An Intro to Crypto: Building Blocks

Linda Xie


watch time: 21 minutes

From the quest for digital money and history of bitcoin, to the emergence of ethereum and smart contracts, this presentation/video provides an introduction to crypto(currencies, tokens, and networks). The talk was originally delivered as part of an “Intro to Cryptoevent that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels put on in April 2018.

But beyond solving existing problems and use cases, what are the completely new applications that crypto tokens and networks enable? Where does open source, and particularly “forking”, come in? And finally, what is (and isn’t) pseudonymous vs. anonymous, public vs. private, and so on? One thing is for sure — this is about so much more than money, argues Linda Xie (co-founder and managing director of Scalar Capital, previously product manager at Coinbase, and author of a popular series of beginner’s guides on cryptoassets) — and that’s where she begins and ends this journey through, and overview of, the space…

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