Study Guide — The Works of Dr Craig Wright

For the serious student who wants to understand, continue, and build upon this body of work.

This guide covers 789 blog posts (904,261 words), 37 academic publications, 560 Satoshi Nakamoto writings, and the intellectual framework that connects them. It is organised as a progressive reading order: start at Tier 1 and work through each tier before moving to topic deep-dives.

Note: Tier 1 descriptions have been verified against the actual post content. Each "What it actually contains" section reflects what the post delivers, not what we wish it delivered.

How to Use This Guide

1. Tier 1 gives you the foundation in ~6 hours of reading. Do not skip it.

2. Tier 2 builds the full framework across all major themes (~20-30 hours).

3. Tier 3 provides deep dives by topic — read the ones relevant to your work.

4. The Satoshi Record should be read in parallel with Tiers 1-2 for context.

5. Posts are referenced as Title with word counts to help pace yourself.


Tier 1: The Foundation (Start Here)

These 10 pieces establish the core framework. Read them in this order.

1. The Bitcoin White Paper

2. "Bitcoin is all about incentives" (3,051 words)

3. "Solving Double-Spending" (4,604 words)

4. "Simplified Payment Verification" (2,249 words)

5. "A Discourse on Nodes" (3,302 words)

6. "Why the Protocol Is Set" (2,002 words)

7. "The False Lure of Anonymity" (3,898 words)

8. "Keys != Identity" (2,309 words)

9. "Forking and Passing Off" (6,009 words)

10. "Commodity and security" (3,441 words)

Tier 1 Total: ~30,305 words (~5-6 hours at careful reading pace)


Tier 2: The Full Framework (20-30 pieces per theme)

After Tier 1, read across these thematic groups. The order within each theme is progressive — earlier entries provide context for later ones.

Theme A: Protocol Design & Architecture

# Title Words Date Why
1 Defining Protocol 1,789 2023-03-23 Formal definition of what "protocol" means
2 Fully Peer-to-Peer 3,150 2019-09-18 The peer-to-peer model — peers are miners, not users
3 Merkle Trees and SPV 1,204 2019-06-26 Technical mechanism behind Simplified Payment Verification
4 Peer-to-peer digital electronic cash 1,023 2023-04-28 Cash means transactions, not store of value
5 Nodes, Hash Rate, and Signalling 5,068 2019-12-23 What hash rate actually means for governance
6 Stable by design 1,027 2022-02-07 Why protocol stability is a feature, not a limitation
7 Constitutional Design Proposal 2,862 2022-12-05 How Bitcoin's rules function like a constitution
8 Bitcoin Mining: Consistency and Distribution 2,862 2022-12-05 Mining economics and network topology
9 The Right to Run a Node 2,762 2023-01-09 Node rights and responsibilities
10 Digital Signatures 2,948 2020-02-19 How signatures create legal evidence

Theme B: Against Altcoins, Forks, and Protocol Changes

# Title Words Date Why
1 The myth of forks 5,944 2019-03-06 Why forks don't create new Bitcoin
2 Why CLTV was a bad idea 3,762 2019-01-08 Specific critique of a BTC protocol change
3 Lightning is malleable… Steel is not 3,299 2018-06-19 Why Lightning Network is architecturally wrong
4 The Property Flaw of Lightning 1,763 2021-02-15 Legal problems with Lightning
5 Forks as a demerger, or a split as a copy? 3,537 2019-03-19 Legal framing of the BTC/BSV split
6 Why Silk Road was an abyss 4,609 2019-06-27 How darknet markets corrupted Bitcoin's purpose
7 The SegWit 15% attack 2,169 2022-12-05 Security vulnerability in SegWit
8 Application of UK Database Rights to Forking 2,860 2022-12-05 IP law applied to blockchain forks

Theme C: Economics & Sound Money

# Title Words Date Why
1 Commodity and security 3,441 2018-11-19 Bitcoin as commodity + tokenised security
2 On Marxism and Imperialism 8,178 2023-08-09 Deep critique of Marxist economics
3 On the History of Neoliberalism 6,994 2023-08-30 History of free-market thought and its corruption
4 Book Review: How the World Became Rich 7,177 2023-08-16 Economic history and what creates prosperity
5 Micropayment Systems for Migrant Workers 14,846 2022-12-05 Detailed economic proposal using Bitcoin micropayments
6 The Asian currency crisis 3,667 2023-01-18 Monetary policy failure case study
7 Fintech and Visa vs Mastercard 3,288 2023-05-31 How Bitcoin competes with payment networks
8 Bitcoin and the costs of consumption 3,551 2020-01-14 Transaction costs and economic design
9 Banks versus markets 3,409 2019-01-02 Financial intermediation vs. direct exchange
10 Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility 6,385 2022-12-05 How honest money creates honest companies

Theme D: Law, Property Rights, and Regulation

# Title Words Date Why
1 Property Law in the Age of Bitcoin 1,605 2021-08-30 Property rights on blockchain
2 Evidence and law 1,089 2022-12-05 Digital signatures as legal evidence
3 The application, scope and limits of Letters of Indemnity in Bitcoin Contracts 7,161 2022-12-05 Detailed legal analysis of Bitcoin contracts
4 Taxing Crypto 4,034 2019-12-10 Tax implications and compliance
5 The Geography of Cybercrime 5,459 2022-12-05 Jurisdictional issues in digital crime
6 Looking the Other Way 3,581 2019-08-28 Regulatory failures and honest systems
7 Liability in Peer-to-Peer Networks 526 2022-12-05 Legal liability for network operators
8 Bitcoin Was Never Designed To Be Censorship-Resistant 1,790 2022-12-05 Compliance by design
9 Effective Enforcement in the Distributed Wild Web 4,063 2022-12-05 Law enforcement in decentralised systems

Theme E: Computation & Smart Contracts

# Title Words Date Why
1 Managing Blockchain Automata 5,625 2018-10-21 Umbrella document on distributed computation
2 Finite State Machines in Script 2,785 2019-11-07 How Script implements state machines
3 A codification scheme for state machines 2,491 2022-12-05 Formal encoding of state machines on chain
4 Creating a Smart Contract Registry 3,005 2023-05-17 Practical smart contract infrastructure
5 Clickwrap smart contracts 1,693 2022-02-14 Legal validity of on-chain contracts
6 Forex accounting in script 1,542 2020-01-07 Practical Script programming example
7 Infinite and Unbounded 3,553 2021-09-14 Turing completeness vs. resource bounds
8 Doctoral Study: Blockchain Technology 3,511 2022-12-05 Academic framework for blockchain study

Theme F: Philosophy, Education, and Intellectual Foundations

# Title Words Date Why
1 Prometheus: Choosing to Be Bound 3,895 2019-08-13 On choosing constraint as virtue (philosophical core)
2 Satoshi and the Sophists 3,141 2019-06-18 Truth vs. rhetoric in Bitcoin discourse
3 Satoshi and Science 3,072 2019-05-30 Scientific method applied to Bitcoin
4 The Vision for Bitcoin 1,847 2019-08-16 The long-term vision statement
5 Virgil: The Aeneid 4,774 2022-12-05 Classical education and founding myths
6 The Odyssey: An Endless Story of Reaching Home 4,742 2022-12-05 Persistence and homecoming as metaphor
7 Personal Philosophy of Leadership 2,440 2022-12-05 How leadership relates to protocol design
8 Tulips and Other Myths 3,797 2016-04-26 Debunking common knowledge with history

Theme G: Identity and Origins

# Title Words Date Why
1 Satoshi Nakamoto 2,205 2019-02-08 The identity question directly addressed
2 Satoshi and the Byzantine Generals 1,881 2019-04-18 The Byzantine Generals Problem and its solution
3 The Genesis of Genesis 2,490 2019-04-12 The creation story
4 Genesis 1,512 2019-03-25 On the genesis block
5 From the Bygone Days of Yore — Part 1 3,512 2019-01-28 Early history of Bitcoin development
6 Satoshi NEVER Posted on Bitcointalk 756 2023-07-12 Correcting the record on forum posts
7 Misinformation and the myth of Satoshi 703 2023-07-12 Against the mythologisation of pseudonymity
8 Bitcoin's privacy model 1,841 2019-04-17 How privacy was designed to work

Tier 3: Topic Deep Dives

For each major topic area, these are the key pieces in reading order. Go deep where your work or interest demands it.

Deep Dive: Bitcoin as Electronic Cash (not "digital gold")

The most fundamental disagreement with the BTC narrative.

1. "Peer-to-peer digital electronic cash" — The definition

2. "Bitcoin and the costs of consumption" — Transaction cost economics

3. "Micropayment Systems for Migrant Workers" — Practical micropayment design

4. "Blockchain and Digital Assets" (9,415 words) — Copyright/patent micropayments

5. "Fintech and Visa vs Mastercard" — Competing with payment networks

6. "Taking money over the web using Bitcoin — the way it was designed" — E-commerce use case

Deep Dive: The Small World Network

How Bitcoin's network was designed to evolve.

1. "A Discourse on Nodes" — What nodes are

2. "Fully Peer-to-Peer" — The network model

3. "Nodes, Hash Rate, and Signalling" — Economic incentives

4. "The Right to Run a Node" — Rights and responsibilities

5. "Defining Scaling" — What scaling actually means

6. "Bitcoin Mining: Consistency and Distribution" — Mining economics

Deep Dive: Script and On-Chain Computation

For builders working with Bitcoin Script.

1. "Bitcoin: A Total Turing Machine" — Theoretical foundation

2. "Infinite and Unbounded" — Turing completeness explained properly

3. "Finite State Machines in Script" — Practical implementation

4. "Managing Blockchain Automata" — Platform architecture

5. "A codification scheme for state machines" — Formal encoding

6. "Forex accounting in script" — Worked example

7. "Learning Script" — Getting started

Deep Dive: Law and Bitcoin

For those working at the intersection of law and technology.

1. "The False Lure of Anonymity" — Privacy vs. anonymity

2. "Forking and Passing Off" — IP law and protocol changes

3. "Property Law in the Age of Bitcoin" — Property rights

4. "Evidence and law" — Digital signatures as evidence

5. "The application, scope and limits of Letters of Indemnity" — Contract law

6. "Taxing Crypto" — Tax compliance

7. "Effective Enforcement in the Distributed Wild Web" — Law enforcement

8. "The Geography of Cybercrime" — Jurisdiction

9. All posts in the "Papers Associated with Bitcoin and Related Topics in Law" series (Parts I-XXIV)

Deep Dive: Austrian Economics and Sound Money

For understanding the economic philosophy.

1. "Commodity and security" — Bitcoin's economic nature

2. "On Marxism and Imperialism" — What's wrong with the alternative

3. "On the History of Neoliberalism" — Free-market intellectual history

4. "Book Review: How the World Became Rich" — What creates prosperity

5. "The Asian currency crisis" — Monetary policy failure

6. "Banks versus markets" — Intermediation vs. direct exchange

7. "Myth and Reality, Security is Really About Economics" — Economics of security


The Satoshi Record — Parallel Reading

Read these alongside Tiers 1 and 2 for essential context.

Phase 1: The Announcement (read with Tier 1)

Phase 2: Early Development (read with Tier 2)

Phase 3: The BitcoinTalk Era (read with Tier 3)

Key Satoshi Writings to Prioritise


Academic Publications

37 publications indexed from dblp.org. Key categories:

Security & Forensics (early career)

Wright's SANS/GIAC work and security research formed the practical foundation for Bitcoin's security model.

Blockchain Research (2015-present)

nChain-era academic publications formalising the arguments made in blog posts.

Recent arXiv Papers (2025)

18 papers published on arXiv in 2025 alone — the most productive academic year. These represent the latest formal expression of his thinking.

Full list: See academic-record/dblp-publications.md


Reading Strategy Notes

On Word Count and Depth

On the "Certificates" Category

119 posts in the certificates category with almost no word content — these are credential listings, not essays. Skip unless you need the specific certification details.

On the "Academics" Category

156 posts averaging only 203 words — these are mostly paper abstracts or brief academic notes. They serve as an index to his academic work rather than standalone reading.

On Repetition

Wright returns to the same themes repeatedly. This is not redundancy — each iteration adds nuance, responds to new developments, or addresses different objections. When you encounter a repeated theme, compare the treatment across posts to trace how the argument evolved.

On Cross-Disciplinary Reading

A single Wright post may reference Hayek, Shannon, a Supreme Court case, and a Python script in the same paragraph. The study guide groups by primary theme, but real understanding comes from seeing the connections across themes. After completing Tier 2, re-read Tier 1 — you'll see things you missed.


Statistics

Metric Value
Blog posts in archive 789
Blog total words 904,261
Posts > 500 words (substantial) 479
Posts > 2000 words (essays) 147
Posts > 5000 words (deep analyses) 17
Satoshi emails 18
Satoshi forum posts 542
Satoshi total words 47,583
Academic publications (dblp) 37
Blog categories 12
Study guide Tier 1 words ~30,305
Study guide Tier 2 posts ~70

Generated from the Craig Wright Archive. Last updated: 2026-03-10.