Rapture #133: Best Books about Crypto
I read 50 pages of books a day, and recently, I have been alternating each non-crypto book with a crypto book to try and get through more of the literature that is out there on our industry. Most of the literature has to do with what I call the early times (pre-2017), and largely focus on the early Bitcoin and Ethereum communities. A few books focus on the arguments justifying the thesis that support various cryptoassets or segments of cryptoassets, and some attempt to give frameworks for how to view the asset class.
I thought I would share some thoughts on a handful here in case you wanted to read them.
History
Digital Gold – Digital gold does an excellent job going over the early days of Bitcoin. From the early core developer crew, like Martti and Gavin Andersen, to how Ross Ulbricht of the Silk Road came to find out about Bitcoin, this book covers the early history of the Bitcoin community.
The Infinite Machine – While Digital Gold goes over the history of Bitcoin, The Infinite Machine delves into the founding of Ethereum. The power struggles between the 8 co-founders, and the ideological bend of each, is covered quite well in this book. Furthermore, the path to the ICO and the creation of the Swiss non-profit Ethereum foundation are also discussed.
Ideology
The Book of Satoshi – This book is a compilation of all the collected writings, which span around two years, of Satoshi Nakamato, the founder of Bitcoin. Through reading these writings, one discovers a firm understanding of the ideological bend of the individual(s) who created Bitcoin and why they thought it was so important for the world.
The Internet of Money Series – These three books, published by early crypto evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos, do an excellent job describing how crypto will permeate every facet of our lives. Andreas is truly a visionary who saw, and communicate clearly, just exactly how crypto would change society.
Sector Specific
DeFi and the Future of Finance – If you are looking for a solid overview of the DeFi ecosystem and what the individual projects within DeFi do, this book is the one for you. While this book is a bit wonky at time and is not as well written as some of others, it does do an excellent job of breaking down the main frameworks and projects that comprise DeFi.
The Bitcoin Standard – Academic Saifedean Ammous wrote the quintessential book if you want to understand why crypto, and in particular Bitcoin, is such a strong store of value alternative. Ammous goes over the history of stores of value and makes an incredibly strong argument justifying why Bitcoin is far superior to any humans have had in history.
Investing/Trading
Cryptoassets – This was the formative book on cryptoasset investing when it was published at the time back in 2017. While many of the concepts are outdated, the framework Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar present for looking at cryptoassets, and how to compare them, was foundational for the investing industry within crypto.
An Altcoin Trader’s Handbook – While I am personally not a huge proponent of technical analysis, there is a ton of important information to glean from An Altcoin Trader’s Handbook that goes well beyond chart reading. Specifically, Partel’s discussion of the sentiment and the use of Twitter in crypto is incredibly insightful, and will give the reader a better understanding of where the crypto industry lives online.
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