Blockchain Blueprint for a New Economy [Paperback]

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-Currenciesintroduces Bitcoin and describes the technology behind Bitcoin and the blockchain.Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economyconsiders theoretical, philosophical, and societal impact of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.

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 witl3š