Book Review: Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business and the World

This title about blockchain is probably not for extremely knowledgeable users, probably not for those who are running a startup based on this technology. It might interest them too, for the debate about blockchain, particularly in the third part where “promise and peril“ are discussed.

However, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business and the World is particularly aimed to people who understand that this techology, invented in 2008 and which has grown exponentially in the last few years, could and will change everybody’s lives soon enough. The same people who, anyway, don’t understand much about it.

Don and Alex Tapscott are influential writers and advisors who in this book try to analyze every aspect of the blockchain technology, from the uses that are currently involved to what is fast happening around it. Not covering up the wrong uses that have been done of bitcoin, the main currency used in blockchain. Trust is the main word that underlies the book and what is pushing blockchain forward.

The book’s thesis is that blockchain will keep changing everybody’s lives more and more, as details an example they make. It can be used to trace where meat is coming from, or to ensure aid to people struck by disaster, or even to make sure artists are paid for their work. There are countless applications to the technology, which is public and not stored in a central server which could be hacked, but all over the world. Besides the countries where it is forbidden, that is.

Perils listed include the twisted use governments could make of it, as well as the energy it consumes. This is why it’s important, to the authors, to keep talking about blockchain.