pump dump investment scheme.