Building on from the previous post on how complex the space of financial cryptography is, this is an informal list of the many disciplines you might need to grok so as to be able to master the Bitcoin network as a running, living entity.
Loosely organised into classical schools.
Computer Science
Protocols, including peer to peer
databases, state machines
Languages: Code Theory, stack-based languages (script)
Cryptography
Hashing and merkle trees.
Familiarity with pseudonymous authentication, asymmetric cryptography e.g., signing with EC, zero knowledge proofs.
You don’t need encryption, but it’s fun. You might want to read about homomorphic encryption (zkSNARKs and the like) but not needed.
Mathematics
Graph theory, Network graph analysis, big-O
statistics and probability theory including bayesian statistics
Distributions (power, poisson, etc),
Perturbation theory
Percolation theory
Economics
game theory, Nash equilibria, incentives, mechanism design, evolutionary stable stratagies
Risk and finance
Austrian (Hayek, Mises)
Macro - fiat, inflation and deflation, usury, seignorage, history of monetary exchange
Intellectual property, open source software, digital rights management
Miscellaneous?
Business Skills (thanks to readers for pointing this out)
Epidemiology (for SIR/SEIR/SIS propagation) although this might be mathematics
Law (contract & rights, also compliance, property, securities law & regulation)
Accounting (bookkeeping with double entry and triple entry, governance for exotic multisig and so forth)
Psychology and Behavioural economics
Post-amble
A more advanced presentation might list the course / book / level to reach so as to have just enough to be able to contribute to a debate….
FTR, the above isn’t my own work, I’ve plagiarised freely, and I don’t understand them myself. Therefore I am doomed to never Fully Master Bitcoin (™) and as penance, must help build something more understandable ;-) Who is Sisyphus now?
See also: Why Bitcoin Education Matters (needs Flash):
I'd add some business skills. Usually blockchains are created for some kind of profitable business.
This overlaps a little bit with game theory, economics and psychology, but it's really important to understand the whole ecosystem around the blockchain to make it profitable in the long term. This has been a big shortcoming of many blockchain projects.
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Thanks, and to @erlik for that - I've added Business skills above.
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In bitcoin's early days you could hope to master it all. But now it's become such a broad field you are better off specialising in an area of expertise.
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It's hard to keep up with all the different technologies being developed.
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You need both some technical / crypto background as well as some financial knowledge, but the business aspects cannot be understated. I think that what is keeping a lot of people at bay when it comes to bitcoin is the difficulty in understanding how it works. If someone accepts bitcoin as digital money / gold it's pretty simple to use, but if someone wants to understand further how or why it works it becomes quite complex for the layman.
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Yes, certainly there is that fear of magical money systems. But I'm not sure it is entirely that - plenty of people ride in cars and planes and use the telephone without knowing how they work. I think a greater part of the fear that people have is simple lack of solid answers to difficult questions:
"How do I get back on the ground?" --> "It's called landing, you do it at airports, it's safer than driving to the airport."
"How do I get my money back if it is stolen?" --> "You can't, you're screwed, take better care next time."
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Thanks for sharing these great posts. I know some of that. I am going to read over what I don't know and hopefully absorb some useful information that I can apply.
I find it easy to understand the tech when reading about it, yet at the same time it comes across as complex, in that I understand it, but can't imagine how someone pulled it together. It is like a simple but alien object with more layers than an onion.
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well, very interesting, I am in the last year in my studies of computer science and I want build a cryptocurrency in the future with a idea mine. But, I dont know how start to study the source of bitcoin.
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Great post . Keep it up.
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it looks like we have a lot of studying to do! great post (:
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Thank you
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Been interested in Bitcoin for a number of years at first its growing value and the ONCE liquidity of it as online money.
But its the blockchain that has really got me interested in crypto currencies, and whatever this tech will morph into.
@iang thanks for your post.
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is dificult ha...imany things to know before be an expert! i'll consider that
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Thanks @iang for the final link in this post. Have you looked at the MOOC referenced towards the end of that presentation?
Would that be a least a starting point for some knowledge on this subject?
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Great post
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I wish there was a program I could upload all this information to my mind with a click like in The Matrix. Too much knowledge in this world to consume and not enough time. I want to study into this field throughout my life and dive deeper down this rabbit hole. I believe we are going to be providing the tools to free minds from this system. This knowledge will be very valuable to know not only monetary wise but for humanity. The more people that take interest in this field the better. The old systems will be replaced by or find safe heavens with blockchains. This is a great peaceful revolution and historic times. Steemit is already changing the world and showing what an impact crypt0 can make on lives and the system. If you really want to master it all and believe you can you will.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." -Bruce Lee
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Thanks for the great post!
I am definitely going to follow you @iang now.
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