Reading library

Lyn Alden's blog

lynalden.com

Overview

The single best macro analyst for crypto-curious readers.

Notes

Lyn Alden is the macro voice I most consistently recommend. She comes from traditional finance, she is rigorous about data, she is honest about what she doesn't know, and she has been right about more major macro turns than most professional economists. Her writing on Bitcoin specifically is sophisticated and unsentimental. Three posts I'd point you to as starters: *Petrodollar Update*, *Fiscal Dominance*, and any of her quarterly newsletters. She is the antidote to crypto-Twitter macro takes.

Read the originalLyn Alden's blog on lynalden.com↗

Related in the library

← Back to the module that introduced thisModule 26 — Stablecoins as financial infrastructure

Crypto Glossary

Bitcoin
The first cryptocurrency, launched in January 2009 by an anonymous developer or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Designed as peer-to-peer electronic cash that doesn't require a financial intermediary.
Cryptocurrency
A form of digital money that uses cryptography to secure transactions and is recorded on a blockchain rather than in the books of a central institution.
Blockchain
A shared, append-only ledger maintained by a distributed network of computers rather than by a single authority.
Cryptography
The mathematical techniques used to secure information. In crypto, primarily public-key cryptography (which lets users prove ownership without revealing secrets) and hashing (which fingerprints data).
Decentralization
The property of a system in which no single party can unilaterally change the rules or block participation.
Double-spend problem
The challenge of preventing someone from spending the same unit of digital money twice. Solved by Bitcoin without needing a central authority.
Block
A bundle of transactions added to the blockchain at one time. New blocks are produced on a regular cadence (about every 10 minutes for Bitcoin, about every 12 seconds for Ethereum).
Hash
A cryptographic fingerprint of a piece of data. If the data changes at all, the hash changes completely. Used to chain blocks together and detect tampering.
Proof-of-work
The mechanism by which Bitcoin participants compete to add the next block. Requires real computational effort, which makes attacks expensive.
Node
A participant in the blockchain network. Full nodes hold a complete copy of the chain's history and help validate new blocks.
Byzantine Generals problem
A 1982 computer-science problem describing the difficulty of getting independent parties to agree on a shared state when some of them may be dishonest. Bitcoin's blockchain solves a real-world version of this problem.
Block explorer
A website that lets you read the blockchain. Etherscan, mempool.space, and similar tools show every transaction, address, and block in human-readable form.