Exploring Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Projects Through GitHub

“Bitcoin is a superior currency because it’s open-source.”

“What do you mean the Ethereum code is public on GitHub?”

A Quick Word About Technical Terms

Blockchain/cryptocurrency projects & the ever-mysterious open-source. If you come from a nontechnical background, you’ve probably wondered just exactly what open-source means; if you’ve hung around developers, in particular, you might’ve even heard about the powerful GitHub & the world of repositories.

Understanding how open-source repositories work, as well as exploring the very basics of the GitHub platform, is probably one of the most effective ways to understand cryptocurrencies & their respective communities at a deeper level.

Code talks. And learning how to view the source code for cryptocurrencies projects by yourself, regardless of your programming proficiency (or lack of), is an indispensable tool.

In this article, we break down exactly what open-source means & explore how blockchain & cryptocurrency teams leverage GitHub. Throughout, we’ll break down some associated jargon, so that the next time your developer friend says “the shitcoin you told me about has literally zero commits to its repository, it’s clearly a scam”’ you’ll know exactly what it is she’s talking about.

***author disclaimer here — Many developers consider GitHub metrics as vanity metrics at best in terms of a project’s progress. While I think this is a debate that merits it’s own article, I maintain that educating & encouraging nontechnical users to explore source code themselves (as opposed to relying on sketchy 3rd-party sources & journalists) is an endeavor that’ll only improve the community & industry in the long-run.

Open-Source

An open-source software(blockchain) project is a software project with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, & enhance. The world of open-source software projects expand far past the world of blockchains(Hi Linux!), however, the majority of all blockchains are open-source by design.

In contrast, the majority of software projects have source code that only the person, team, or organization who created…