Start here

Never owned a single coin?

Neither had most of us. Below is the path we actually hand people who ask where to begin: five free things, in order, that take you from knowing nothing to holding your own in the room. Then come to a Tuesday and ask about the part you are still stuck on.

The path

Five things, in this order.

You do not need all five to show up. Step one alone is enough to follow a whole speaker night. Nothing here costs money and nothing here asks you to open an account.

Step 01 What this stuff actually is The Ethereum Foundation's own explainer, written for people who have never touched a wallet. It defines the words everyone else assumes you already know.ethereum.org 10 min

Step 02 The nine pages that started it Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 paper, the original. You will not follow every line the first time, and that is normal. Read it anyway, because most arguments you hear later trace straight back to it.bitcoin.org · PDF 30 min

Step 03 Learn the scams before they find you Do this one before you ever move a dollar. The Federal Trade Commission lists the exact plays being run, and college students get hit with all of them.consumer.ftc.gov 10 min

Step 04 A whole MIT course, for free Blockchain and Money, taught at MIT Sloan by Prof. Gary Gensler. The lecture videos, readings and slides are posted in full on OpenCourseWare.ocw.mit.edu A semester, your pace

Step 05 See how the machine works Mastering Bitcoin, the technical book, free and open source in full on GitHub. Pick it up when "but how does that actually work" starts bothering you.github.com · open source When you are ready

No exchange links No referral codes Nothing to buy Not financial advice

We picked these because they are free, primary and unsponsored. Nobody paid to be on this list and nobody can.

Then what

Step six is a room.

Reading gets you the vocabulary. Sitting in a Tuesday gets you the part reading cannot: somebody to ask. Meetings run 5:30 to 7:00 PM CT, free and open to all University of Arkansas students, member or not.

See the lineup →

It counts toward a degree here.

If it takes hold, the Walton College offers a minor in Blockchain Enterprise Systems. The university catalog lists the exact courses and requirements. You do not have to be a business major to be curious about it.

UARK catalog →

No question is too basic.

Every meeting ends with an open questions block and that block exists for beginners. If you got stuck on page two of the whitepaper, bring page two. Somebody in the room got stuck there last year.

What a meeting is like →

Join the GroupMe → Room and reminders go there before every meeting