As Bitcoin evolved, numerous books have been published on this subject. Today, there are dozens of them, ranging from general introductions to detailed technical studies, economic and monetary analyses, not to mention those that focus on specific aspects of Bitcoin.

In this article, I am offering you a review of books that I particularly enjoyed and that, in my opinion, offer a comprehensive perspective on Bitcoin. Some of these books are more for beginners, while others are for more advanced users.

Mastering Bitcoin - Andreas Antonopoulos

Mastering Bitcoin is a reference. It is one of the most famous books on Bitcoin, and for good reason, its first version was published in 2014.

This book is a complete technical guide to Bitcoin, which explains in depth how it works. The book covers a lot of technical topics, including the fundamentals of Bitcoin, how transactions work, how to build blocks, scripts, wallets, mining... Antonopoulos also provides practical instructions for setting up a Bitcoin node, using wallets, and developing applications based on Bitcoin, with code examples, diagrams, and detailed explanations.

In my opinion, it is the reference technical book on Bitcoin. It is essential for anyone who wants to understand its workings in detail. However, you must first have a minimum of knowledge about Bitcoin before tackling it. It is therefore rather intended for intermediate and even advanced users.

The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous

The Bitcoin Standard presents Bitcoin not only as a technological innovation, but also as a global economic and monetary phenomenon. This book is a reference in the Bitcoin community.

Saifedean Ammous explores the history of money, from the first exchange systems, through gold, to the current era of state money, to illustrate why Bitcoin represents, in his opinion, a superior form of money. It introduces the fundamental characteristics of Bitcoin and explains how this system could fit into our current society and offer a viable alternative to traditional financial systems. It also reveals the challenges for Bitcoin and its potential impact on the global economy, especially on central banks, savings and investment.

The Bitcoin Standard is therefore a dense book, but it remains accessible to all, because it presents Bitcoin from an economic and not a technical point of view. It was originally released In English in 2018, but it's now available in multiple languages, including The French.

21 Lessons - Gigi

21 Lessons by Gigi is a collection of thoughts on Bitcoin published in 2019, organized around three main themes: philosophy, economics, and technology. Each chapter covers a specific aspect of Bitcoin.

The first part on philosophy describes concepts like immutability, scarcity, and freedom of expression from a Bitcoin perspective. In the economics section, Gigi explains concepts of value, money, and inflation, and criticizes the fractional reserve system, while explaining the need for sound money. The technological part explores some fundamental principles of Bitcoin.

Through these lessons, Gigi gives you a fairly comprehensive understanding of Bitcoin. 21 Lessons is therefore aimed at a wide audience, especially beginners who want to have a global vision of Satoshi Nakamoto's invention, without going into too many technical details. It is a fairly short book and easy to read. It is available in numerous languages including In French.

Cryptoeconomics - Erik Voskuil

Cryptoeconomics is a very special book, but it's one of my favorites about Bitcoin. In it, Erik Voskuil explains the mechanisms of Bitcoin by applying rational economic principles.

This book is really not for beginners. You need to have an advanced understanding of Bitcoin to understand the complex concepts it addresses. In addition, it is a fairly difficult book to read, which gets right to the point, without detailed explanations.

However, if you already have a solid technical background on Bitcoin, this book will answer all of your most complex questions about the issues around Bitcoin, including its security, governance, and the economic incentives of the various players. Personally, I consider it to be one of the books that was most useful for me to understand Bitcoin in depth.

Cryptoeconomics was published in English in 2020 and is now available In French.

Everything about Bitcoin - David St-Onge

All about Bitcoin is a comprehensive guide that explains Bitcoin to you in a way that is easy to understand.

You will discover the origin and functioning of Bitcoin, as well as its economic, social, and technical implications. This book is primarily intended for beginners and general audiences. This is an accessible introduction to Bitcoin, which I would recommend to those who have simply heard about it, but have never wanted to delve into the subject.

All about Bitcoin is available In French. It is a fairly concise and simple book to read.

The Elegance of Bitcoin - Ludovic Lars

The Elegance of Bitcoin is an incredibly dense book that explores the complete history of Bitcoin, how it works, and its fundamental principles.

In this book, Ludovic Lars offers an analysis of many aspects of Bitcoin. It includes several sections dedicated to the history of Bitcoin, and it is also one of the most detailed and accurate books on the subject. The book also covers the economic principles associated with Bitcoin, as well as technical explanations of how it works. You'll also find comprehensive chapters on the evolution of Bitcoin, second-layer protocols, and privacy-related aspects.

The Elegance of Bitcoin is distinguished by its writing quality and the rigor of its documentation. It's a very long book, but each concept is very detailed, making it accessible and enjoyable to read. For those looking for a complete understanding of Bitcoin, this book is unquestionably one of the best. It has been released In French in 2024.

It is a book that is adapted to a very wide audience. Beginners can understand it, because everything is well explained, and more advanced readers are bound to learn a lot of things because the content is so rich.

The Book of Satoshi - Phil Champagne

The Book of Satoshi is a collection of all the best writings of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. This book compiles messages posted by Satoshi on various online forums as well as some of his emails exchanged with other developers, from the announcement of the White Paper in 2008 to his last communications in early 2011.

The Book of Satoshi is aimed at any type of audience, as long as you have a certain basic understanding of Bitcoin. Some of Satoshi's writings are quite difficult to understand, but Phil Champagne accompanies each text with explanations to clarify and contextualize the content.

This book will allow you to better understand some technical choices made on Bitcoin, to discover the very beginnings of its history and to better understand the mysterious profile of Satoshi Nakamoto. You will be immersed in the atmosphere of the community of the time, marked by a mixture of initial skepticism and enthusiasm among the early contributors, many of whom were then unaware of the fate that awaited Bitcoin.

This book was originally written in English and published in 2014, but A French translation has been available since 2023.

The Blocksize War - Jonathan Bier

The Blocksize War presents the most iconic debate in the history of Bitcoin: the block size war. This internal community dispute, which spanned from 2015 to 2017, was about whether the block size limit, set at 1 megabyte since 2010 by Satoshi, should be increased to allow Bitcoin to process more transactions.

The protagonists of this conflict were divided into two camps. On the one hand, the “big blockers”, led by early developers such as Jeff Garzik, Gavin Andresen, and Mike Hearn, as well as influential figures like Roger Ver and several major mining companies. On the other hand, there were the “small blockers”, mainly Bitcoin Core developers (Pieter Wuille, Peter Todd, Gregory Maxwell, Wladimir van der Laan, Luke Dashjr...) and part of the technical community.

This conflict reached great intensity, as it resulted in several attempts at Bitcoin forks, such as Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Unlimited, SegWit, and SegWit2x, and ultimately led to the community split with the creation of Bitcoin Cash. This conflict was marked by intense propaganda campaigns, influences, corruption attempts, and personal attacks.

Jonathan Bier describes this sad episode in the history of Bitcoin in a neutral way. It introduces the various actors involved, their arguments, the important events of the conflict, and how this war marked the future of Bitcoin. The book is mainly aimed at an intermediate to advanced audience who already has a good understanding of Bitcoin. It will allow you to know everything about this historical episode and to better understand the dynamics of governance.

The book was originally published In English in 2021, but A French translation was published a few weeks ago.

➤ Discover the major dates that have marked the history of Bitcoin.

Mastering the Lightning Network - Antonopoulos, Osuntokun, and Pickhardt

This book is a comprehensive technical guide to the Lightning Network, a second-layer solution that allows for quick payments outside of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Mastering the Lightning Network introduces the fundamental principles of the protocol, including the operation of payment channels, HTLCs, nodes and liquidity management.

In the continuity of Mastering Bitcoin, this book is aimed at an advanced and technical audience. The concepts covered require a good prior knowledge of Bitcoin. It is available for the moment only In English.

➤ Learn more about how Lightning works.

Bitcoin: A Work in Progress - Sjors Provoost

This book presents some recent technical developments in Bitcoin as well as those planned for the future. It was written by Sjors Provoost, a very active contributor to Bitcoin Core, the majority implementation on the Bitcoin network.

The book covers topics like SegWit, Taproot, Utreexo, Utreexo, Assume UTXO, or even methods to attack Bitcoin. The book is current because it features current or recent work by Bitcoin Core contributors. For each concept discussed, the author explains how it works, the benefits of implementing it, and the associated risks. It is therefore a very technical book that is intended for people who already have a good knowledge of Bitcoin.

The book is quite short and can be read quite quickly. It is currently only available In English and was released in 2022.

Conclusion

Exploring these books will allow you to better understand the issues, challenges, and opportunities that Bitcoin brings. Each of these books offers a different vision and knowledge. If you don't want to buy all of them, most of these books are also published online by their authors.

This list of books is obviously not exhaustive. There are so many books on Bitcoin today that I have not been able to read all of them.

Beyond books, if you want to learn more about Bitcoin, there are plenty of other resources online in the form of videos, forums, and articles. That is exactly what we offer with the blog, the podcast and the newsletter Understanding Bitcoin which to date already have more than 80 detailed articles to learn more about the invention of Satoshi Nakamoto.

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