3Blue1Brown
15 HN recommenders · recommended in 13 months, 2017–2024
25:16 · 18M views · Jul 7, 2017
3Blue1Brown explains the math and mechanics behind Bitcoin visually: ledgers, digital signatures, proof of work and the blockchain, building up a decentralized payment system from first principles.
The go-to recommended video for newcomers wanting a clear, visual explanation of how Bitcoin and blockchains work.
19 comments from Hacker News
> As someone that works in the crypto industry, I feel this every time I see the news or articles report on it, or comments here talking about it. It was the same way during the 90's Dot-Com era, journalists would explain the World Wide Web with word salad, e.g., the "Graphical portion of the Internet". With regard to Crypto, I decline to discuss it without mentioning the 3Blue1Brown video, sometimes the gambit works and triggers a better discussion: this video And I love the comments in that video about being "Confused, but on a higher level".
For a quick video intro I recommend this video from 3Blue1Brown ("youtube mathematician") this video IMHO the best intro to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
The best explanation of blockchain has to be (unsurprisingly) 3Blue1Brown: this video Would highly recommend watching this video for anyone who hasn't already.
this video is the best explanation for how mining and blockchains work IMO: this video It's long but very clear and thorough.
>If the majority of miners agree to it then the rest of the network either goes along with it, or they're forced to do a hard fork themselves. The only the hashrate attacks can do is alter the order of transactions (for example allowing them to replace their past transactions and double-spend). They cannot change the way in which users interpret blocks (for example, they cannot spend another user's outputs, change the value of a given output such as a coinbase output, or otherwise alter the tokenomics). I recommend watching 3blue1brown's video: this video >For the end user just trying to make a payment, it's irrelevant whether it's intentional or not, either way he is now faced with the spitting of his coins and the resulting chaos. Any reasonable vendor will wait for X amount of blocks to pass before accepting a transaction. You're describing a well known vector called a "Finney Attack", which becomes exponentially less likely for every block you wait. >What's the actual value of a bitcoin? There just isn't one. Take the number of pizzas that are being sold for bitcoins, and divide that by the number of bitcoins in circulation. I think you may find that the value of BTC/Pizza has not changed much over the last decade. I mean, what is the actual value of a dollar. It is not like we use the gold standard anymore. The dollar is valuable because it is a connected to a useful payment system. You don't mind holding some liquidity in US Dollars because you have an expectation that you