Reading Group: The Infinite Machine

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Reading Group: The Infinite Machine

TL;DR

Introduction

Back by popular demand, reading groups! The last reading group organized by @eleventh was a huge success! Over 15 people participated in live discussion and the author came by our community call to talk about the book.

Then, we created a thread to vote on our next book. Talk about consensus mechanism! After 16 votes were cast, the winning book was: The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum

This 320 page book tells the story of Ethereum’s founding, with a focus on characters and narrative. It also inspired a movie of the same name. The author, Camila Russo, is a former Bloomberg reporter and founder of DeFi-journalism platform The Defiant.

Motivation

These reading groups provide a synchronous way for the SCRF community to learn and discuss together. The reading groups should select books or topics that are pertinent to the work we are doing and can help us improve.

These types of discussions often help participants gain a deeper understanding of the material, consider new perspectives, and feel rewarded. They can also provide a way to grow our community by being an inviting space for newcomers to mingle with long-time SCRFers.

This book specifically will give us an understanding of the history of Ethereum, how it was founded, who was involved, what obstacles they faced, and how they overcame them. By having this context, our community will be able to have a greater understanding of what challenges Web3 faces. Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain in the world and in just two weeks undergoing a massive evolution. By switching from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, Ethereum will reduce it’s energy consumption by over 99% and open the door to further protocol upgrades. To understand what comes next, we should know what came before.

Session Schedule

We’ve split the book into roughly even halves to make it easier to digest and each half will have a dedicated discussion session. In the second session, we’ll also just discuss the book overall. Everyone is welcome! Click below for the google calendar event :point_down:

  1. Sept 19th 9 AM to 1030 AM EST: Part 1 Groundwork, Part 2 Pre-Launch
  2. Oct 3rd 9AM to 1030 AM EST: Part 3 Launch, Part 4 Lunar Orbit, Part 5 Near-Landing, Part 6 Back to Earth

Description

I will prepare and share some notes ahead of the reading group which will include some chapter summaries and notable quotes. I’ll also have some questions to guide our discussions.

While time spent in this live discussion is not billable, time spent contributing to the forum will be. There are opportunities to take notes on the session for sharing here and/or offering a synthesis of the biggest lessons SCRF can take away from the book. Please post here or DM me (ufkhan97#4345) if you’re interested.

If you want, check out a preview of the book or listen to this interview with the author

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