A Beginner's Guide to Blockchain Technology

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is being used increasingly all over the world since its inception in 2009. In the years since, many other assets and forms of blockchain technology have been developed. Find out more about bitcoin, ethereum, blockchains, and enterprise distributed ledger technology and how they are being used and evolving with our straightforward guides.


What is Bitcoin?
It’s a decentralized digital currency


Why Use Bitcoin?
It’s fast, cheap to use, and secure


How Can I Buy Bitcoin?
From an exchange or an individual


How to Buy Bitcoin in the UK
Buying bitcoin in the UK


How to Store Your Bitcoin
Use a digital or paper wallet


What Can You Buy with Bitcoin?
Spend your bitcoins


How to Sell Bitcoin
A guide on how to sell your bitcoins


How to Accept Bitcoin Payments for Your Store
Learn about bitcoin POS systems


How do Bitcoin Transactions Work?
Bitcoin addresses and private keys


Is Bitcoin Legal?
The current regulation around bitcoin


Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
The founder of bitcoin


Understanding Bitcoin Price Charts
A primer on bitcoin price charts

How Bitcoin Mining Works
By confirming transactions

How to Set Up a Bitcoin Miner
Generate bitcoins yourself

What are Bitcoin Mining Pools?
What are pools how and how to join them?

How Does Cloud Mining Bitcoin Work?
Alternative bitcoin mining solutions

How to Calculate Mining Profitability
Can you make a ROI?

How to Make a Paper Bitcoin Wallet
Creating an unhackable bitcoin wallet

Can Bitcoin Scale?
A look at the debate and the tech

What is SegWit?
A new way of storing transaction data

What is the Lightning Network?
Off-chain transaction channels

What is Ethereum?
A blockchain application platform and ‘world computer’

What is Ether?
The ‘fuel’ of the ethereum network

How to Use Ethereum
Wallets, trading and ‘dapps’

Who Created Ethereum?
Vitalik Buterin

How Ethereum Works
‘Turing-complete’ programming, ‘state’ and the ‘EVM’

How Ethereum Mining Works
‘Proof of Work’ and ‘Proof of Stake’

How to Mine Ethereum
GPUs, mining software and pools

How Will Ethereum Scale?
‘Sharding’ and ‘off-chain’ transactions

How Do Ethereum Smart Contracts Work?
Code, transaction fees and ‘gas’

What is Bitcoin Cash?
Same blockchain, different characteristics.

Hard Fork vs Soft Fork
Why and how do blockchains split?

What is the Difference Between Litecoin and Bitcoin?
It’s the silver to bitcoin’s gold

How to Buy Litecoin
How to buy the bitcoin alternative litecoin

How to Mine Litecoin and other Altcoins
How to generate your own altcoins

What is Ripple?
Is it a token? Is it a payments platform?

What is Blockchain Technology?
A system of distributed data and logic

How Does Blockchain Technology Work?
Cryptographic keys, distributed networks and network servicing protocols

What Can a Blockchain Do?
Identity, recordkeeping, smart contracts and more

What is a Distributed Ledger?
A dynamic, independently maintained database

What is the Difference Between Public and Permissioned Blockchains?
Can anyone read or write to the ledger?

What is the Difference Between a Blockchain and a Database?
It begins with architectural and administrative decisions

What Are the Applications and Use Cases of Blockchains?
Tokenization, auditing, governance, settlement and more

How Could Blockchain Technology Change Finance?

What are Blockchain’s Issues and Limitations?
Complexity, size, costs, speed, security, politics and more

Why Use a Blockchain?

What is a Decentralized Application?
A distributed ‘smart contract’ system

What is a DAO?
A ‘decentralized autonomous organization’

What is an ICO?
Initial Coin Offerings refer to the distribution of digital tokens.