# Take-home References

Reference: ../prd.json (deliverable D4 anchor; not a separate story)

If the lecture left you wanting to read more, the links below are vetted starting points. They are listed in rough difficulty order, easiest first.

## Concepts (no code)

1. **Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum whitepaper (2014)**: https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/
   The original sketch of why a Turing-complete blockchain matters. Skim sections 1 to 3.
2. **The Yellow Paper (formal spec)**: https://ethereum.github.io/yellowpaper/paper.pdf
   The mathematical definition of the EVM. Read the introduction; skim the rest.
3. **ethereum.org "Learn" hub**: https://ethereum.org/en/learn/
   Curated entry-level explanations. Start with "Intro to Ethereum".

## Wallets and security

4. **MetaMask security best practices (official)**: https://support.metamask.io/managing-my-wallet/securing-your-wallet/
   The vendor's own duty-of-care guide. Read the seed phrase and phishing sections.
5. **Trail of Bits "Secure-by-design Ethereum"**: https://blog.trailofbits.com/category/blockchain/
   Industry-grade reading on smart contract security. Pick any post on the homepage.

## Solidity (writing more contracts)

6. **Solidity by Example**: https://solidity-by-example.org/
   Tiny, runnable contracts grouped by concept (Hello World, Counter, Mapping, Modifier, Event, ...).
7. **Solidity official docs (long)**: https://docs.soliditylang.org/
   Authoritative but dense. Use as a reference, not a tutorial.

## Tools you will use again

8. **Remix IDE**: https://remix.ethereum.org/
   Same site we used in class. The "Learn" panel inside Remix has a built-in tutorial.
9. **Etherscan**: https://etherscan.io/ (mainnet) and https://sepolia.etherscan.io/ (testnet)
   Read the chain. Do not log in for read-only queries.
10. **Chainlist**: https://chainlist.org/
    Lookup of every Ethereum-compatible chain plus working RPC endpoints. The notebook's RPC fallback chain came from here.

## Layer 2 and modern stack (next-week topics)

11. **L2BEAT**: https://l2beat.com/
    Comparison of every L2. Pay attention to the "Stage" column (1, 2, 3) which encodes how decentralised the L2 is.
12. **EIP-4337 (account abstraction) explainer**: https://www.alchemy.com/learn/account-abstraction
    Why "wallet = key pair" is being relaxed in modern Ethereum.

## Where this course continues

- Module B (already in this repo): L13 Architecture, L14 Gas, L15 Solidity, L17 ERC-20, L18 ERC-721 / 1155.
- Module H workshops (already in this repo): W01 First Smart Contract, W02 Cryptocurrency, W03 NFT, W04 DAO.
- Module D Tokenomics and Module E DeFi build on the foundation we covered today.

## What NOT to read

There is no shortage of crypto content online. The following categories are noise at best and dangerous at worst.

- Influencer YouTube videos that promise "10x returns"
- Discord servers that DM you about "support"
- Telegram channels labeled "official partnership"
- Any source that asks for a seed phrase

If a source pressures you to act fast, that is the tell. Walk away.