Blockchain Technology Explained: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide About Blockchain Wallet, Mining, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, Monero, Ripple, Dash, IOTA And Smart Contracts

I finished this book the same evening it arrived. The high-level overview was just what I was looking for. While a web search of the topic would have eventually yielded the same information, this book was better organized and more comprehensive. The print edition had some weird formatting errors and typos, but nothing so bad as to detract from its usefulness. I’m ready to dive into a more meaty book now, but I’m glad I got something that could teach me the basics quickly. I can speak with confidence about mining, hashing and proof of work/stake; I know some basic history of the technology; and I see the potential and challenges of blockchain as it applies to currencies and other applications. Not bad for a couple of hours of reading!

If you need a high-level overview on what blockchain is and how it came to be, this is a decent book. Everything it covers is listed in its lengthy title, however the bulk of text relates to blockchain, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Other topics are barely touched, but I guess it is ok since the book is meant for beginners.Alan T. Norman’s main belief is that blockchain-related technologies will reintroduce trust into society, which is currently in a crisis. Institutions are not perceived as trustworthy, they are slow to respond, incur fees and are “a drag to economy”. Author posits, that blockchain’s algorithmic consensus may translate into frictionless agreements throughout society, should such technology be chosen to underpin payments, contracts, insurances etc. Personally I appreciate that the author is making assumptions, not axioms. Blockchain “has the potential”, but clearly is not a silver-bullet.The book is not technical, with an exception of a single chapter on hashing, offering a glimpse at some of mathematical formulas on which blockchain implementations depend. I find it a nice addition to the otherwise very accessible text. What bothers me, though, is that sometimes the author is oversimplifying things, for example conflating “hashing” with “encrypting”.To summarize - if you don’t know much about blockchain, you can safely read this book as a primer. Otherwise, invest in more exhaustive titles.

A fantastic summary of blockchain. I read a lot of independently published books and found this one to be one of the best in terms of readability and flow. Alan gives you some technical depth but he doesn’t lose you in jargon or technical details.I read the book twice. And each time I picked up on new details. At just over 100 pages I was able to knock it put in a weekend.I was able to successfully use this book as a springboard to a more in depth study of blockchain. It gave me the foundation to comfortably dig in to the more technical aspect of this new technology.Thanks Alan. I enjoyed your work.

The description of how blockchain works was pretty good, but a lot of leaps are required to see how it will be used in practice. A lot like the early internet, it took a while before people could see why it was important and how it could be useful. Like the internet, each upside has many unintended, and often negative, consequences. I’ll keep reading. This seems like a topic that is worth understanding

Norman's book provides a concise view of the history, current status and future potential of blockchain technology. Until recently I ignored this technology because I thought it was useful only for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And I thought Bitcoin was the domain of financial speculators, tax dodgers, drug dealers and money laundrers. But these decentralized and encrypted ledgers may eventually revolutionize a wide range of applications and become as important as the Internet is today. In addition to banking, possible blockchain applications include product distribution, voting and "the Internet of things". This book provides a lot of bang for the buck (the Kindle version from Amazon cost me only 99 cents). I would have given it five stars if it had included a more understandable theoretical description of the technology. But Norman chose to describe only the mining procedure for Bitcoin (which was deliberately made tedious to limit the number of bitcoins in circulation).

A great little read for anyone wanting to better understand the relatively new technology. I've done some of my own research online, but wanted to jumping into something more technical and detailed and I'm so glad I found this book. Very easy to read and highly comprehensive. I loved the sections on the cryptography and algorithms behind the blockchain. If your looking for a cryptocurrency investment book this isn't it, but the author says he has written one of those as well and considering the way he writes I'm assuming it would be a good read too. He get information across in a very smooth way.

This was a great overview of blockchain technology for a non-techie business person like me. The book was only about 60 pages I think (I already passed it on to a friend to read). It is well-written, quick and fund to read and yet still comprehensive enough that I came away feeling like I can now have an intelligent conversation about the topic. I will look for more books from this author. Nice job!

This is more like a lengthy article than a small book. The author repeats himself and more than once uses the phrase "more about that later" which , in my view, is a gimmick to add pages. Did not fool me sir!However I believe the basics are covered and it is a quick read. You can get the understanding of what the blockchain is and with some examples why there are so many crypto currencies and other possible applications for the technology.You will need to go elsewhere to get in depth analysis of what comes next. By all means use this as a starting point. Especially if you are planning to "invest". It's good to hear how different sources talk about the same issue.

É excelente leitura: atual, instrutiva e propriamente interessante.

Enjoying this book

Il libro fornisce una panoramica sulla blockchain. Putroppo viene tralasciata la spiegazione di alcuni concetti base. Inoltre l'ho trovato organizzato male per il fatto che alcune cose vengono spiegate parecchi paragrafi dopo che vengono presentate.

Good intro for those who want to know the basics and how it works. Bear in mind it was written in 2018 though and such technologies change fast. But still a very good intro, to the point, straightforward and simplified for non techsavvyy

Simply simplified beginners knowledge on block chain technologyHe touched on all the basics what,why, how..The limitations and the incredible future