Bitcoin Clarity - A Complete Beginner's Guide to Understanding Bitcoin

The Bitcoin Clarity Story

It's 2018, and I called B.S. on cryptocurrency.

Crypto is taking off. People are going full hype on altcoins, tokens, and ICOs. There were only two ways to look at Bitcoin: as “muh libertarian” coin or as a disruptive, peer-to-peer, immutable distributed ledger series of overrated buzzwords. I couldn't believe there wasn't a more complete approach to Bitcoin as a system. Maybe I was a little naïve, but I decided to stop complaining and try to provide a better explanation for myself.

Bitcoin Clarity started on a couch in Australia.

No publishers. No fancy agents. No book proposals. Just a couple of bitcoin contributors and me hanging out not eating Vegemite on a couch. These guys were complaining to me that most of the Bitcoin books out there were not exceptionally helpful, a lot of the popular books read more like technical manuals or as a copy of the Bitcoin Wiki. I offered to write a better book because I thought it sounded like fun. They thought it sounded like hell, but kindly agreed to help anyway.

Asking questions on #bitcoin IRC until 6AM

With no B.S. Bitcoin is complicated, but it doesn't need to be as complicated as everyone is making it out to be. There are a few insanely intelligent people in this industry, but often they are too deep into an analytical way of thinking to explain this stuff at an appropriate level for new users. No, Johnny, Grandma doesn't need to know how her private key translates into binary format. And for the record, that does not qualify as an "Easy to Understand" overview on Bitcoin.

Knowing how to think differently.

Copying and mimicking others is an innate human skill. We copy each other to learn, but people also copy to gain social status by mirroring the values of the tribe. With Bitcoin Clarity, I wanted to develop a new way of thinking, and not repeat the same facts that can be limited in usefulness. To think differently requires learning how to think, to concentrate on one thing long enough to develop a new way of thinking takes time and focus.

I can get obsessive.

I sketched out hundreds of diagrams to help explain this system visually. Then I had actual artist from my local coffee shop of resketch my drawings into digital hand-drawn micro-master pieces. I have high standards, and I'm always working to improve, little by little. I add new images to the book with each version and animate the sketches from the book into videos.