Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies, Smart Contracts, and Decentralized Applications

by Lorne Lantz, Daniel Cawrey

The future will be increasingly distributed. As the publicity surrounding Bitcoin and blockchain has shown, distributed technology and business models are gaining popularity. Yet the disruptive potential of this technology is often obscured by hype and misconception. This detailed guide distills the complex, fast moving ideas behind blockchain into an easily digestible reference manual, showing what's really going on under the hood.

Finance and technology pros will learn how a blockchain works as they explore the evolution and current state of the technology, including the functions of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. This book is for anyone evaluating whether to invest time in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. Go beyond buzzwords and see what the technology really has to offer.

- Learn why Bitcoin was fundamentally important in blockchain's birth
- Learn how Ethereum has created a fertile ground for new innovations like Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Flash Loans
- Discover the secrets behind cryptocurrency prices and different forces that affect the highly volatile cryptocurrency markets
- Learn how cryptocurrencies are used by criminals to carry out nefarious activities
- Discover how enterprise and governments are leveraging the blockchain including Facebook
Understand the challenges of scaling and forking a blockchain
- Learn how different blockchains work
- Learn the language of blockchain as industry terms are explained

Genres: Programming, Technology, Computer Science, Finance

281 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2020

Reviews

[Cye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mastering Blockchain is one of the best resources today for anyone new or interested in learning more about blockchain technology. It explores the most important topics and emerging advances in the space with great clarity and memorable conceptual examples. I'd highly recommend it as an awesome gift for the holiday season or to any friend or family member who wants to get a much deeper and insightful answer to: What is Bitcoin/Blockchain/Ethereum/DApps? For those more well-versed in the space, it gives a great retrospective on blockchain's birth, current challenges, and exciting applications for emerging business use cases. I highly recommend it!

[Sanka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less like mastering. More like an overview.

[Tbueno · Rating 3 out of 5]

No, you won’t master the subject by reading this book! It is just a general compendium of general topics like exchanges, consensus, smart contracts, etc…

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

A shallow book with plagiarised content and ideas from other more popular books.

[Ed Dobson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, very basic and filled with content that you can easily find for free on the internet, not genuine at all! Just simple stuff from the Internet

[Boukman Bastia · Rating 3 out of 5]

08:50 Friday The 24th March 2023

I just got done reading this for the first time on Audible, I loved it. This was the most technical and in-depth blockchain book I've read yet.One part I really didn't like is that they didn't see the accompanying pdf that the narrator said came with the book.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book to read if you want to go from zero to one about blockchain. It starts by explaining the Bitcoin protocol, focuses on the Ethereum ecosystem, shows simple code snippets that you can try, introduces DApps and DeFi. It also introduces regulatory challenges, frauds, technology deficiencies, and enterprise solutions. I highly recommend it to beginners.

[Hodgson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute shambles, no coherence in the content, It is just a mashup of content from other better books on the subject! There are other much better books out there on blockchain and I have read almost all of them. This is simply a hurried effort to just publish yet another book on the subject.

[Jate Saitthiti · Rating 5 out of 5]

The following are some key takeaways from this book:

-History of blockchain and cryptocurrency began with a concept from Digicash (1989), E-Gold (1996), Hahcash(1997), B-money(1998), and Bit Gold (2005)
-Fundamentals of cryptographic hash algorithms such as SHA-256, which Bitcoin uses, and Keccak-256, which Ethereum uses.
-Blockchain fundamentals such as how a decentralized consensus mechanism works in proof of work and proof of stake.
-Details on Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs)
-ERC standards such as ERC-777 push and pull transactions and ERC-1155 for gaming
-The purpose of a multi-signature wallet
-Ethereum-based for business, such as Nightfall by accounting firm EY, Quorum by J.P. Morgan, Hyperledger by the Linux Foundation, and Corda by R3.

Highly recommended for those interested in learning about the foundations of blockchain technology as well as an overview of how this technology is implemented.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are much better books out there

[Girish B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mastering bitcoin than blockchain. Disappointed!

[Ruslan Diachenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading. You definitely won't master the blockchain after reading this book, however you'll get a good idea of how things work in the cryptocurrency world. I found the first four chapters the most useful and informative for those (like me) who have never touched the topic. Most of the other chapters contain too much unnecessary details which could be skipped.

[Maciej Budkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good intro, connecting and organizing dots to give you a clear overview of Blockchain. I wouldn't say that you can feel a "Master of Blockchain" after reading this, but it's definitely a solid foundation.

Plus, it's well-written. I read it in one day.

[Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a good high level overview of the crypto space. The mastering element of the title may be a bit misleading as the book doesn't go into great details in terms of implementation and internal workings of major blockchains. Found the book very easy reading.

[Dorian Gutowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is definitely worth reading, but not if you are a beginner. The book contains some technical details that I would put aside until I had some idea about it. Overall a must read if you want to understand blockchain technologies. You'll learn a lot from it.

[Kinjal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very incoherent. Couldn't read beyond chap 2 - random terms thrown about without any context.

[Vorapol Jittamas · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good overview book for blockchain, bitcoins… Not too much technical but a bit hard to follow the structure of each chapter

[Mahdi Akbari · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, topics are listed like a directory, you can use it as a starting point for your knowledge base

[Matthew Briggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disorganized but with a lot of good information.

[Ramesh Naidu · Rating 4 out of 5]

All online systems require two types of trust.
Intermediary trust that is a third-party relied upon to make rational and fair decisions. For example, a court or a judiciary.
Issuance trust that is a third-party is relied upon to ensure the safety and security of any value for example, a bank.

Research hyperledger and fabric