# Scanate/EthList: a crowdsourced Ethereum reading list you edit by pull request > EthList is a Markdown reading list for Ethereum, not a library or an app. Its contribution model is a pull request, and its only tracked progress file is myprogress.md. **Scanate/EthList** — The Comprehensive Ethereum Reading List - Repository: https://github.com/Scanate/EthList - Stars: 3,871 · Forks: 514 - Language: Unknown - License: not declared - Published: 2026-09-23 · Updated: 2026-09-23 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/scanate-ethlist ## What EthList actually is, and who it is for EthList is a reading list, not software. The repository holds two top-level entries, README.md and myprogress.md, and the README describes itself as the crowdsourced Ethereum reading list. There is no package manifest, no build file, no source directory and no release. If you arrived expecting an application, a CLI or a library, there is nothing here to install. The audience is narrower than the name suggests. The README lists contributors from Fortune Magazine, Aragon, CoinFund, Santiment, Status, Giveth.io and elsewhere, and the introduction frames the list as material for someone learning what Ethereum is rather than for someone shipping a contract. The sections run from simple explanations and deeper explanations through ecosystem, thought pieces, trading, programming and legal. A developer who already knows the protocol will find the first two sections redundant and the programming section thin relative to a dedicated tutorial series. The useful framing is this: EthList is a syllabus someone else assembled, with checkboxes so you can mark what you have read. That is the whole product. ## The mechanism: Markdown checkboxes, pull requests and myprogress.md The data flow is deliberately flat. Every entry in README.md is a Markdown task-list item, written as a bracket pair followed by a link and often a label such as (video) or (pdf). The README states the contribution path directly: found a great resource, add it by submitting a pull request. There is no submission form, no database and no generated index. The table of contents at the top is a hand-maintained row of anchor links pointing at the section headings, so adding a section means editing that table too. The second file, myprogress.md, is the part that gets overlooked. Its name suggests a personal reading log, and it sits at the top level next to the README rather than inside a docs folder. Because every list item is an unchecked box, a reader who works through the list in the GitHub interface can tick items, but those ticks live in the browser session and in that file, not in the upstream README. The repository does not document a workflow for merging personal progress back into the shared list, and the README does not explain what myprogress.md is for. That is a gap, not a feature. The result is a list whose structure is easy to extend and whose state is hard to track. Two readers can be at completely different points without either being visible to the other. ## Getting a copy and marking your first item There is nothing to install. You get the list by forking or downloading the repository from GitHub, and the README's own instruction is to submit a pull request if you have something to add. The README shows the entry format in its introduction section, where each resource is a bracketed checkbox followed by a titled link and a media label: ```markdown - [ ] [Vitalik Buterin explains Ethereum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDGq4aeevgY) (video) ``` Open README.md on GitHub and the checkbox syntax renders as clickable boxes. To add a resource, edit the section it belongs to, keep the same shape as the line above, and if you create a new section, extend the anchor table at the top of the file. The README's stated contribution path is a pull request: ```markdown - [ ] [Blockchain Demo - Visual demonstration of blockchain technologies](https://blockchaindemo.io) ``` The repository listing shows no CI configuration, so nothing validates a link before a human reads the pull request. The README does not describe a review process, an acceptance rule, or who merges. ## Where EthList breaks down Link rot is the obvious failure mode and the README offers no mitigation. The list contains material from the 2015 to 2017 period, including Devcon 0 through Devcon 3 recordings, the Frontier and Homestead release posts, and the DAO fork entry. Several of those URLs point at blog.ethereum.org and YouTube playlists that may have moved. A reading list that is not link-checked degrades quietly: the checkbox still renders, the reader still clicks, and the destination may be gone. Nothing in the repository suggests automated checking. The contribution model is also a filter. A pull request requires a GitHub account and enough familiarity with Markdown to place an entry in the right section and update the anchor table. The README does not state a review policy, an acceptance criterion, or who merges. The contributor list at the top names people and organisations, but the README does not say whether that list is current or what role those names play now. For a resource that positions itself as crowdsourced, the absence of stated editorial rules is the main thing missing. Finally, the repository has no licence file among its top-level entries. The README does not state terms for reuse. If you intend to republish the list, that is a question the repository does not answer, and you should treat it as unresolved rather than assume a permissive default. ## How EthList differs from a curated awesome list The closest alternative is an awesome-style list: a repository with a strict naming convention, a contribution guide, a code of conduct and usually a licence, often with link checking wired into CI. EthList shares the Markdown-and-pull-request form but not the surrounding machinery. The README here opens with the invitation to submit a pull request and then goes straight into the content; there is no contributing section, no style rules beyond the checkbox pattern visible in the entries themselves, and no licence. A second alternative is a documentation site, where the same links live behind a searchable, versioned front end. EthList has no homepage and no build step, which is exactly why it is easy to fork and impossible to query. If you want to search the list, you search the file. The difference in approach is not quality, it is governance. An awesome list encodes its rules in files; EthList encodes them in the shape of its entries and in the habits of whoever merges the pull requests. That makes it faster to extend and harder to trust at scale. ## Maintenance status and what an upgrade costs The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-05-04. That is the only maintenance signal available: there are no releases, so there is no version to upgrade to and no changelog to read. Upgrading means pulling the default branch and reconciling your fork, and any local edits you made to README.md will conflict with upstream changes in the same sections. Since the file is one long document, merge conflicts are likely to land inside a section rather than at a clean boundary. There is no dependency graph to maintain and no security surface in the usual sense, which is the upside of a content-only repository. The cost is editorial: every pull request is a manual review, and nothing in the repository automates link validation or section ordering. On licensing, the repository listing shows no licence file and the README does not state terms, so reuse rights are not established by anything you can read here. That is a fact about the repository, not legal advice; if reuse matters to you, resolve it with the maintainers before republishing. ## Conclusion Adopt EthList if you want a single Markdown file of Ethereum links you can fork, edit in your own editor and extend with a pull request, and if you are comfortable that the list mixes 2015 to 2017 material with later additions and that the repository has no licence file. Do not adopt it if you need an installable package, a versioned release, or a curated list with a stated review policy. Before relying on it, open the repository, check which links still resolve, and read myprogress.md to see what the checkbox convention is meant to track. ## FAQ ### Is EthList an app or a library I can install? Neither. The repository contains README.md and myprogress.md, and the README presents it as a crowdsourced reading list rather than software, so there is no package to install and no release to download. ### How do I add a resource to EthList? The README says to add it by submitting a pull request. You edit the relevant section of README.md using the same checkbox-and-link format as the existing entries, then open the pull request against the default branch, master. ### What is myprogress.md in the EthList repository? It is one of the two top-level files, alongside README.md. The README does not document its purpose or a workflow for syncing it, so its role has to be inferred from the name. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/Scanate/EthList/issues) - [README](https://github.com/Scanate/EthList/blob/master/README.md) - [Scanate/EthList on GitHub](https://github.com/Scanate/EthList) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/scanate-ethlist