There’s a lot of information on cryptocurrency and blockchains out there. But, for the uninitiated, most of this information can be indecipherable. The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains aims to provide an accessible guide to this new currency and the revolutionary technology that powers it.
The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains covers topics such as the history of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin blockchain, and Bitcoin buying, selling, and mining. It also answers how payments are made and how transactions are kept secure. Other cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency pricing are examined, answering how one puts a value on cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.
Blockchain technology underlies all cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency transactions. But what exactly is a blockchain, how does it work, and why is it important? The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains will answer these questions and more. Learn about notable blockchain platforms, smart contracts, and other important facets of blockchains and their function in the changing cyber-economy.
The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains offers trustworthy and balanced insights to those interested in Bitcoin investing or investing in other cryptocurrency. Discover the risks and mitigations, learn how to identify scams, and understand cryptocurrency exchanges, digital wallets, and regulations with this book. You’ll also learn about the evolution and potential impacts of Bitcoin and blockchains on global businesses.
I stand by everything noted previously (see below) but should have emphasized that if you interested in the tsunami of cryptocurrencies being offered or think that you "should invest before the opportunity closes" (FOMO), read this FIRST!
We all think we know “enough” about money. But the number of "money-related" books reviewed on GR is testament to our desire to know a bit more. Found out that I don’t know much and the first third of this book is the best discussion of money: its origins; history; and nature; that I have ever encounterd.
I thought that I would dip my toe into this topic but found that Lewis had a lot more to offer than the title implies. His history of money filled a real gap in my knowledge and was put in household language augmented with many graphics and diagrams. I might try to write a longer review at some point but for now, here’s something to think about:
“Summary “The history of money is characterized by its failures. Inflation, dilution, debasement, clipping, re-coining and creation of new tokens worth less and less all appear frequently. The theme with money seems to be that whatever form it takes, it gets watered down either through debasement or by excessive creation until a certain limit, then there is a reform.”
Just published! "Eugene Fama, pioneer of the efficient market hypothesis and Nobel laureate in economics, predicts that Bitcoin has a close to 100% probability of becoming worthless within the next decade. The stark prediction from the University of Chicago professor comes at a time when Bitcoin has achieved a $2 trillion market capitalization, making it the seventh most valuable asset globally."
Most non-technical books on blockchain / crypto tend to (a) be evangelical and (b) not actually explain the tech from first principles. This book faces neither issue: it is evenhanded and spends most of its pages describing how the machinery of the blockchain works. It also does a great job contextualizing the technology.
It begins with a history of money and a description of the banking system, laying out the forms of money (barter, commodity, fiat) and how payments actually work from an accounting perspective. This is all pretty important because it establishes the highly intermediated payments "status quo" against which bitcoin seeks to compete.
It then dives into cryptography, overviewing topics like public/private keys, hash functions, digital signatures. The rest of the book leans heavily on crypto concepts introduced here.
After introducing cryptography basics, it introduces blockchain. The way it frames the idea of blockchain is by introducing the challenge of peer to peer money transfer, then by raising issues that have to be dealt with (ex., account creation without a central administrator, transaction ordering, bookkeeper discrepancies). By iteratively describing the solution blockchain provides to each of the problems, it provides a picture of how blockchain actually works (ex., public key addresses, block batching, proof of work).
All the while, it overviews important practical aspects of blockchain and crypto, including weaknesses (e.g. security risks with wallets, 51% attack). Over the course of the book nearly every piece of crypto related jargon that I have encountered was defined and clearly explained. And despite the book's name, it does not only focus on cryptocurrencies, though crypto is a major focus.
If you had to read one book to get a grip on what is happening in the cryptoverse, this is it. With this, you can finally manage being in a conversation with that nerd friend of yours that keeps racking money!
This book is suitable for getting an overview of the Cryptocurrencies, blockchain, digital wallet, and similar things. The author also explains the history of currencies and puts our minds to think if cryptocurrencies can be the future. I don't expect more than this from the book whose title is, 'An Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and the Technology that Powers Them.'
The is the best investment of my 10 hours and $10 dollars this week. This is such a great introduction to the whole crypto ecosystem. After hours of YouTube and dozens of attempts at crypto trading, I have come to realization that I am not getting any better at understanding crypto or its underlying technology blockchain. So, I thought it’s time to get back to old fashioned way to learning. By reading cover to cover of a book and understanding the fundamentals.
The first few chapters deal exclusively with money in general. It dives into history of ‘money’ and briefly explains how things evolved to what it is today. Fun fact – As much as people make it sound that ‘barter system’ is how our ancestors traded, history shows us barter was actually pretty messy with very little adoption and didn’t actually last too long. What found mass adoption is the ‘credit’ system. I borrow an egg from you today, and in the future, I am obliged to give you corn. The book does a good job in explaining how banking system in general works and the various parties involved when you make bank transfer. Things get wildly complicated if it is a cross border foreign currency bank transfer. Hence the need of various entities like the ‘clearing’ bank, ‘correspondent banks’, SWIFT codes etc. Author does a very good job in covering the basics of cryptography. Even if you work in Information Technology, it is a good reminder of the use cases of PGP, Hashes, symmetric, asymmetric encryption and digital signatures.
By the time the author gets to bitcoin and blockchain, he has pretty much laid out the context and helped you appreciate how complex, inefficient and centralized the current financial system is. He talks mostly about Bitcoin, why its formed, how its formed and how it works as placeholder for cryptocurrencies. His explanation of distributed ledger is pretty solid and easy to understand. Many things of blockchain technology like block creation process, how minders work are covered at a high level but not very useful as it requires a lot more attention and effort and certainly beyond the scope of an intro book. But it does a good job of highlighting and educating you on the various challenges of the technology that exists today and very clearly distinguishes ‘Proof of Work’ and ‘Proof of Stake’ approaches to blockchain.
The perils involved with operating crypto wallets and trading via exchanges are pretty well explained. While the lack of decentralization and regulation give you a lot more freedom and power, that also means it is a breeding ground for miscreants. You could easily fall into their traps if you are not prepared enough before playing with your money. The book talks about exchange trading fees, gas fees and the price fluctuations, reward mechanisms at a high level. Later part of the book covers Ethereum pretty well and highlights the differences with Bitcoin. Tokens also introduced how they are different from cryptocurrencies. It briefly talks about private blockchains such as Corda, Hyperledger fabric and JP Morgan Quoram.
To me the highlight of the book is how it covers blockchain basics. The very fundamentals of why a blockchain is different from a database. While ledger immutability can be achieved via a ledger database, what blockchain adds over ledger immutability is decentralization and the “Trust boundaries”. Trust boundaries really determine whether you need a private blockchain or a public blockchain. It dispels the common myth that parties involved in a blockchain are anonymous which certainly is not true for private blockchains. It talks about when you need a private blockchain and when to use a public blockchain.
Overall, this is a pretty solid introduction to cryto and blockchain. It broadly covers everything you need to know from history, financial systems, technology, investing and what the future holds. I am going to (re)read this book again in 6 months’ time. Highly recommended. Neither oversimplified nor complicated, just right for an introduction book.
This book is like Blockchain for Dummies, with some thoughts about its future. There are some very clear explanations of stuff you read about in hype circles but never fully understood. For that, this book is A+. It goes downhill went tries to be more than that: an oracle for things to come. Overall, a good read.
The book can be considered a good introduction to cryptocurrency. I felt the part where the author explains how bitcoins work and the bitcoin mining was good. But I think he took a very long time and a large part to explain basics of money. Also the explanation regarding Ethereum Blockchain was not good enough. The explanation regarding digital tokens, digital contracts and use of Blockchains in different areas was explained in layman terms but that seemed a bit too simplistic.
One of the most accessible and readable introductions to a complicated subject I have ever come across. Similar in scope and tone to Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell, the book I used as my textbook to my course on that subject. The audiobook reader did a phenomenal job of talking about the jargon in a way that, somehow, felt accessible, even though it should be impossible to learn cryptography through one’s ears.
I read the book while preparing to give a talk on crypto, and it made me realize just how much background knowledge is involved in understanding the subject. To really grasp what’s going on, you need to have some understanding of: the history of money, cryptography & encryption technologies, how digital money works, financial markets, corporate structure, venture capital, cypherpunk communities, libertarian politics, collective governance, financial regulation, open-source software, and a great deal more. I do feel like I have a passing understanding of all of these things, but seeing them in one book made me realize that I have never actually learned this stuff holistically and systematically. I feel like when new technologies like this come to prominence, there should be a federal holiday for everyone to read a book like this and come to terms with the transformative changes that might befall their lives. In the absence of such a holiday, I will continue to do my miniscule part and give lectures at universities.
What a great book. Blockchain technology can be so confusing. This book did a fantastic job laying out all the basics of the system, then went on to explain its uses in all sorts of different scenarios. Lewis takes the time to explain the technology in plain language that even beginners can understand.
Most importantly, this book does not suffer from the Utopianism that tends to pervade so many of these types of books. Lewis does a fantastic job of laying out a pragmatic understanding of the promise, limitations and practical use of blockchain.
If you’re struggling to understand how blockchain is used and how it will shape our future, this is the book to read. This was one of my favorite books this year.
As the book's name suggests, it is an excellent introduction to bitcoin and blockchain technology basics. Although that is the book's primary focus, it also gives the historical context for why bitcoin came into existence. The author, Antony Lewis, explains the various attempts at creating an instrument that was censorship-resistant and didn't involve a third party. He then talks about the history of money itself, right from the barter system to the fiat money we use today.
The author starts with THE white paper written by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, who described the original framework of how bitcoin would work. He explains how we can create a distributed trust network to exchange digital currency, eliminating fraud using the concept of "proof-of-work". He describes the inner workings of bitcoin and ethereum and forks in cryptocurrencies. We also learn about various hacks and improvements which have been made in cryptocurrencies over the years. The author goes on to explain the different terminologies associated with tokens in the crypto universe. He explains the difference between asset tokens, utility tokens, etc.
A common challenge with cryptocurrencies is understanding what makes them valuable. The author dives deep to explain this with various examples and comparisons with fiat money, which doesn't have any intrinsic value. In some sense, cryptocurrencies are like gold. They are intrinsically valuable and are not tokens that are "backed" by some asset.
Finally, we get an understanding of blockchain technology, the differences between private and public blockchains, and the various applications for which they're being used today. We also learn about ICO's (Initial Coin Offerings), how they are priced, the role of cryptocurrency exchanges, and how the future of blockchain can change the world.
As a cryptocurrency and technology enthusiast, this book hit the nail on the head. It is a thorough and yet accessible book for anyone interested in learning the basics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Picked this book up to understand what Bitcoin, Blockchain and all the NFT fuss is about. While it didn't give me insights on NFT but apart from that it covers all the things from how "money" came into being and why Blockchain as a technology can influence "currency".
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what Bitcoin is and what the fuss is all about.
Note: If you also read or think people (computers) get paid in bitcoin when they solve complex mathematical problems and this is called mining. Just close that website and buy this book to understand how stupid these blogs and news articles can be.
Enlightening. Explains everything from basic financial transactions to complex blockchain functionalities in an easy to understand manner. The book leaves me with a desire to learn more, but also with a question - are cryprocurrencies and cryptoassets an attempt at reinventing the wheel - trying to bring to existence a new financial tool instead of ironing out the inefficiencies of the existing ones?! Well, we may know soon.
Amazing book for people who want to understand Blockchains and cryptocurrency from bottom up. The author starts by covering origin of money, what it has meant through the ages, how does digital money works. Author has spent quite a lot of time on the above concepts. So people having a background in economics can probably skip those sections. The book continues covering the components that make blockchain possible which is simple to understand. Then comes the juicy part which introduces the legendary white paper on which bitcoin was introduced, bitcoin's early history, early history of exchanges etc. It also covers Ethereum and smart contracts at a beginner's level. If you want to understand the buzzwords that are used in tandem with cryptocurrencies like tokenomics, governance, pre mine, hard and soft forks, chainsplit etc this is a good place to start. Really wish that I had read this when it was published xD.
Als je op zoek bent naar een boek waarin je een introductie krijgt in de technologie en basis van blockchains, tokens en de cryptomarkt, zoek niet verder! Lewis beschrijft in circa 400 bladzijden de onderliggende principes op een begrijpelijke en totaal niet droge/taaie manier.
Heb je al enige kennis van bitcoin en blockchains, dan is het boek waarschijnlijk niet diepgaand genoeg. Voor mij was dit een bevestiging dat de materie die ik in mijn hoofd heb zitten klopt. Het boek is verschenen is 2018 en daarom op bepaalde punten wel al verouderd. Een puntje van kritiek, de afbeeldingen zijn bijna niet te lezen.
I want to give this book a bad rating on account of crypto being annoying, but I learned a good deal so this book did a great job of performing it's duty!
I found it convoluted and badly written. The author sometimes would begin explaining a concept and then jump to much more complex characteristics of the same idea - without any type of "bridge", let's say.
There must be a better way to illustrate cryptocurrency.
This book was decent. If you’re looking for a rigid explanation of the technical details which, I suppose, was the book’s goal, then this book will do just fine. Past that, not the most intriguing book I’ve read.
A theoretical explanation of several concepts without a subjective outlook on the future of cryptocurrencies.
It covers different topics: the history of money; digital money; cryptography; cryptocurrencies (BTC and ETH in detail); digital tokens; blockchain technology; ICOs; and the basics of investing.
If you really want to learn what the blockchain is, how it works and what can be achieved with it, you have to understand the basics of other concepts as well. And this book is perfect for it.
A 100% recommended read if you want to understand how blockchain and bitcoin work from scratch.
It begins with a comprehensive explanation of what money is and its history, to better understand everything that comes after: cryptography, cryptocurrencies and blockchain, among other topics.
Complex concepts are explained in a simple and straightforward manner, as if explaining them to a 10-year-old child.
A very informative and easy to read book on the basics of cryptocurrency. The author did a great job in explaining the topics with examples and right amount of technical info.
Ich würde lieber ein Youtube Video zum Thema gucken als das zu lesen. War ab der Hälfte echt langweilig und ich wollte es alles gar nicht so genau wissen. Aber für Leute, die die genauen Hintergründe verstehen wollen, sicher ein guter Einstieg.
would highly recommend to someone who doesn’t need or want super basic explanations (eg already understands blockchain technology, has some familiarity with coding principles) but isn’t a computer scientist or engineer at all and so needs some level of abstraction or analogy to get through. for my purposes it was fab read, but should not be someone’s first intro to the concepts.
Great breadth, not too much depth. Recommend reading Daniel Drescher’s in conjunction to this one to gain a deeper understanding of blockchain technology.
Although I started this book due to the ongoing media hype on these topics, it became an extremely good read. It explains the basic blocks such as the concept of money, centralized transactions, cryptography, etc in a very simple and comprehensive way that the rest of the detailed content which revolves around bitcoin, ether and blockchain becomes unsophisticated.
We still can't comment firmly on the future of cryptocurrencies but the public and private blockchain technologies aren't a bubble for sure. They will continue to evolve and deliver value in ways we might not even be able to imagine today.