New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
A New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for the Internet age.
Digital Gold is New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper’s brilliant and engrossing history of Bitcoin, the landmark digital money and financial technology that has spawned a global social movement.
The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet. Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society’s most basic institutions.
An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement’s colorful central characters, including an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others.

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money

Business & Money

Popper, Nathaniel

Biography & History

Harper Paperbacks

A leading legal scholar offers a compelling new theory to explain the meteoric rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their impact on art, business, entertainment, and society, and explains how they are revolutionizing our understanding of ownership. If you buy an NFT, do you own anything Critics say no. Then why are people spending so much money to own them--to the tune of $27 billion in 2021 And why are big businesses and venture capital firms investing hundreds of millions to develop NFTs for people's use in the metaverse, a purely imaginary world In Creators Take Control, Edward Lee offers a compelling new theory he calls "Tokenism" that answers these perplexing questions. Using vivid examples, Lee lucidly explains how NFTs operate--and how they fundamentally change our understanding of ownership. Tokenism is an artistic, cultural, and technological movement that creates value in a new kind of ownership of a new type of property--symbolized by a virtual token--through a process of technological abstraction and artificial scarcity effectuated by NFTs. Ownership becomes virtual. What Cubism did in radically changing the twentieth-century perspective of creating and viewing art through cubes, Tokenism does today in altering our perspective of owning art and other things through tokens. Both movements radically reimagine what's possible. Creators and businesses have seized upon this profound transformation. In a short time, they have developed a new market for digital art, important new rights for creators, innovative business models based on decentralized collaboration, and a new type of interactive ownership that enables identity, community, and patronage through NFTs. These innovations are just the start of revolutionary changes to society. Lee shows how NFTs create a new form of decentralized intellectual property, or De-IP. Comparable to the movement to decentralized finance (DeFi), De-IP empowers creators to take control of their artistic productions and livelihood. Lee's intellectual tour de force is filled with practical insights--and hope--for fostering creativity and a Virtual Renaissance for the ages.

Creators Take Control: How NFTs Revolutionize Art, Business, and Entertainment

Lee, Edward

Economics

Harper Business

Why are the world's most powerful companies and governments excited about a technology beloved by criminals and radicals? And why do people invest their money--or their trust--in mysterious cryptocurrencies seemingly based on nothing? In an era when trust in institutions of all kinds is collapsing, the blockchain offers a new hope: Shared ledgers of information that no one controls but everyone can believe. Since its emergence a decade ago with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the blockchain has spawned hundreds of companies, billions of dollars of investment, and adoption by companies ranging from the New York Stock Exchange to Walmart. Yet it remains wildly misunderstood. Wharton professor Kevin Werbach offers the first in-depth, balanced analysis of the blockchain's true potential, as well as its limitations and dangers. He maps the often-confusing landscape, and shows how a technology resting on foundations of mutual mistrust can become trustworthy. Surprisingly for a technology widely associated with illegality, fraud, and distrust of governments, the path to trusted blockchains runs through governance, regulation, and law.

The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust (Information Policy)

Werbach, Kevin

The MIT Press

How companies can gain strategic advantage by developing blockchain capabilities. Blockchain is far more than cryptocurrency. Regarded for a decade as complex and with limited application, blockchain has now matured to be on the verge of fully realizing its disruptive potential. In Enterprise Strategy for Blockchain, business strategy expert Ravi Sarathy shows how companies can gain competitive advantage by developing and deploying blockchain capabilities. Sarathy explains what makes blockchain unique, including its capacities to eliminate intermediaries, guard against hackers, decentralize, and protect privacy. Presenting examples drawn from such sectors as finance, supply chains, computer services, consumer products, and entertainment, he describes how executives can strategically assess blockchain's applicability to their business. After outlining blockchain's technological features-and its technological obstacles-Sarathy describes disruptive technologies already happening in the financial services market with the emergence of decentralized finance, or DeFi, arguing that a wave of innovation might be positioning DeFi as blockchain's "killer app." He also explores, among many other uses, a blockchain application that addresses chronic supply chain problems, pilot blockchain programs aimed at facilitating cross-border payments, and the use of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that allow digital art to be collected and traded. And he outlines a path for organizations that includes establishing a business case for applying blockchain, evaluating enterprise cost-benefits, and preparing the organization to develop the requisite knowledge and people skills while overcoming resistance to change. Business leaders should invest, explore and experiment with blockchain now, positioning their organizations to be first in their fields, ahead of both rising startups and late-to-the game incumbent peers.

Enterprise Strategy for Blockchain: Lessons in Disruption from Fintech, Supply Chains, and Consumer Industries (Management on the Cutting Edge)

Sarathy, Ravi

Management & Leadership

Blockchain Governance (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)

De Filippi, Primavera

Reijers, Wessel

Mannan, Morshed

175 countries, four billion dollars, one scam: the thrilling rise and fall of the biggest cryptocurrency con in history and the woman behind it all In 2016, on stage at Wembley Arena in front of thousands of adoring fans, Dr. Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a financial revolution. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin Killer. OneCoin would not only earn its investors untold fortunes; it would change the world. &nbsp; By March 2017, more than $4 billion had been invested in OneCoin in countries all around the world. But by October 2017, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared, and it slowly became clear that her revolutionary cryptocurrency was not all it seemed. Fortune was left asking, "Is OneCoin the biggest financial fraud in history?" In&nbsp;The Missing Cryptoqueen, acclaimed tech journalist Jamie Bartlett tells the story he began in his smash hit BBC podcast, entering the murky worlds of little-regulated cryptocurrencies and multilevel marketing schemes. Through a globe-crossing investigation into the criminal underworlds, corrupt governments, and the super-rich, he reveals a very modern tale of intrigue, techno-hype and herd madness that allowed OneCoin to become a million-person pyramid scheme - where, at the top, investors were making millions and, at the bottom, people were putting their livelihoods at risk. It's the inside story of the smartest and biggest scam of the 21st Century - and the genius behind it, who is still on the run.

The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It

Biographies & Memoirs

Bartlett, Jamie

True Crime

Hachette Books

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency

From the award-winnng author of Sandworm comes&nbsp;the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, taking once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence and holding them up to the light Black markets have always thrived in the shadows of society. Increasingly, these enterprises--drug dealing, money laundering, human trafficking, terrorist funding--have found their shadows online. Digital crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. At the heart of their massive conspiracies: cryptocurrency. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in Bitcoin--a currency with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers--black marketeers robbed law enforcement for years of their chief method of cracking down on criminal markets, following the money. But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn't so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could crack open an entire world of wrongdoing. Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak; a Bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur; and a colorful ensemble of hardboiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest takedown of an online narcotics market in the history of the internet. Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world's most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?

Greenberg, Andy

Professionals & Academics

DOUBLEDAY

Some experts say that cryptocurrencies and blockchains are just a scam; others say they’re “the most important invention since the internet.” It’s hard to tell who’s right. Authored by Product Managers from Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, Bubble or Revolution cuts through the hype to offer a balanced, comprehensive, and accessible analysis of blockchains and cryptocurrencies.
 You’ll learn the core concepts of these technologies and understand their strengths and weaknesses from real-world case studies; dive deep into their technical, economic, political, and legal complexities; and gain insights about their future from exclusive interviews with dozens of tech industry leaders. No coding or math needed!
 Are cryptocurrencies and blockchains a bubble or a revolution? We’ll help you decide for yourself.
 What's inside:
 Bitcoin and the blockchain<ul>
<li>How Bitcoin and blockchains work from a technical perspective with no assumed technical knowledge</li>
<li>Satoshi Nakamoto and the history of Bitcoin, the original blockchain</li>
<li>A thorough overview of crucial crypto concepts (eg. blocks, keys, mining, nodes, etc.)</li>
<li>Frameworks for understanding when it actually makes sense to use blockchain</li>
<li>Major application scenarios for blockchain and cryptocurrencies and where it'll fall flat</li>
</ul>
Public blockchains and altcoins<ul>
<li>Emerging trends in blockchain technology</li>
<li>What you should know before buying any cryptocurrency</li>
<li>An overview of Etherum and smart contracts </li>
<li>An overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the top altcoins and stable coins, including Monero (XMR), Tether (USDT), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)</li>
<li>Alternatives to blockchain and cryptocurrencies</li>
<li>New kinds of decentralized ledger technology (dlt)</li>
<li>The economics of both traditional payment methods and cryptocurrencies</li>
<li>Cryptocurrency security best practices and major breach case studies </li>
</ul>
Private blockchains<ul>
<li>How blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and traditional banking and finance will interact with one another in the future</li>
<li>Public blockchains vs private blockchains </li>
<li>Limitations and shortcomings of public blockchains and cryptocurrencies</li>
<li>The role of blockchain in the strategy of top tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft </li>
<li>Case studies of how non-tech companies are effectively utilizing blockchain (eg. Walmart using it to prevent foodborne illness) </li>
<li>Business blockchain case studies ranging from gaming (e.g. Xbox) to cloud services (e.g. Microsoft Azure’s blockchain-as-a-service and Amazon’s AWS offering)</li>
<li>Blockchain’s use for big data, internet of things (IoT), and machine learning (ML)</li>
</ul>
Cryptocurrency regulation and policy<ul>
<li>ICOs vs STOs vs IPOs</li>
<ul>
<li>ICOs’ status as securities</li>
<li>The SEC’s STO rules and Reg A+/CF/D/S</li>
<li>KYC and AML laws</li>
</ul>
<li>The debate over whether cryptocurrencies are securities</li>
<li>The official stance of various countries on crypto </li>
<li>An overview of crypto policy and regulatory hurdles </li>
<li>The role of crypto in emerging markets and China</li>
<li>Digital democracy and voting on the blockchain</li>
</ul>
The future of decentralized technology<ul>
<li>If, how, and when the tokenization of national currencies will play out</li>
<li>Facebook and WhatsApp’s upcoming cryptocurrencies</li>
<li>Currency tokenization and China’s efforts to tokenize the yuan</li>
<li>Blockchain, IoT, and the tangle</li>
<li>Cryptocurrencies vs. fiat vs. the gold standard</li>
<li>Predictions about the future of money, business, and currency</li>
<li>Why blockchains would do better on Mars than Earth</li>
</ul>

Bubble or Revolution? The Future of Bitcoin, Blockchains, and Cryptocurrencies

Mehta, Neel

Agashe, Aditya

Detroja, Parth

Investing

Paravane Ventures

GUARANTEED to capture the hearts of readers interested in BITCOIN, EDUCATION, or BASIC INCOME.Digital Platforms Are the Most Profitable Companies, and Poised to Transform Education... A former software engineer, Principal Zeimer takes readers through an in-depth evaluation of how digital technology and economics are poised to transform education by carefully examining the concept of academic capital.WHAT SKILLS ARE RECESSION-PROOF? * How Should You Prepare Your High School Student or an UNCERTAIN FUTURE?* Learn why JOBS ARE IN DECLINE and what will replace them* Understand how digital media production will REPLACE SOME STANDARDIZED TESTING* Gain insight into how digital technology trends such as DECENTRALIZATION and OPEN SOURCE could collide to challenge the nation's largest corporations* Explore the research on HUMAN BIAS and discover why anti-bias is crucial for economic growth* Delve into the limits of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and how a digital native future inverts its role in societyQuestion whether surveillance capitalism is something we should worry aboutA SHIFT FROM: INDUSTRIAL TO: DIGITAL FROM: Students are consumers of information TO: Students are creators of content FROM: More stuff represents prosperityTO: More users represents prosperityFROM: Students identify correct answer as fast as possibleTO: Students think critically about questions that they designFROM: BroadcastingTO: NarrowcastingFROM: Boss decides what to produce which is pushed to consumers ("supply side")TO: Users decide what to produce and they pull items into existence ("Demand side")FROM: It costs money and involves logistics to distribute goods and services leading to economies of scale (monopoly dynamics)TO: Distribution is free and instant leading to network effects (winner-takes-all platform dynamics)FROM: Security means armed guards and guns, stormtroopersTO: Security means encryption, hackersFROM: Ownership (owning capital leads to profits / Zero-sum dynamics)TO: Sharing (Uber has no cars, Airbnb no homes, AliBaba no stores / positive-sum dynamics)FROM: The corporation / "having a job" / centralizedTO: The Platform / "doing work" / crowdsourcedFROM: Groupthink of the executive teamTO: "Mass identities" manipulate the crowd (centralized attention)FROM: Uniformity and competition on standardized tasksTO: Collaboration and diversity of creative work products

Education in the Digital Age: How We Get There

Zeimer, Nadav

Nadav Zeimer

From the award-winning author of Sandworm comes&nbsp;the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence.&nbsp;"I love the book... It reads like a thriller... These stories are amazing." (Michael Lewis) Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely--whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking--than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers, these black marketeers have sought to rob law enforcement of their chief method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money. But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn't so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could uncover an entire world of wrongdoing. Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak, a Bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur, and a colorful ensemble of hardboiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest takedown of an online narcotics market in the history of the Internet. Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world's most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?

Vintage

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