The Aragon Network was one of the early projects to launch on the Ethereum network in mid-2017. The white paper was released on April 20th, 2017 and shortly after, the sale and distribution of the Aragon Network Token (ANT) commenced. ANT was one of the earliest governance tokens that could be used to participate in the Aragon DAO.

What is Aragon?

The Aragon Network provides basic ethereum based services that are needed to make decentralized organizations possible and widespread on ethereum.

Aragon is a meta-DAO in the sense that the Aragon Network is a DAO that has created a Dapp that abstracts the process of creating and managing a DAO for the end user. The end users right now are the Aragon developers and users themselves, Ethereum developers, and users of DAOs operating on or around Ethereum and other blockchains. …

Dogecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, being used by cryptocurrency enthusiasts all over the world for over six years. Dogecoin was a part of a mini alt-coin boom that was created in the wake of a huge Bitcoin bull run in 2013. Whenever a technology, company, or person has success you can almost guarantee there will be a round of copy cats trying to capture a part of that success.

The first altcoin was Namecoin, next came Litecoin, then came our beloved alt-coin boom in 2013 that bequeathed us Dogecoin. Much wow. Much riches.

Many alt-coins in the early boom were simple copies of Bitcoin with a few parameter changes. For instance, almost all of the early alt-coins were using proof of work as their consensus mechanism, were trying to be internet currencies, and the protocols themselves were written in C++ just like Bitcoin. In contrast to today, we have a wide variety of digital assets with very different purposes and thus very different architectures compared to Bitcoin and the early alt-coin booms. …

We know that Satoshi and Hal Finney were the earliest miners, with many more coming after, but the first year of Bitcoin mining was very static and boring. The network’s hash-rate was stuck at a max of 7 million hashes per second, which could have been created by no more than 100 people with CPUs. Most of the time it was probably much less than 100 people with CPUs. For a full year, anywhere from two people to a few dozen people were running the bitcoin network. …

In late November, 1913, on a private island off the coast of Georgia, a few of the most powerful men in the United States and the world gathered to craft up the plan for a new Central Bank in the United States. This Central Bank would come to be called the “Federal Reserve” and would go on to be the most important central bank in the world for over a century. The Fed, till this day, is the world’s most powerful central bank.

Context & Background

Banking Panics

The United States financial system had some sort of banking panic every decade or so throughout the 19th century. Some happened during the time the United States had a central bank, and some happened during the times we had a banking system free of a central bank. …

The concept of sound money has been around for millenia, but our current conception of “Sound Money” gained prominence as a more refined concept early in the 19th century amongst liberal (classical) economic theorists, financiers, and political power brokers during American and European based globalization. These thinkers were trying to answer deep questions about what type of money and economic system secured economic efficiency, multi-polar coordination, and human liberty best.

Gold and other precious metals have enjoyed the privilege of monetary premia for millenia because of their superior moneyness, but creating social and financial systems on top of them is still tough. Sound money based systems were far from perfect and cost a lot to maintain. There is a highly imperfect and impure social layer that we must inevitably contend with. However, a “sound money” foundation creates high assurances around the money a group is anchored to, which in time builds compounding trust and buy-in between the members and users, while simultaneously reducing transaction costs over time and space for everyone connected to the sound money network. …

Bitcoin Cash is due for another upgrade on November 15. Unfortunately this upgrade will likely result in a contentious chain-split, potentially creating another cryptocurrency due to differences between the founders of Bitcoin ABC and the rest of the Bitcoin Cash network.

There are two proposals set to be implemented in Bitcoin Cash, but it appears most of the network will only accept one because the other is deeply controversial throughout the community. The change with broad support is an update to the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) that’s crucial to the stability of the network, its incentives, and the integrity of its inflation schedule. …

Below is a list of our staff’s book recommendations for anyone trying to understand what bitcoin and the crypto revolution is all about. We’ve sorted the books into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. We’ve included some books in the mix that aren’t exactly about bitcoin, crypto, or blockchain and might not even mention them, but they’ll at least address some fundamental aspects of these concepts.

Beginner

Bitcoin Q&A

Our very own David Cohen wrote a very concise guide to Bitcoin. For anyone looking to get started with some easy and some hard concepts, David’s is a great place to start.

Bitcoin for the Befuddled

Written by two early bitcoiners, this book utilizes great visualizations and examples that help break down complex topics. But don’t underestimate this book, it goes pretty deep into Bitcoin and all of its facets. …

Bitcoin is difficult to understand. A lot of this difficulty can be attributed to the newness of the terminology being used to describe Bitcoin. Once one starts to understand the vocabulary being used, one can use Bitcoin with greater ease and follow its progression without being totally confused and overwhelmed.

Satoshi

The first name of the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. A “Satoshi” is the name of the smallest unit in Bitcoin: 0.00000001.

Sats

A slang shortening of the unit “Satoshi”.

Mnemonic

A set of random words that act as a backup for your Bitcoin wallet. In the event that you lose the device your bitcoin is secured by, if you have saved your mnemonic, you will be able to use it to recreate your bitcoin wallet by importing your mnemonic into your new device. …