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Comment by shp0ngle | Hacker News Reader

Everything in Bitcoinlandia is fairly superficial, since everyone is trying to sell Bitcoin and make himself rich. So it's like reading multi-level-marketing books.

That being said. What's actually kind of good (with actual technical specifications) is Bitcoin wiki, even when it's slightly outdated; then official bitcoin website; and sometimes bitcoin stack exchange website (but that can become outdated too).

I don't think Blockchain can be disconnected from Bitcoin, and if you do, it's very general and not that specific.

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To contrast that, patio11 has written various things ragging on bitcoin from a tech/business perspective. It's well worth reading.

He is otherwise great chap, but I don't think he is the guy to turn to on bitcoin/blockchain topics. He has focus certainly somewhere else, and to me his rants about bitcoin sound more like a general complaining because he missed the train.

You should probably also not turn to someone heavily invested in Bitcoin, since they have a lot to lose...

True, but those who invest their money usually invest their smarts and time also on the topic. So the info is most definitely biased, but on the other hand those who don't invest money probably don't care that much about the topic, and focus their efforts on other topics.

On the other hand, there are some people who have been bitcoin enthusiasts but have since left the scene, such as mike hearn.

Learning about blockchains can certainly be disconnected from Bitcoin. Go read the Ethereum docs for example.

Ethereum stuff can also prove how to do things wrong... The DAO is a good example of that, and now the recent ddos attack.

TheDAO is an example of a mistake on the path towards building something better/safer. You don't think airbags have ever killed people? Faulty seatbelts? Did Tesla abandon auto-pilot because of a few accidents? Do I need to go on and on? This is a nascent technology, of course there are going to be missteps along the way, and to hold it against Ethereum forever is an incredibly cynical point of view for supposed technologists.

There are no uses for turing complete smart contracts. Multisig and nLockTime perform all the same functions with lower risk and greater scalability.

Looking forward then to the deluge of DApps coming to Bitcoin using Multisign and nLockTime, just go to http://dapps.ethercasts.com/ and copy paste ideas to Bitcoin using Multisign / nLockTime, should be easy peasy. Oh yeah, and all can be done with Multisign & nLockTime, so I wonder why Counterparty and now Rootstock are implementing Ethereum's virtual machine, strange.

Wish you and your partner in crime stopped spreading false information and just focused on Bitcoin. It should stand on its own merits not on dishing other projects.

Chris DeRose, you have no power here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGWtVOKTkM

That's true, but it's still basically a cryptocurrency, with some out-there applications (that are not really that reliable, yet).

But yeah you are right.

The bitcoin wiki was a good starting point and did a good job at explaining the fundamentals of a distributed digital ledger. One problem I personally ran into was understanding the crypto subroutines that validate mining, transactions, and verification on the network. Reading their respective wiki pages can be a bit dense if you lack the background knowledge.

Makes sense.

For the record I've found Coindesk helpful for general updates, and I signed up for the blockchain course on Coursera.

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