SCRF Recommends

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Best Resources to learn about Web3

In this thread, you will find some recommended papers, resources, and links on Web 3 to help you in your journey into Web 3.

The SCRF Recommends thread is a valuable resource for people who are new to web3 and people who have lots of knowledge and experience in web3. There is something for everyone! You can find new articles/papers to refresh your memory about a subject or even introduce you to something new. In this thread, you can share papers, articles, and resources you find interesting with the community and help others discover them.

How can you contribute to SCRF recommends?

You can contribute to SCRF Recommends by responding to this post. You may follow this format:

Hyperlinked title
Indicate category (Beginner or Advanced)
About {brief introduction to the recommended paper/article/course, duration, etc}
Name of author/organizer/owner

If you need help or have any questions, you can ask @zube.paul or @Tolulope

Why should you contribute?

The web3 community has brought together so many people globally. One thing that everyone has in common is the love for knowledge and the willingness to help each other. You should contribute to SCRF recommends for the following reasons;

i. help people discover new topics and resources
ii. contribute to the growth of the web3 community
iii. You can earn some SourceCred by doing so
iv. You can also discover new things while doing so.

Beginners

Here, you will find links to online courses, white papers, and articles that provide an introductory overview of web3.

from Princeton University, lectured by Joseph Bonneau, Ed Felten, Arvind Narayanan, and Andrew Miller, has been useful in providing an overview. The course was published around 2016, but the foundation it helps build are timeless.

*Bitcoin Talk
A Bitcoin forum with discussions on Bitcoin and related issues.

Advanced

Here, you will find resources that are of a more technical nature. They mostly require a previous understanding of web3, blockchain, DeFi or any other relevant concept.

DeFi

  • MOOC: Introduction to Decentralized Finance (DeFi).
    This course introduces concepts of DeFi and TradFi. A basic understanding of cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin), Ethereum-based smart contracts and fundamental blockchain concepts is required.
    University of Nicosia

  • Token Engineering Fundamentals
    The course teaches how to design crypto-economic systems from scratch and how to enhance token utility. Previous knowledge is required.
    TE Academy

Smart Contracts

  • Solidity Docs
    Introduction to solidity, installing solidity compiler, and others. This is more suitable for people who understand smart contracts and how they work.

  • https://cryptozombies.io/
    An interactive platform for learning basic concepts about smart contracts.
    Cleverflare

Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)

  • DAOs, DACs, DAs and More: An Incomplete Terminology Guide
    This paper explains concepts such as smart contracts, autonomous agents, decentralized applications, and decentralized organisations, among others. Knowledge of Blockchain and Decentralization is required.
    Vitalik Buterin

  • DAOs - The New Coordination Frontier.
    A report curated by individuals from Gitcoin and BanklessDAO. It provides in-depth information and statistics about DAOs.
    Gitcoin and BanklessDAO.

  • The DAO Landscape
    This article breaks down DAOs and explores the relationship between social and financial capital.
    Coopahtroopa

Cryptography

  • Intro to Cryptography
    This course introduces cryptography and dives into discrete probability, stream ciphers, block ciphers, and message integrity among others. Watch on YouTube. Access the accompanying free textbook on applied cryptography here.
    Dan Boneh (Stanford University).

  • Decentralized Thoughts
    The webpage consists of useful resources on Blockchains and Distributed Computing as well as cryptography.

  • Useful Cryptographic resources
    A website on Cryptographic Engineering managed by Matthew Green, a cryptographer and professor at Johns Hopkins University. Start with his curation of valuable cryptography resources.
    Matthew Green

Oracles and Data

  • BlockScience
    A firm that seeks to integrate academic-grade research with advanced mathematical and computational engineering. Check their website and navigate to the resources or blog page.

  • What Is a Blockchain Oracle?
    This article explains oracles, the oracle problem, types of oracles, decentralized oracles, oracle reputation, and oracle use cases.
    Chainlink

Privacy and Security

The first few lectures are also by Prof. Dan Boneh, and they have been fun and helpful. Some interest in math is required to appreciate the course.

Scaling

This article explains how channels, plasmas and rollups work. Tradeoffs between two flavours of rollups and some yet-not-fully-solved challenges in rollups.
Vitalik Buterin

A very long blog post with a whooping estimated read time of 83 minutes.
Quote: Vitalik gave us the amazing Incomplete Guide to Rollups. I present to you The Complete Guide to Rollups. Ok it’s not actually complete, but it’s a great meme so I’m stealing it. This report only analyzes the design space of rollups on Ethereum and Celestia. I strongly recommend my recent Ethereum report for background.
– Jon Charbonneau

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@Tolulope thank you for curating list.

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@Chrisarch if you haven’t seen this yet, it would probably interest you.

Very helpful links @Tolulope.

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Thank you @Ulysses for calling my attention to this amazing resource links by @Tolulope.

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Thanks for the curation. Happy to share part of my reading list too:

Beginner

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies from Princeton University, lectured by Joseph Bonneau, Ed Felten, Arvind Narayanan, and Andrew Miller, has been useful in providing an overview. The course was published around 2016, but the foundation it helps build are timeless.

On the deck

I’m currently reading Decentralized Thoughts to learn more about consensus and cryptography. Quoting from the blog: this page contains material for a graduate course on Blockchains and Distributed Computing with a dash of Cryptography.

To learn ZK, I’m watching ZK Whiteboard Sessions. The first few lectures are also by Prof. Dan Boneh, and they have been fun and helpful. Some interest in math is required to appreciate the course.

There are also other resources I think everyone should at least be aware of, such as Vitalik’s blog and Bitcoin talk, and certainly many more I have missed.

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Thank you @Twan for enlisting further links. Decentralised thoughts interests me and I will be taking steps to study the course. Be rest assured ,I will come back to you with some questions or clarification oncesi commence the studies.

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I am happy you found this helpful @Samuel94, please feel free to add any resources you may know to the list.

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You are welcome @Chrisarch, I hope they are helpful to you!

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Thank you for sharing @Twan. Very helpful!

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Thank you @Tolulope for sharing this information. I have been looking forward to this especially the links for the online courses. It’s helpful to me.

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@Tolulope thank you for a well curated list.

This is highly rich from beginner to advanced. Totally recommend.

Will like to add:

Scaling Solutions
An Incomplete Guide to Rollups
This article explains how channels, plasmas and roll ups work. Tradeoffs between two flavours of roll ups and some yet-not-fully-solved challenges in roll ups.
Vitalik Buterin

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Seeing you single out this post, I’d also add this to the list (just came out this month):

The Complete Guide to Rollups
A very long blog post with a whooping estimated read time of 83 minutes.

Quote: Vitalik gave us the amazing Incomplete Guide to Rollups. I present to you The Complete Guide to Rollups. Ok it’s not actually complete, but it’s a great meme so I’m stealing it. This report only analyzes the design space of rollups on Ethereum and Celestia. I strongly recommend my recent Ethereum report for background.
– Jon Charbonneau

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Thanks to both @Twan and @Dansmage for their suggestions. These all seem great and worthy of inclusion!

This seems correctly categorized as beginner, so that makes sense to add there.

Do we think that these two should also be Beginner

For the following, would this make sense in Cryptography?

I definitely think that the ZK work makes sense in Privacy

I also wonder if we should add a Scaling categorization to the original list to accommodate the rollup recommendations. Thoughts?

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This was the first course that introduced me into Bitcoin and Blockchain. Even though it is technical to an extent, which is unavoidable, it played a good role in bringing me up to speed as a beginner. It focuses on the foundations of blockchains and cryptocurrency which I believe any beginner should start from for a solid foundation.

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Thank you @Twan for adding this to the line up. The memetic theme of writing will make the reading fun, I suppose. Can’t wait to get up to speed on it.

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Thanks for the curation

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Thank you @zube.paul. I totally agree that we should add Scaling to the original list.

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I hope you find them helpful @Lisayanky

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Wow !! Thanks a lot for the recommedations @Tolulope

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Please feel free to incorporate from this A Collection of Blockchain Syllabi and Course Material

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