Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

Melanie Swan

Jan 2015 · "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

About this ebook

Bitcoin is starting to come into its own as a digital currency, but the blockchain technology behind it could prove to be much more significant. This book takes you beyond the currency ("Blockchain 1.0") and smart contracts ("Blockchain 2.0") to demonstrate how the blockchain is in position to become the fifth disruptive computing paradigm after mainframes, PCs, the Internet, and mobile/social networking.

Author Melanie Swan, Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies, explains that the blockchain is essentially a public ledger with potential as a worldwide, decentralized record for the registration, inventory, and transfer of all assets—not just finances, but property and intangible assets such as votes, software, health data, and ideas.

Topics include:

• Concepts, features, and functionality of Bitcoin and the blockchain
• Using the blockchain for automated tracking of all digital endeavors
• Enabling censorship?resistant organizational models
• Creating a decentralized digital repository to verify identity
• Possibility of cheaper, more efficient services traditionally provided by nations
• Blockchain for science: making better use of the data-mining network
• Personal health record storage, including access to one’s own genomic data
• Open access academic publishing on the blockchain

This book is part of an ongoing O’Reilly series. Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies introduces Bitcoin and describes the technology behind Bitcoin and the blockchain. Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy considers theoretical, philosophical, and societal impact of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.

Ratings and reviews

This can be a good read, if you have a solid understanding already about cryptocurrencies, and want to get an idea about the potentials. However, the book is very discursive, throwing ideas around without any specifics. Every paragraph is mentions a new *coin, and I'm pretty sure I'll forget 90% of it in a week. I would have preferred to get a more detailed introduction on the core technologies, such as the blokchain itself, Etherum, and Counterparty.

Melanie just allowed everyone to look into her crystal ball and answered a very important question. Right now Bitcoin requires the use of the blockchain technology and barely using 3% of it. I side with melanie and say, if asked, Is there a future for the blockchain and it's use? BLockchain is the future and will be used for almost everything.

Very superficial book. Written with many libertarian political innuendos that I don't think are pertinent to the subject.

About the author

Melanie Swan is the Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies and a Contemporary Philosophy MA candidate at Kingston University London and Université Paris VIII. She has a traditional markets background with an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and work experience at Fidelity and JP Morgan. She has a new markets background as an entrepreneur and advisor to startups GroupPurchase and Prosper, and developed virtual world digital asset valuation and accounting principles for Deloitte. She was involved in the early stages of the Quantified Self movement, and founded DIYgenomics in 2010, an organization that pioneered the crowdsourced health research study. She is an instructor at Singularity University, an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a contributor to the Edge’s Annual Essay Question.