The Five Sectors of Cryptocurrency Knowledge

[Peter R]

When I was preparing my "Top-10" list of research papers for 2015 for CoinDesk, I read an interesting paper co-authored by @Andrew Miller. The paper identified three components of Bitcoin’s design that can be decoupled and analyzed individually: (1) transactions and scripts, (2) the peer-to-peer communication network, and (3) consensus and mining. This made me think that perhaps we can extend this categorization beyond just these three technical topics to include all of Bitcoin knowledge. I propose the two new categories: (4) money, and (5) the impact of cryptocurrency on society.

I noticed that if I write them in this order, then they form a linear domain progressing from what I'll call "left-brain intensive" thought to "right-brain" intensive thought. These categories also cover a wide range of disciplines, as shown below:

Obviously I've taken some liberties with this diagram, and there is overlap in many places, but I think it reveals some truth as well.

It might also help us understand our irresolvable debate with the Blockstream Core folks. For example, if you wander on over to one of their clubhouses, you'll see that they're usually talking about Topics #1 and #2. Over at our forum, we're normally talking about Topics #3 and #4. In other words, our expertise and knowledge of Bitcoin covers quite different areas.

Anyways, food for thought...

 

[Bagatell]

I feel "our irresolvable debate with the Blockstream Core folks" is symptomatic of a much wider struggle taking place in the world today. That is, the struggle between them and us, the makers and the takers. Politics is a PC term. It's about governance, power and control. Predation might be a better word.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Peter R

This can be a powerful diagram. Posted in North Korea

Here's the /r/btc post.

 

[lunar]

A broad understanding of the incentives to cooperate, provided by game theory is essential. It seems to fit in #2 #5 ?

 

[Peter R]

@lunarboy

Yeah, I wanted to include game theory but I couldn't visually fit it in anywhere. I thought that perhaps it could be considered a sub-topic of economics.

 

[lunar]

great article, fits into this thread well.

from @iang

https://steemit.com/eos/@iang/what-do-i-need-to-study-in-order-to-fully-master-bitcoin-tm

QUOTE
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

 

[lunar]

Just adding this here. Another good list of areas to study from @Progenitor on the BCH slack channel. Very similar to IGs post.


you want to dedicate to learning more here's my list:

CS: Protocols, Databases, State Machines, Stack-based Languages (Script), Code Theory
Crypto: Hashes, Elliptic Curve
Math: Distributions (Power, Poisson, etc), Graph Theory, Stats (notably Bayesian), Probablility Theory, Perturbation Theory, Percolation Theory
Economics: Game Theory, Incentives, Mechanism Design
Biology: Epidemology (for SIR/SEIR/SIS propagation)
Law: The Semantics of Common Law Predicates

This is not complete and I should remember to update it more. I would welcome any suggestions.

The SIR/SEIR/SIS propagation area is pretty radical for software, but the more I understand, the more it makes sense that bitcoin was modelled on biological systems, and infection
propagation.