If you only read one, make it Mastering Bitcoin. It’s the one I reach for again when I’ve forgotten something
- Mastering Bitcoin — Andreas Antonopoulos. Still the right starting point for the technical layer.
- Mastering the Lightning Network — Antonopoulos, Osuntokun, Pickhardt
- The Bitcoin Standard — Saifedean Ammous. Read for the monetary history argument.
- The Blocksize War — Jonathan Bier. The history of the 2015–2017 fight over who controls Bitcoin's rules. Useful context for why protocol changes move so slowly.