Blockchain revolution : how the technology behind bitcoin is changing money, business, and the world

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Title:

Blockchain revolution : how the technology behind bitcoin is changing money, business, and the world

Author:

Tapscott, Don, 1947- author.

ISBN:

9781101980132

9780399564062

9780241237854

Physical Description:

xx, 348 pages ; 24 cm

Contents:

Part I: Say you want a revolution. 1. The trust protocol -- 2. Bootstrapping the future: seven design principles of the blockchain economy -- Part II: Transformations. 3. Reinventing financial services -- 4. Re-architecting the firm: the core and the edges -- 5. New business models: making it rain on the blockchain -- 6. The ledger of things: animating the physical world -- 7. Solving the prosperity paradox: economic inclusion and entrepreneurship -- 8. Rebuilding government and democracy -- 9. Freeing culture on the blockchain: music to our ears -- Part III: Promise and peril. 10. Overcoming showstoppers: ten implementation challenges -- 11. Leadership for the next era.

Subject Term:

Electronic funds transfers.

Blockchains (Databases).

Bitcoin.

Electronic commerce.

Mobile commerce.

Banks and banking -- Technological innovations.

Financial institutions -- Technological innovations.

Added Author:

Tapscott, Alex

Summary:

The Internet as we know it is great for collaboration and communication, but is deeply flawed when it comes to commerce and privacy. The new blockchain technology facilitates peer-to-peer transactions without any intermediary such as a bank or governing body. Keeping the user's information anonymous, the blockchain validates and keeps a permanent public record of all transactions. That means that your personal information is private and secure, while all activity is transparent and incorruptible--reconciled by mass collaboration and stored in code on a digital ledger. With its advent, we will not need to trust each other in the traditional sense, because trust is built into the system itself.

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	332.178 TAP	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	332.178 TAP	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	332.178 TAP	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Blockchain technology is powering our future. As the technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, open software platforms like Ethereum, and disruptive companies like Ripple, it's too important to ignore.

In this revelatory book, Don Tapscott, the bestselling author of Wikinomics , and his son, blockchain expert Alex Tapscott, bring us a brilliantly researched, highly readable, and essential book about the technology driving the future of the economy.

Blockchain is the ingeniously simple, revolutionary protocol that allows transactions to be simultaneously anonymous and secure by maintaining a tamperproof public ledger of value. Though it's best known as the technology that drives bitcoin and other digital currencies, it also has the potential to go far beyond currency, to record virtually everything of value to humankind, from birth and death certificates to insurance claims, land titles, and even votes.

Blockchain is also essential to understand if you're an artist who wants to make a living off your art, a consumer who wants to know where that hamburger meat really came from, an immigrant who's tired of paying big fees to send money home to your loved ones, or an entrepreneur looking for a new platform to build a business. And those examples are barely the tip of the iceberg.

As with major paradigm shifts that preceded it, blockchain technology will create winners and losers. This book shines a light on where it can lead us in the next decade and beyond.

Author Notes

DON TAPSCOTT is the CEO of the Tapscott Group and one of the most influential living theorists about business and society. In November 2013, Thinkers50 named Don as the 4th most important business thinker in the world. A June 2013 Forbes.com analysis of social media identified Don as the most influential management thinker in the world. He is the author or co-author of 15 widely read books about new technologies and new media in business and society, including Wikinomics and The Digital Economy .

ALEX TAPSCOTT is the CEO and founder of Northwest Passage Ventures, an advisory firm building blockchain companies. In 2014 he wrote the seminal report on governing digital currencies for the Global Solutions Network program at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Prior to founding Northwest Passage Ventures, he worked for seven years in investment banking in New York and Toronto.

Reviews (3)

Booklist Review

Don Tapscott (Wikinomics, 2006) and his son, Alex, a blockchain consultant, baldly state that they are not only predicting advances in blockchain technology but advocating them. Dubbed a World Wide Ledger of value, the blockchain is an encrypted, open-source, digital platform invented in 2008 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto and most famous for underlying the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. But it's capable of so much more, according to the Tapscotts, who envision its use in every possible facet of public and private life to reinvent the monopolistic status quo of banking, reliably establish trust and facilitate prosperity in the sharing economy, enforce bureaucratic accountability, and serve as an engine of inclusion for everyone, not just the wealthy few. They get into the weeds of its application in economics, government, culture, and the Internet of Things, among other sectors, projecting hope for its implementation but also admitting current challenges. Casual readers might get bogged down in the details, but entrepreneurs, public officials, and anyone in a field ripe for disruption ought to read intently.--Comello, Chad Copyright 2016 Booklist

Choice Review

The blockchain offers high-level encryption with built-in verification. It first became popular with the use of Bitcoin (but an early version was invented for another cryptocurrency). Bitcoin made the blockchain both applicable and popular. Many decades from now, people may praise Bitcoin much more for the advancement of blockchain than for its intended purpose as an alternative currency. Interesting observations are how blockchains could be used to avoid voter fraud, improve copyright protections, better protect/verify medical records, and speed up financial transactions. The book is at times overly optimistic and a bit of a cheap sales pitch, but the essence is right. There are a number of silly errors, such as when the authors write (on page 255) that had Greeks anticipated their country's economic crash, they might have exchanged their drachmas for Bitcoins--had they been available. First, Greece uses the euro, having given up the drachma in 2001. Second, the Greek debt crisis started in 2009. Despite some errors and salesmanship, the book is one of few to offer insights for people interested in the future of blockchains. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Robert H. Scott, Monmouth University

Library Journal Review

Those who don't understand how bitcoin operates are not alone. According to the authors, the important thing to know is that electronic money, or virtual currency, can be an acceptable medium of exchange. Blockchain technology provides a means of trading information among participants in a way that is secure, verifiable, and privacy-preserving and-the key-requires no third-party intervention. In other words, items can be purchased over the Internet without a bank or credit card company, just as individuals meet in person and use cash. The authors explore the possibility that this direct exchange has the potential to democratize not just the financial world but all of society. Don Tapscott (CEO, Tapscott Group; Wikinomics; The Digital Economy) and Alex Tapscott (CEO & founder, Northwest Passages Ventures) unabashedly predict that this will happen, and they are all for it. Of course, as has been said many times, prediction is an uncertain endeavor. Written in a series of short, choppy segments, each of which requires careful attention to grasp, this is not an easy book, yet it will attract a small but interested audience. Verdict For determined readers with a strong interest in technology.-Harold D. Shane, mathematics emeritus, Baruch Coll. Lib., CUNY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Acknowledgments	p. xv
Part I Say Yon Want a Revolution
Chapter 1 The Trust Protocol	p. 3
In Search of the Trust Protocol	p. 4
How This Worldwide Ledger Works	p. 6
A Rational Exuberance for the Blockchain	p. 8
Achieving Trust in the Digital Age	p. 10
Return of the Internet	p. 12
Your Personal Avatar and the Black Box of Identity	p. 14
A Plan for Prosperity	p. 17
Promise and Peril of the New Platform	p. 24
Chapter 2 Bootstrapping the Future: Seven Design Principles of the Blockchain Economy	p. 27
The Seven Design Principles	p. 29
1 Networked Integrity	p. 30
2 Distributed Power	p. 33
3 Value as Incentive	p. 35
4 Security	p. 39
5 Privacy	p. 41
6 Rights Preserved	p. 45
7 Inclusion	p. 49
Designing the Future	p. 51
Part II Transformations
Chapter 3 Reinventing Financial Services	p. 55
A New Look for the World's Second-Oldest Profession	p. 58
The Golden Eight: How the Financial Services Sector Will Change	p. 61
From Stock Exchanges to Block Exchanges	p. 63
Dr. Faust's Blockchain Bargain	p. 66
The Bank App: Who Will Win in Retail Banking	p. 71
Google Translate for Business: New Frameworks for Accounting and Corporate Governance	p. 73
Reputation: You Are Your Credit Score	p. 79
The Blockchain IPO	p. 82
The Market for Prediction Markets	p. 84
Road Map for the Golden Eight	p. 86
Chapter 4 Re-architecting the Firm: The Core and the Edges	p. 87
Building ConsenSys	p. 87
Changing the Boundaries of the Firm	p. 92
Determining Corporate Boundaries	p. 109
Chapter 5 New Business Models: Making It Rain on the Blockchain	p. 115
bAirbnb Versus Airbnb	p. 115
Global Computing: The Rise of Distributed Applications	p. 117
The DApp Kings: Distributed Business Entities	p. 120
Autonomous Agents	p. 122
Distributed Autonomous Enterprises	p. 126
The Big Seven: Open Networked Enterprise Business Models	p. 128
Hacking Your Future: Business Model Innovation	p. 142
Chapter 6 The Ledger of Things: Animating the Physical World	p. 145
Power to the People	p. 146
The Evolution of Computing: From Mainframes to Smart Pills	p. 150
The Internet of Things Needs a Ledger of Things	p. 152
The Twelve Disruptions: Animating Things	p. 156
The Economic Payoff	p. 161
The Future: From Uber to SUber	p. 164
Hacking Your Future for a World of Smart Things	p. 168
Chapter 7 Solving the Prosperity Paradox: Economic Inclusion and Entrepreneurship	p. 170
A Pig Is Not a Piggy Bank	p. 170
The New Prosperity Paradox	p. 172
Road Map to Prosperity	p. 178
Remittances: The Story of Analie Domingo	p. 182
Blockchain Humanitarian Aid	p. 188
Safe as Houses? The Road to Asset Ownership	p. 193
Implementation Challenges and Leadership Opportunities	p. 195
Chapter 8 Rebuilding Government and Democracy	p. 197
Something Is Rotten in the State	p. 199
High-Performance Government Services and Operations	p. 203
Empowering People to Serve Selves and Others	p. 207
The Second Era of Democracy	p. 211
Blockchain Voting	p. 215
Alternative Models of Politics and Justice	p. 218
Engaging Citizens to Solve Big Problems	p. 221
Wielding Tools of Twenty-first-Century Democracy	p. 223
Chapter 9 Freeing Culture on the Blockchain: Music to Our Ears	p. 226
Fair Trade Music: From Streaming Music to Metering Rights	p. 227
Artlery for Art Lovers: Connecting Artists and Patrons	p. 239
Privacy, Free Speech, and Free Press on the Blockchain	p. 243
Getting the Word Out: The Critical Role of Education	p. 246
Culture on the Blockchain and You	p. 249
Part III Promise and Peril
Chapter 10 Overcoming Showstoppers: Ten Implementation Challenges	p. 253
1 The Technology Is Not Ready for Prime Time	p. 254
2 The Energy Consumed Is Unsustainable	p. 259
3 Governments Will Stifle or Twist It	p. 263
4 Powerful Incumbents of the Old Paradigm Will Usurp It	p. 265
5 The Incentives Are Inadequate for Distributed Mass Collaboration	p. 267
6 The Blockchain Is a Job Killer	p. 270
7 Governing the Protocols Is Like Herding Cats	p. 271
8 Distributed Autonomous Agents Will Form Skynet	p. 273
9 Big Brother Is (Still) Watching You	p. 274
10 Criminals Will Use It	p. 275
Reasons Blockchain Will Fail or Implementation Challenges?	p. 277
Chapter 11 Leadership for the Next Era	p. 278
Who Will Lead a Revolution?	p. 281
The Blockchain Ecosystem: You Can't Tell the Players Without a Roster	p. 283
A Cautionary Tale of Blockchain Regulation	p. 289
The Senator Who Would Change the World	p. 292
Central Banks in a Decentralized Economy	p. 293
Regulation Versus Governance	p. 296
A New Framework for Blockchain Governance	p. 298
A New Agenda for the Next Digital Age	p. 307
The Trust Protocol and You	p. 309
Notes	p. 313
Index	p. 337

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents

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