Bitcoin P2P Mastery

A 12-week intensive study program and deep-dive reference on the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network, from the wire protocol to the attack literature.

Intensive pace · ~25–30 h/week

0 / 12 weeks

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All code references pinned to bitcoin/bitcoin @ 47da4f9b71 (2026-06-04). File and line numbers are anchored to that commit; every reference links to a GitHub permalink.

The curriculum

Each week is a self-contained sub-page: a deep-dive built from the codebase and primary sources, sequence and flow diagrams, annotated code walkthroughs, a research-and-attacks section, a hands-on lab, and a week-by-week study plan with exercises and a milestone. Work through them in order, or jump to a topic.

Reference appendices

Cross-cutting references that every week links into.

Scope

This resource covers Bitcoin Core's P2P layer in depth, plus the research/attack literature, the observability and measurement tooling, and the historical evolution of the protocol. It deliberately stays Bitcoin-Core-centric: Lightning and alternative node implementations are out of scope.