Course

Foundations of Cryptocurrency

What cryptocurrency is, why it was created, and how it got here, from the cypherpunks to spot ETFs.

Beginner3 units · 11 lessons~26 min

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Cryptocurrency is decentralized digital money on a peer-to-peer network — no central issuer.
It differs from fiat in supply (often capped/predictable), ledger (public blockchain), and control (code, not policy).
Key properties: decentralized, scarce/predictable, digital-native, peer-to-peer, censorship-resistant.
Crypto is also "programmable money" — the same systems can run smart contracts (DeFi, NFTs, Web3).
Separate technological claims (how it works) from economic claims (whether that’s desirable).

Cryptocurrency exists to solve a specific problem: how to have digital money without trusting a middleman who could inflate, censor, or fail.
The 2008 financial crisis was the immediate catalyst — a visible failure of the trusted intermediaries crypto was designed to bypass.
A 1990s movement, the cypherpunks, spent years building the ideas and technology that Bitcoin would combine.
Bitcoin was a synthesis of prior work — Hashcash (proof of work), b-money, Bit Gold, blind-signature eCash, and timestamping — not an invention from nothing.
Satoshi Nakamoto (anonymous) authored the whitepaper; Hal Finney was the first recipient and the human face of early Bitcoin.
Crypto's distrust of centralization is not an accident — it's the direct motivation for the whole system.

Crypto builds on decades of cypherpunk work trying to make digital money without a trusted middleman.
Bitcoin (2008 whitepaper, 2009 genesis block) solved the double-spend problem using proof of work.
Mt. Gox (2014) and FTX (2022) are defining failures — both caused by centralized custody, driving the self-custody ethos.
Ethereum (2015) added smart contracts; DeFi summer (2020) and NFTs (2021) expanded use cases.
The space moves in boom-and-bust cycles; each cycle leaves real infrastructure behind.