We’ve prepared for you a list of the best cryptocurrency books to read in your spare time
Over the past few years, there has been much hype around cryptocurrencies. Still, a lot of people are unfamiliar with this phenomenon in the financial system. Moreover, most of these people are eager to figure out what crypto is and how it works. Where can people really find reliable and relevant information about crypto assets? Mostly they find related information in blog posts, vlogs, social network posts etc. Unfortunately, very often these posts are created by people who barely understand what they are talking about.
So, what is the best way to find the relevant crypto info? We’re pretty sure that cryptocurrency books and films are the best alternatives to poorly made amateur posts. Today, we are going to talk about books. We’ve prepared for you a list of the best cryptocurrency books to read in your spare time. You can find very relevant and well-structured information about cryptocurrency, blockchain and all related aspects in each of them.
The Internet of Money – Andreas Antonopoulos
It would be difficult to find a better book if you have just started your journey in the сrурtо world. This book doesn’t tell you “how to invest/buy/sell” etc. In contrast, it will tell you “what it is”, “how it can affect the future”, and “the reasons to care”. If you like this book, you can check out Antonopoulos’ YouTube channel, where he describes different complicated related things in simple terms.
Mastering Bitcoin, 3rd Edition – Andreas M. Antonopoulos & David A. Harding
If The Internet of Money made you curious and you now want to see how Bitcoin works underneath, this is the book to read next. It offers a broad introduction to Bitcoin and its blockchain for nontechnical users, investors, and business executives. It also explains the technical foundation for developers. That means you can read it at two levels. You can stay with the general chapters, or you can go into the code. User stories, analogies, and code snippets illustrate the key technical concepts. It is not a light read, but few books explain so clearly what happens when a bitcoin transaction is made.
Read Write Own – Chris Dixon
If you are already familiar with how Bitcoin works and want to know why blockchains might matter for the internet itself, this is a good next step. The book analyzes the changes blockchains may bring to the internet. Dixon is a venture investor, so he writes about ownership of online platforms rather than about coin prices. The author argues that users and creators, not a few big tech companies, should own the networks they build. The book is a good fit for readers who are tired of price talk and want a bigger-picture argument.
Cryptoassets – Chris Burniske & Jack Tatar
This book suits those who already have some knowledge of сrурtо. It is a fundamental course in the сrурtо market, its volatility, and possible ways to invest assets. If you are not a newbie to the investment field and have some experience in fund management, then this book is a must-have.
The Crypto Intro – Nathan Rose
We can call this book a guide to cryptocurrency from A to Z. It takes you from the very beginning, and leads you through the fascinating crypto world, explaining to you how сrурtо works and how it will affect the financial system in the future. This book is good for novices in the сrурtо field because the author is able to explain difficult things without unnecessarily complicated tech terms.
The Age Of Cryptocurrency – Paul Vigna & Michael J. Casey
The authors of this book have raised important issues, such as whether cryptocurrencies can become money, or is that important for digital assets to be backed by something “real”. Vigna and Casey also explain how the Bitcoin protocol works, and offer to consider the entire history of crypto. We all remember the quote of the great George Orwell “Who controls the past controls the future”. It partly explains why some experts are sure that it is essential to look to the future of cryptocurrency through the lens of its history.
The Book of Satoshi – Phil Champagne
What is remarkable about this book is that it is not just a book. It is a collection of the writings of Bitcoin’s founders (or founder, whoever they are, they wish to remain anonymous), who are known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The book includes the initial Bitcoin whitepaper, which is not a unique feature. However, when you match the whitepaper with some author’s thoughts of the events and turning points that triggered the crypto revolution, you begin to understand why Champagne wrote his book precisely that way.
The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto – Benjamin Wallace
If you liked the story of Satoshi in The Book of Satoshi, this book shows the hunt for the person behind the name. It follows Wallace’s fifteen-year investigation into Bitcoin’s origins, the cypherpunk world it came from, and the many people proposed as Nakamoto. The book reads more like a detective story than a technical manual, so you don’t need any coding knowledge. It came out before the New York Times investigation in April 2026 that named Adam Back as its leading candidate, so it’s worth reading alongside that coverage.
How Money Got Free – Brian Patrick Eha
Many crypto books address essential topics related to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but none of them are as detailed as this one. This book explains how the digital currency can become a real means of payment, and how people can use its benefits, such as P2P money transfers at high speed with the privacy of cash.
Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Technologies – Arvind Narayanan et al.
Narayana is not just a writer, he is also a scientist. To be precise, he is an assistant professor at Princeton University. Thus, he addresses the issue first and foremost as a scientist. It will be very useful to look at some of the key issues from a scientific perspective, even if you are no stranger to the crypto subject.
Mastering Ethereum, 2nd Edition – Carlo Parisi, Alessandro Mazza, Niccolò Pozzolini (with Gavin Wood and Andreas M. Antonopoulos)
This book is for readers who want to look under the hood of Ethereum. The first edition, by Antonopoulos and Gavin Wood, was written between 2016 and 2019. The new team updates it for an Ethereum that no longer works as it did then. It is a technical book for readers who want to go deeper into cryptocurrency tech aspects. It has chapters on consensus and decentralized finance. You will also learn to read and write basic Solidity and Vyper code.
Blockchain Revolution – Don Tapscott & Alex Tapscott
This book is devoted to the fundamental technology behind Bitcoin and other currencies. As you have guessed this book is about blосkсhаіn. The authors have painstakingly tried to show readers that blосkсhаіn is a technology that has implications well beyond the сrурtосurrеnсу field. The team of father and son have considered new business models that can be built on blockchain along with the practical implementation of this technology, which can be useful in multiple areas.
Number Go Up – Zeke Faux
If you have read too many serious crypto books and want something livelier, this is a good choice. It is a reporter’s account of crypto’s rise and fall, and it moves between scenes the way a thriller does. It covers Sam Bankman-Fried and the 2022 collapse of FTX, the case of Razzlekhan, and pig butchering scams. You meet the people behind the hype and see what they left behind.
Going Infinite – Michael Lewis
This is the other major book about Sam Bankman-Fried, and it is a good one to read next to Number Go Up, because the two take different approaches. Read both if you want to understand how one story can be told in two different ways. Lewis, the author of The Big Short, spent a lot of time with Bankman-Fried before FTX collapsed. His book has been criticized for being too credulous and too sympathetic to its subject. That is a reason to read it critically, but many readers find the author’s closeness to his subject interesting in itself.
American Kingpin – Nick Bilton
If you have read too many “clever” crypto books, if you have received too much information, complicated terms and charts and you feel like your head is about to explode, then American Kingpin is just what you need. It will tell you incredible, unbelievable stories of the Silk Road, the site where users could freely buy and sell illegal drugs, guns, false documents, etc. All transactions there were carried out through Bitcoin. The main character is Ross Ulbricht, who has been skilfully eluding F.B.I. for a long time.
Bitcoin – The Future of Money? – Dominic Frisby
You may ask what separates this book from all other similar ones? First of all, this book is not just a compilation of theoretical discourses about cryptocurrency and related things, like a story from a distance, but it is the author’s story of his own experience in the crypto field. Moreover, the author is a comedian, which makes his book easy-to-read.
