Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts

    • 5.0 • 2 Ratings
    • £5.99
    • £5.99

Publisher Description

"A sober riposte to all the upbeat forecasts about cryptocurrency" — New York Review of Books

"A very convincing takedown of the whole phenomenon" — BBC News

An experimental new Internet-based form of money is created that anyone can generate at home; people build frightening firetrap computers full of video cards, putting out so much heat that one operator is hospitalised with heatstroke and brain damage.

A young physics student starts a revolutionary new marketplace immune to State coercion; he ends up ordering hits on people because they might threaten his great experiment, and is jailed for life without parole.

Fully automated contractual systems are proposed to make business and the law work better; the contracts people actually write are unregulated penny stock offerings whose fine print literally states that you are buying nothing of any value.

The biggest crowdfunding in history attracts $150 million on the promise that it will embody "the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code"; upon release it is immediately hacked, and $50 million is stolen.

How did we get here?

David Gerard covers the origins and history of Bitcoin to the present day, the other cryptocurrencies it spawned including Ethereum, the ICO craze and the 2017 crypto bubble, and the attempts to apply blockchains and smart contracts to business. Plus a case study on blockchains in the music industry.

Bitcoin and blockchains are not a technology story, but a psychology story.

Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

 

GENRE
Business & Personal Finance
RELEASED
2017
24 July
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
228
Pages
PUBLISHER
David Gerard
SIZE
1.7
MB

Customer Reviews

mobiledisco ,

A funny & informed take on the blockchain hype

Laugh out loud funny in parts, depressing in its depiction of human gullability in others, it’s a must-read if you have come across any of the gushing hype about bitcoin and the like in the last few years, and who hasn’t?

More Books by David Gerard

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts
2017
Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money
2020
Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money
2020
Shrieking Silence Shrieking Silence
1998

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