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    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
    Ebook301 pages3 hours

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

    By David Gerard

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    "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.

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Gerard
    Release dateJul 24, 2017
    ISBN9781386153078
    Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts
    Author

    David Gerard

    David Gerard is a Unix system administrator by day. His job includes keeping track of exciting new technologies and advising against the bad ones. He was previously an award-winning music journalist, and has blogged about music at Rocknerd.co.uk since 2001. He is a volunteer spokesman for Wikipedia, and is on the board of the RationalMedia Foundation, host of skeptical wiki RationalWiki.org. His website is davidgerard.co.uk. He lives in east London with his spouse Arkady and their daughter. Until he reinstalled the laptop they were on, he was the proud owner of six Dogecoins.

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    • 5/5
      This book is from 2017 - but it pretty much sums up the history (and prehistory) of cryptocurrencies. The book shows mostly two things: that crypto currencies don't work in practice, as shown by the many failures and outright frauds connected to most of the major crypto exchanges. But the book also discusses, why the technologies behind crypto make no sense: from the blockchain, over "proof of work" to the rise of smart contracts. Interesting read, but also terrifying.

    Book preview

    Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain - David Gerard

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