Book description


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.

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Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. Currency, Contracts, and Applications beyond Financial Markets
    2. Blockchain 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
    3. What Is Bitcoin?
    4. What Is the Blockchain?
    5. The Connected World and Blockchain: The Fifth Disruptive Computing Paradigm
      1. M2M/IoT Bitcoin Payment Network to Enable the Machine Economy
    6. Mainstream Adoption: Trust, Usability, Ease of Use
      1. Bitcoin Culture: Bitfilm Festival
    7. Intention, Methodology, and Structure of this Book
    8. Safari® Books Online
    9. How to Contact Us
    10. Acknowledgments
  2. 1. Blockchain 1.0: Currency
    1. Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency
    2. The Double-Spend and Byzantine Generals’ Computing Problems
    3. How a Cryptocurrency Works
      1. eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity
      2. Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin
    4. Summary: Blockchain 1.0 in Practical Use
      1. Relation to Fiat Currency
      2. Regulatory Status
  3. 2. Blockchain 2.0: Contracts
    1. Financial Services
    2. Crowdfunding
    3. Bitcoin Prediction Markets
    4. Smart Property
    5. Smart Contracts
    6. Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects
    7. Wallet Development Projects
    8. Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs
    9. Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation
    10. Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine
      1. Counterparty Re-creates Ethereum’s Smart Contract Platform
    11. Dapps, DAOs, DACs, and DASs: Increasingly Autonomous Smart Contracts
      1. Dapps
      2. DAOs and DACs
      3. DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations
      4. Automatic Markets and Tradenets
    12. The Blockchain as a Path to Artificial Intelligence
  4. 3. Blockchain 3.0: Justice Applications Beyond Currency, Economics, and Markets
    1. Blockchain Technology Is a New and Highly Effective Model for Organizing Activity
      1. Extensibility of Blockchain Technology Concepts
      2. Fundamental Economic Principles: Discovery, Value Attribution, and Exchange
      3. Blockchain Technology Could Be Used in the Administration of All Quanta
      4. Blockchain Layer Could Facilitate Big Data’s Predictive Task Automation
    2. Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models
    3. Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System
      1. Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services
      2. Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel
      3. Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity
    4. Digital Identity Verification
      1. Blockchain Neutrality
      2. Digital Divide of Bitcoin
    5. Digital Art: Blockchain Attestation Services (Notary, Intellectual Property Protection)
      1. Hashing Plus Timestamping
      2. Proof of Existence
      3. Virtual Notary, Bitnotar, and Chronobit
      4. Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection
      5. Digital Asset Proof as an Automated Feature
      6. Batched Notary Chains as a Class of Blockchain Infrastructure
      7. Personal Thinking Blockchains
    6. Blockchain Government
      1. Decentralized Governance Services
      2. PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution
      3. Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections
      4. Random-Sample Elections
      5. Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets
      6. Societal Maturity Impact of Blockchain Governance
  5. 4. Blockchain 3.0: Efficiency and Coordination Applications Beyond Currency, Economics, and Markets
    1. Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin
      1. Community Supercomputing
      2. Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief
      3. Charity Donations and the Blockchain—Sean’s Outpost
    2. Blockchain Genomics
      1. Blockchain Genomics 2.0: Industrialized All-Human-Scale Sequencing Solution
      2. Blockchain Technology as a Universal Order-of-Magnitude Progress Model
      3. Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin
    3. Blockchain Health
      1. Healthcoin
      2. EMRs on the Blockchain: Personal Health Record Storage
      3. Blockchain Health Research Commons
      4. Blockchain Health Notary
      5. Doctor Vendor RFP Services and Assurance Contracts
      6. Virus Bank, Seed Vault Backup
    4. Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy
      1. Learncoin
      2. Learning Contract Exchanges
    5. Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin
    6. The Blockchain Is Not for Every Situation
    7. Centralization-Decentralization Tension and Equilibrium
  6. 5. Advanced Concepts
    1. Terminology and Concepts
    2. Currency, Token, Tokenizing
      1. Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention
      2. Campuscoin
      3. Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption
      4. Currency: New Meanings
    3. Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies
    4. Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable
      1. Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features
  7. 6. Limitations
    1. Technical Challenges
    2. Business Model Challenges
    3. Scandals and Public Perception
    4. Government Regulation
    5. Privacy Challenges for Personal Records
    6. Overall: Decentralization Trends Likely to Persist
  8. 7. Conclusion
    1. The Blockchain Is an Information Technology
      1. Blockchain AI: Consensus as the Mechanism to Foster “Friendly” AI
      2. Large Possibility Space for Intelligence
      3. Only Friendly AIs Are Able to Get Their Transactions Executed
      4. Smart Contract Advocates on Behalf of Digital Intelligence
      5. Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe
  9. A. Cryptocurrency Basics
    1. Public/Private-Key Cryptography 101
  10. B. Ledra Capital Mega Master Blockchain List
  11. Endnotes and References
  12. Index

Product information

  • Title: Blockchain
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: January 2015
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781491920497