Introduction

This is a collection of notes and links about cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. Until now, whenever someone asked me for references about these topics I would email them a bunch of annotated links. From now on, I hope to simply direct them to this collection of pages.

My name is Saravanan Vijayakumaran. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering of IIT Bombay. More information about me is available here.

Bitcoin

Books about Bitcoin

  • Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction by Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller, and Steven Goldfeder. Princeton University Press, 2016.

    This book is a good starting point for learning about Bitcoin.

    • A free pre-publication draft is available at http://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/. The hardcover version has better formatting than the draft but it is expensive.

    • Video lectures by the authors based on the book content are available on Youtube.

    • A Coursera course based on the book also runs regularly. It takes about 18 hours to complete.

  • Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain by Andreas Antonopoulos. 2nd Edition, O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2017.

    This book has a broader and in-depth coverage of Bitcoin targeted towards developers. It has shell command examples which allow one to interact with the Bitcoin network.

From yours truly

  • The Security of the Bitcoin Protocol by Saravanan Vijayakumaran. May 2018

    A 27-page introduction to Bitcoin written by me for a paid consulting gig from Zebpay. Click here for the pdf.

    whitepaper screenshot

  • An Introduction to Bitcoin by Saravanan Vijayakumaran. Oct 2017

    I took a year-long sabbatical in 2017 to research Bitcoin and write a book about it. These notes are the first draft of the book. Click here for the pdf.

    notes toc screenshot

  • NCC 2018 Bitcoin Tutorial Video

    Youtube video of a two-hour Bitcoin tutorial I gave at the National Conference on Communications in Hyderabad on Feb 25, 2018.

Zero-Knowledge Proof Resources

Books

  • Foundations of Cryptography: Volume 1, Basic Tools by Oded Goldreich. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

    A good reference for the basics on zero-knowledge proof systems. A paperback version is available.

  • A Graduate Course in Applied Cryptography by Dan Boneh and Victor Shoup. Book draft

    A comprehensive book on cryptography with some chapters on zero-knowledge proof systems. A free PDF can be downloaded from the book site.

  • Proofs, Arguments, and Zero-Knowledge by Justin Thaler. Draft monograph

    A draft monograph of about 200 pages covering interactive proof systems and zero-knowledge proofs/arguments.

Sites

  • zkp.science

    A page with links to seminal papers (new and old) and latest software.

  • zkproof.org

    The website of a joint industry-academia initiative to standardize zero-knowledge proof cryptography.

  • zeroknowledge.fm

    A podcast with many episodes on projects using zero-knowledge proofs. Some episodes dwell on topics in the areas of privacy, blockchains, and cryptocurrencies.

  • zkmesh

    A monthly substack newsletter which collects resources on privacy-preserving technologies and zero-knowledge proof systems.

Videos