Which article is listed first in the references of the Bitcoin white paper?
The topic of Wei Dai is worth understanding.
The b-money concept envisioned a ledger maintained jointly by multiple pseudonymous participants, with new money generated by solving computational puzzles. Similar ideas can later be seen in Bitcoin.
If something is unfamiliar, don't take a large position in it right away. Try it with a small amount first.
The white paper for $BTC cites Wei Dai's b-money as its first reference.