The Stanford Blockchain Reading List
A Crypto 101 reading list compiled by Stanford Blockchain Club
Fall 2024
This is a reading list for students that are just getting started in the blockchain space and wish to get to know the space better. It focuses primarily on easy-to-read blog-post style content published by Stanford Blockchain on the Stanford Blockchain Review, with guiding questions for you to think about "what is the meaning behind all this that we are building"?
The content here is split into module topics to guide you from the basic principles of the space to specific sub-sectors in crypto to allow you to find your own interest in the space to carve out your own path.
Take courses: CS 251, LAW 1043, MS&E 447
This is an introduction into the design principles and guiding ideology behind the crypto/web3 space at-large. As you work through these readings, think about the following questions:
Take Courses: BUSGEN 102
Now that you have a basic idea of the principles of crypto and what the industry is aiming for, we can now look at how these principles may touch upon our everyday lives. In this module, we will look at various consumer applications of blockchain and crypto.
In particular, we will focus on the application of two important crypto primitives: ERC-20 standard fungible tokens, and ERC-721 standard Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and how they relate to everyday life. As you read through the following articles, think about the following:
Take Courses: CS 352B/LAW 1078
Now that we have a basic idea of some of the potential applications that crypto may be building towards, let's do a deep dive into one of the core promises and principles of crypto – decentralization. Why is decentralization important? How do we design and maintain decentralized applications?
In this module, we will examine this crypto ideal with case studies in Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In reading these, think about the following questions:
Take Courses: CS 255, CS 244B, EE 374, CS 355
Thus far, we've primarily focused on understanding crypto from the application layer. Now it's time to dive under the hood and look at the infrastructure that makes all of these applications possible. Because much of the crypto industry today is focused on building infrastructure, unfortunately we can't possibly cover everything. We're selecting the following projects for their representativeness on the various approaches towards some of the core infrastructure problems in blockchain.
In this section, ask yourself these questions:
Take Courses: MS&E 447
Finally, let's look at where crypto as an industry is at now, in September of 2024. As you read through these, think about the areas, topics, and sectors that you'd like to explore, and how we can as an industry move forward to ultimately reinvent the Internet as we know it.