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by erikpukinskis 3243 days ago
I would love to see this for Ethereum. I was able to understand the Bitcoin protocol fairly quickly with a little reading, but I haven't come across much good writing on the mechanics of the Ethereum protocol. All of the intro texts I've seen are about like "Step 1: install the client" kind of stuff.

I'm not interested so much in how to write smart contracts, so much as how the miners work, how conflicts are resolved, and how the incentive schemes play out.

Would love to get some reading suggestions!
2 comments
billconan 3243 days ago
Not sure if this will help you: https://medium.com/@shiyan/ethereum-summary-a53c4a8e66d?sour...
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daraosn 3243 days ago
This is great. I already understood most of BTC and ETH protocols, but learned some new bits, thanks for sharing!
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agorabinary 3243 days ago
I agree, Ethereum needs better reading material. I bought an Ethereum book by Henning Diedrich and it's pretty light to be honest.
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liamzebedee 3243 days ago
What are the top (say, three) things you'd like to learn from such a book?

I agree, insides on the Ethereum tech (like how their proof of work relates to smart contract state, where the DAG fits in) are very brief / difficult to digest at some points.

Ethereum is elegant in many ways - for example, strengthening security by rewarding the linking of orphan blocks in the network. I think there's a need for some better education between the marketing material and War and Peace white/yellow paper ;)

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agorabinary 3242 days ago
I think it should assume the reader is fairly educated on what Bitcoin is, as most newcomers to Ethereum are probably coming from the Bitcoin space, and then differentiating the two coins.

- What makes it potentially more powerful than Bitcoin?

- What are Ethereum Dapps/smart contracts good for and what are they not good for? There are definitely limitations to coding apps on a distributed network where every node has the code

- Developer intro

There's a lot of marketing gimmicky material out there jumping on the buzz word train ("Distributed! Consensus! OSS!") without offering any real value. Something with real substance that is presented effectively would be awesome

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liamzebedee 3242 days ago
Yeah I get you. Because Ethereum has such an enterprise-facing governance (eg. Ethereum Enterprise Alliance) most of the education that goes into it is to business and big corps right now.

Do you mind if I get your email and send you something? Looking at writing about this and would love some feedback.

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