*https://medium.com/@oneofthemanymatts/getting-up-to-speed-on-ethereum-63ed28821bbe*

one of the many matts, August 2017

Go from zero to 💯 without all the nonsense.

Note: this article was written 1 year ago. It is very much still accurate and worth reading, and I encourage that, but be aware that the landscape has changed (it’s been 10 years in crypto-time 😂).

You should read this blog post if:

1. You’re a professional software engineer
2. You want to have a deep working understanding of Ethereum and the related ecosystem.

Prerequisites:

1. You understand the concept of a blockchain and how Bitcoin uses it to create a trustless digital currency. No? Watch this short video or watch this long video. Hint, you should probably watch the long one.
2. You’re a professional software engineer. Seriously, I mean, nontrivial amounts of real-world software engineering experience. Understanding systems/architecture/math is a learning efficiency multiplier.
3. Like a week of your free time. I told you we’re skipping the nonsense.
4. You understand the basic concept of a merkle tree and how it can be used to quickly verify information correctness.

Note: you don’t need to read the whitepapers, but you need to understand them. But it turns out that reading them is the fastest way to understand them. 😉

I recommend reading the entirety of this post, absorbing the contents at a high level, and then diving into each link individually, over the course of a few days.