Programming Bitcoin: Learn How to Program Bitcoin from Scratch

This is a more important book then most people will probably realize... It's not perfect. but if your looking to connect concepts to build connections between thoughts and doing... then this is probably the single most best resources you are going to find.

Excellent, in-depth, technical overview of how bitcoin works under the hood. This book is a hands-on project book that will take you through building a proof-of-concept bitcoin library, step-by-step. The library you'll build can parse and validate transactions, verify blocks, interact with other nodes on the bitcoin network and more. Like other reviews mentioned, this is an advance level book. It's not a book for folks new to bitcoin or folks without programming experience. I also agree that reading Mastering Bitcoin first will make this book a much better experience because you'll know where each of the modules you're building fits in the bigger picture. The author has set up the hands-on project as Jupyter Notebooks which makes it really nice to code along the text. In addition, he goes into more details on the math behind elliptic curve cryptography which I appreciated. Overall, highly recommended for people that want to remove the veil and see how bitcoin works to the smallest detail.

I took Jimmy's "Programming Blockchain" bootcamp and witnessed first hand how much Jimmy prepared for his teaching material. His material is amazingly in-depth and comprehensive. From finite fields math to elliptic curves to how wallets and transactions are created, to the different types of transaction formats and how to create them yourself, to more advanced topics like SegWit and Lightning. This book is the result of Jimmy's many hours of teaching. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone who seriously wants to get their hands on Bitcoin scripting or learn how Bitcoin works under the hood. Be warned, it is not a light reading and it's best to work out all the exercises yourself (there are plenty, enough for you to be able to create your own Bitcoin wallet software at the end). IMO this book is the equivalent of one maybe two graduate level courses if it's taught in universities. Well worth the investment.

While the book's cost was surprisingly high compared to the excellent volumes by Andreas and Safedean, the facts that (1) color is used extensively and very tastefully and (2) the paper quality is superior in this text justifies the additional cost for me.

I was coming from a background in php and javascript and didn't know any python. Learned some rudimentary python just so I could go through the book. Just enough to understand the syntax and the inner workings of python. Not good enough at programming to have taken full advantage of the book but it really helped me a lot in understanding the math behind Bitcoin. From the very basics of cryptography to understanding address generation, Script, transaction validation, block validation, and even some networking. A must read for anyone interested in understanding Bitcoin at a more technical level, rather than just taking the word of developers. For me it was great first step towards financial Bitcoin sovereignty.

An amazing book. If you really want to understand Bitcoin, read Mastering Bitcoin first, then work your way through this book. Although Jimmy recommends intermediate level Python programming skills, if you have any coding background, you should be able to zip through a quick Python primer (like SoloLearn's) and be pretty well prepped to dig in (this is what I did, and was fine). Highest recommendation

This book covers everything that you need to know about creating Bitcoin from scratch. However, this book tends to be a long read and it's best for someone who is already a pretty decent computer programmer. It's not for the novice or someone who just got started.

Great book, easy to navigate for a beginner, I would definitely recommend this to someone getting into bitcoin as a good first book.

If you're interested in programming Bitcoin and you have some coding knowledge then this is the only book you'll need. It starts from the very beginning and assumes no knowledge. The mathematics are explained clearly in small bite sized chunks and built upon so you understand the why, not just the what. When you understand why things are the way the are then everything else clicks so much faster. The other stand out from the book is the use of Jupyter notebooks. I'd never used these before but it means you can focus on just the next element being explained and in a few lines find out whether you understand the concept being explained. I’ll find it hard to read a technical book again if it doesn’t have these. By the time you get to SegWit you’ll have a much greater appreciation of the elegance of Bitcoin and the fantastic work being done by the Bitcoin Core developers. I have 20 years development experience but I felt like I was back in school reading this book. In a good way. I found it challenging and at times frustrating but always enjoyable. This is the book I’ll be recommending to people when the ask about Bitcoin. What a great resource for the community! David O’Callaghan

Good so far. It is brand new and nice wrapped.

Al principio esta muy pesado y porque la criptografía de curva elíptica es muy pesada, sin embargo empieza a tomar sentido a partir del capítulo 3, donde une todas las piezas encontradas anteriormente. Los demas capitulos son geniales, en especial en donde haces una transacción en la testnet y tu mismo la lanzas a la red. 10/10.

Awesome book, great explanations. But not for the not-tech folks. It's very technical, be warned.

I attended to Jimmy's classes with not much confidence since math is not really my thing. But the way he approaches the subject makes it feasible even for people like me. I really like the small steps to build a much bigger picture. All of the sudden you're creating BTC transactions and validating them with your own code. Awesome. Reading the books allowed me to remember things I did not catch / took note during the classes.