Reading library

Vitalik Buterin's blog

vitalik.eth.limo

Overview

The primary source.

Notes

I cannot recommend this resource highly enough. Some of his posts are intentionally technical and will not be useful for most readers. Others, especially the governance and policy essays, are accessible and genuinely rewire how you think about coordination problems at scale. Three I'd point you to as starting reads: *Endgame* (his vision of where Ethereum is heading), *Soulbound* (the case for non-transferable tokens, the seed of identity-on-chain), and *Why proof of stake* (the strongest defense of Ethereum's consensus mechanism). I'll curate a top-ten list on the IMPCT page over time.

Read the originalVitalik Buterin's blog on vitalik.eth.limo↗

Related in the library

← Back to the module that introduced thisModule 6 — Ethereum and the idea of programmable money

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.