MadBrooks Academy courses · The Sage
Crypto 101
A complete, free course on how crypto actually works under the hood: consensus, keys and cryptography, transactions and the mempool, DeFi and tokens, and reading the chain. Season 1 of The MadBrooks Sage, in order.
Module 1: Start here
Module 2: How blockchains agree
- What Is a Blockchain, Really: Beyond the Buzzword
- Why Bitcoin Has a Supply Cap: The 21 Million Question
- Consensus Mechanisms: How Blockchains Agree on Truth
- Staking and Validation: How Proof-of-Stake Networks Secure Themselves
- Block Reorganizations: When Blockchains Rewrite Their Recent History
- Transaction Finality: When Is a Blockchain Transaction Actually Final
- Validator Economics: The Incentive Layer Behind Network Security
- Fork Choice Rules: How Blockchains Decide Which Chain Is Real
- Validator Set Changes: How Networks Rotate Block Producers
- Difficulty Adjustment: How Blockchains Keep Consistent Block Times
- Block Timestamps: The Imperfect Clock Inside Blockchains
- Finality Gadgets: How Hybrid Consensus Locks in History
- Sybil Resistance: Preventing One Entity From Controlling Many Identities
- Checkpointing and Weak Subjectivity: The Social Layer of Proof-of-Stake
Module 3: DeFi and tokens
- What Is DeFi: Decentralized Finance Without the Jargon
- Tokenomics: Why Supply and Demand Are Just the Beginning
- Liquidity Pools: The Backbone of Decentralized Trading
- Honeypot Tokens: The Scam That Lets You Buy But Never Sell
- Smart Contracts: Self-Executing Code on the Blockchain
- Layer 2 Scaling: Why Blockchains Build on Top of Blockchains
- Oracles: How Blockchains Connect to the Outside World
- Token Standards: ERC-20, ERC-721, and Why They Matter
- Impermanent Loss: The Hidden Cost of Providing Liquidity
- Bridge Architecture: How Assets Move Between Blockchains
- Slippage and Price Impact: Why Large Trades Move Markets Differently
- Flash Loans: Borrowing Millions With No Collateral (For 13 Seconds)
- Automated Market Makers: The Math Behind Constant Product Formulas
- Liquidity Fragmentation: Why DeFi Splits Trading Across Hundreds of Pools
- Token Vesting and Unlock Schedules: The On-Chain View of Supply Inflation
- Composability: Why DeFi Protocols Stack Like Money Lego
- Time-Weighted Average Price: How DeFi Protocols Resist Manipulation
- Governance Tokens: On-Chain Voting and Protocol Control
- Token Burn Mechanisms: Permanent Supply Reduction on the Blockchain
- Reserve Ratios and Collateralization: The Math Behind Stablecoin Backing
- Contract Upgradability Patterns: Proxy Contracts and Immutable Logic
Module 4: Reading the chain
- Crypto Market Structure: How This Market Actually Works
- On-Chain Metrics: Reading the Blockchain's Public Ledger
- Network Activity Patterns: What On-Chain Data Reveals About Usage
- UTXO vs Account Models: Two Ways Blockchains Track Balances
- State Bloat and Storage Rent: The Long-Term Cost of Blockchain Data
- State Snapshots and Sync Modes: How Nodes Catch Up to the Present
Module 5: Keys, wallets and cryptography
- Wallets and Private Keys: Not Your Keys Not Your Crypto
- Merkle Trees: How Blockchains Verify Data Without Revealing Everything
- Address Types and Derivation Paths: How One Seed Phrase Creates Infinite Wallets
- Hot vs Cold Storage: The Security Spectrum of Wallet Architecture
- Merkle Proofs and SPV: Verifying Transactions Without the Full Chain
- Digital Signature Schemes: ECDSA, Schnorr, and Why Cryptography Secures Ownership
- Elliptic Curve Cryptography: The Math That Secures Your Private Keys
- Multi-Signature Wallets: Distributed Control and On-Chain Coordination
Module 6: Transactions and the mempool
- Gas Fees Explained: Why Transactions Cost What They Do
- Mempool Mechanics: Where Transactions Wait Before Confirmation
- Nonce and Transaction Ordering: The Hidden Rules of Sequence
- MEV and Transaction Ordering: The Invisible Market Between Blocks
- Transaction Inclusion Rates: When and Why Transactions Get Dropped
- Transaction Graph Analysis: Following the Flow of Funds
- Replay Attacks: When Transactions Get Copied Across Chains
- Dust Attacks: Tracking Privacy Through Tiny Transactions
- Transaction Malleability: When Transaction IDs Can Change
- Transaction Batching: Why Exchanges Bundle Hundreds of Payments
- Transaction Replacement: RBF, Cancellations, and Fee Bumping
- Transaction Privacy Models: Transparent, Shielded, and Encrypted Ledgers
- Nonce Gaps and Transaction Dependencies: Why Transaction Order Sometimes Matters