I recently came across a recent tweet on crypto Twitter saying that furniture retailer Ethan Allen Interiors is changing its ticker symbol to prevent confusion with the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Beginning August 16, the company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ETD” and will no longer use “ETH.”
Hilarious and yet partly shocking, is it not? Apparently there are enough idiots out there who think that you can buy ETH on the New York Stock Exchange. While I applaud the democratization of finance, I also watch in horror as armchair crypto experts seem to be trading at 100 times leverage or others seem to be trying to buy cryptocurrencies on the stock exchange.
Some people call for regulation but maybe dumbfuckery cannot be legislated away. For without it in its extreme manifestation we would not have the pleasures of the Darwin Awards. Be that as it may, my point is that it is important to educate ourselves before we dip and dabble in cryptoland. My writings here, for example, are merely a reflection of my own learning and my attempt to compartmentalize the material.
Reading makes the world go round. You don’t like reading? Have fun staying poor — Yes Sir there I said it. Usually this term is reserved for Bitcoin maxis hating on shitcoiners or for those who have sold their bitcoins too soon but I am going to apply it frivolously here. If you do not like reading and as a result primarily rely on moon boy YouTubers sharing crypto predictions then Houston we have a problem. I think my point here is clear!
Simply put, reading is important. Tip: Don’t like reading — just buy the audio book. Boom — problem solved. So without further ado here is a list of my favorite crypto books you cannot f*ck with. (I am sure Jason A. Williams will not mind me borrowing from his book title.)
#1: The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous
#2: Bitcoin: Hard Money You Can’t F*ck With: Why bitcoin will be the next global reserve currency by Jason A. Williams
#3: Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow by Andy Adstrom
#4: The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future by Jeff Booth
#5: Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies by Nik Bhatia
#6: BLOCKCHAIN WARS: The future of Big Tech Monopolies and the Blockchain Internet by Evan McFarland
#7: The History of Money by Jack Weatherford
I am not going to give specific commentary or summary on each book. Just read it! Once you read a book I highly recommend you to look up the author on YouTube. Usually they do interviews on various podcasts to pump their books. I found that it really helped me to understand the content better once I listened to the author talk about it. Nik Bhatia, for example, did three outstanding interviews on the What Bitcoin Did podcast.
Bonus advice: All the amazing authors are on Twitter. Go and follow them — heck, interact with them. If you have a question slide them a DM. In many cases you will be surprised how responsive these guys are. That’s how you learn on Twitter 101.
Of course, there are many more quality books out there. This is simply my list of books that I have read and found useful to get a good foundational understanding. Please note that this whole space can be extremely complex and confusing. As for me, I am not much of a computer science / programming, or charts enthusiast. Accordingly, I stay away from any technical blockchain or trading books. Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos, for example, is definitely my cup of tea. Also, trading books are a bit of a waste of time in my humble opinion. Best to hodle and don’t bother with this nonsense.
Next week we will dip and dabble with podcasts so stay tuned!
Frei Bier
