Study Bittorrent. It wasn't the first decentralized protocol by a long-shot, but it's unprecedented success put P2P and decentralized systems on the map. It als

Study Bittorrent. It wasn't the first decentralized protocol by a long-shot, but it's unprecedented success put P2P and decentralized systems on the map. It also had a lot of pain points, so it's interesting to follow how people solved them (eg. trackers and magnet links). Modern federated services like Mastodon and Matrix have evolved past this point, but it's still a fascinating technological touchstone.