bitcoin

A documentary from Swan Bitcoin exploring Bitcoin's relationship with energy, featuring Lyn Alden and others, and arguing that mining is a net positive for the environment and not wasteful.

A 2013 lecture in which Vitalik Buterin explains what quantum computers are and what they can and cannot do. He then discusses what they could mean for Bitcoin's cryptography.

3Blue1Brown explains the math and mechanics behind Bitcoin visually: ledgers, digital signatures, proof of work and the blockchain, building up a decentralized payment system from first principles.

Mike Hearn's talk at the 2012 London Bitcoin Conference on the future of Bitcoin, new applications and rebuilding the banking system. He covers lesser-known protocol features such as contracts, escrow and scripting.

Andreas Antonopoulos explains how to tell Bitcoin-style blockchains from corporate blockchain hype. He argues the goal should be de-banking everyone rather than banking the unbanked.

Peter Rizun and Andrew Stone present results of tests running 1 GB blocks on a Bitcoin test network at Scaling Bitcoin Stanford. The talk argues for big-block scaling and discusses its consequences.

A two-minute clip of Andreas Antonopoulos explaining why a 51% attack on Bitcoin would not destroy it and what such an attack would cost. It is a succinct take on mining security.

A Reason TV segment, drawing on Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation, argues that Bitcoin works as an escape hatch for people living under authoritarian governments and inflating currencies.

A long Lex Fridman podcast conversation with Austrian economist Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard. They cover Bitcoin, fiat money, anarchy and Austrian economics.

A two-minute animated introduction to Bitcoin from 2011, explaining it as a peer-to-peer digital currency. It was widely shared in Bitcoin's early days as the standard newcomer explainer.

In a CNBC interview with Becky Quick, Warren Buffett explains why he sees bitcoin as an asset that produces nothing. He contrasts it with productive assets such as a farm.

Andreas Antonopoulos answers a Bitcoin Q&A question about energy consumption in mining. He argues that mining is arbitrage for the cheapest electricity, drives investment in renewables, and that the traditional financial system has hidden externalities.

A one-minute joke video titled as a warning against buying Bitcoin, giving a humorous summary of price crashes. It has no description.

Andreas Antonopoulos answers a question about how to secure your Bitcoin. He covers holding your own keys, backing up the 12 to 24 word seed phrase, and the tradeoffs of custodial accounts, phone wallets and hardware wallets.

Motherboard's 2014 visit to a secretive Bitcoin mining operation in a repurposed factory in Liaoning, China, one of six sites producing about 4,050 bitcoins a month. It shows the machines and the workers' living conditions.

A More Perfect Union report from a small Texas town next to a large Bitcoin mining facility, where residents describe constant noise and health problems. It looks at the political and corporate power behind the facility.

Barely Sociable presents a case that Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is cryptographer Adam Back. It uses interview clips and circumstantial evidence, and also touches on the block size dispute.

An 8-minute explainer on the Lightning Network and how it relates to Segwit, Bitcoin and Litecoin. It covers how off-chain payment channels route payments to scale blockchain transactions.

A 2017 video arguing that banks and Blockstream steered Bitcoin toward the Lightning Network. It is partisan commentary from the Bitcoin Cash side of the scaling dispute.

A short 2013 video in which Roger Ver says Mt. Gox's withdrawal delays are not caused by a lack of liquidity. Mt. Gox collapsed months later, and the description carries a later update and apology.

Coffeezilla gives a comprehensive history of Tether, the stablecoin issued by a company controlled by the owners of Bitfinex. He lays out accusations that it is not fully backed.

Kim Nilsson presents his investigation into how Mt. Gox was hacked and mismanaged, tracing the finances and the missing bitcoins. It was given at the 2017 Breaking Bitcoin meetup.

A step-by-step animated explanation of how SHA-256 works, from padding and message schedule to the compression function and final hash, with source code for the animations.

A 13-minute video in which Ted Nelson lays out his theory about who created Bitcoin, proposing that Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki.

Anders Brownworth gives a basic visual introduction to blockchain using an interactive web demo, covering SHA256 hashes, blocks, chains, distribution, tokens and coinbase transactions.

Lex Fridman interviews Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum, cryptocurrency and the future of money. The conversation also touches on technical topics such as quantum computing and mining.

The opening lecture of MIT's Blockchain and Money course taught by Gary Gensler, covering the course plan, the history of failed digital currencies, cryptography and what a blockchain is.

Andreas Antonopoulos argues that money has a fourth function beyond store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account, which is as a system of control. He covers the history of money and why it does not flow freely.

Rick Falkvinge responds to viewer feedback on his earlier Lightning Network video and raises a flaw he says was not previously discussed. The main thread is the network's unsolved routing problem.

A short Channel NewsAsia interview clip in which MasterCard's Southeast Asia president voices distrust of cryptocurrencies produced by anonymous computers in anonymous places. It is part of the Perspectives series and runs about four minutes.

Ian Miers' Devcon4 talk on failures in on-chain privacy for Bitcoin and Ethereum. It covers attacks on transparent and decoy-based schemes, including how Monero-style privacy can be eroded over repeated transactions.

Apple security head Ivan Krstic gives a Black Hat 2016 talk on iOS security, covering HomeKit, Auto Unlock and iCloud Keychain. He explains key hierarchies and how data can stay safe even in adversarial clouds.

Tom Scott explains why electronic voting is a bad idea. Elections must be trusted by everyone and attacks on software scale in ways attacks on paper do not, so open source or blockchain fixes do not solve it.

A short explainer on the history and mechanics of public key cryptography and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. It uses a mixing-paint-colors analogy to show how two parties can agree on a shared secret in public.

Moxie Marlinspike's BlackHat 2011 talk examines weaknesses of SSL and the certificate authority system and proposes Convergence, a decentralized notary approach with trust agility.

James Mickens of Harvard gives a funny lecture at HBS's Future Assembly arguing that blockchains are a very bad idea. He covers their trust, legal and practical shortcomings for real-world problems.

Dan Olson's roughly two-hour video essay critiques NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web3, covering their technical, economic, and ideological flaws. It is heavily sourced and ends with the advice to ask whether a project needs crypto to work.

A Google Tech Talk by Steve Weis that introduces modern cryptography and its use in practice and at Google. It covers proofs of security and security definitions and a special topic. HN commenters treat it as a talk on verifiable electronic voting.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why electronic voting is a bad idea, arguing that paper ballots are transparent, auditable and hard to tamper with at scale. He covers why moving voting to phones, tablets or computers undermines trust and verifiability.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas spends months in the virtual world Decentraland and delivers a long critique of the metaverse, NFTs and DAOs, and why virtual worlds fail as places.