Money, Blockhain and Bitcoin

A technical blog post exploring the history of money and the technical implementation of Bitcoin, originating from a Monday presentation at Twospoon Technologies.

At Twospoon, we held weekly Monday talks where team members presented technical topics to each other. I wanted to learn about blockchain, something I had no prior knowledge of, and chose it as my presentation topic. I was not a CS graduate like my teammates, so I wanted to present something technical that would challenge me to learn deeply.

I spent nearly a month researching using the Bitcoin whitepaper, technical blogs, and videos. I realized that understanding blockchain required understanding the evolution of money first—how early ledgers and currencies worked, their flaws, and how each new form solved previous limitations.

While surface-level concepts were easy to grasp, understanding the technical implementation from first principles was difficult. I took notes throughout and created my own diagrams for concepts where I felt existing explanations could be clearer.

The blog is structured as a story starting with early forms of money and ledgers, moving through the transition to fiat currencies, and explaining how blockchain emerged as a decentralized alternative to centralized finance limitations. It then dives deep into Bitcoin's technical implementation.

I used images from various sources and created my own diagrams to explain concepts I felt needed clearer visualization.

For the Monday talk, I moved quickly through the history of money to focus primarily on Bitcoin's technical implementation. Questions were asked throughout the presentation on various topics.

Colleagues appreciated the deep understanding demonstrated and the way complex systems were explained simply with logical flow and diagrams. Encouraged by the response, I converted the presentation into the long-form Substack post.

My general opinion about blockchain and Bitcoin had not been very positive based on what I had heard, but learning the technology and history behind it was compelling.

The research made me believe more in the technology. I realized that modern money is itself a very recent invention, so we cannot know what the currency of future transactions might be. This experience showed me that with enough curiosity and persistence, I can learn and teach technical concepts from scratch.