Top 5 Blockchain Books for New and Advanced Learners
With increased interest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, there is also increasing interest in the underlying technology, i.e. blockchain. While Financial Technology (FinTech) companies were the first ones to notice the potential of blockchain outside of cryptocurrencies, now more and more businesses are exploring the technology. For e.g.
- Co is building a zero-commission travel marketplace with the potential to disrupt giants such as Booking.com or Airbnb.com;
- Sia network allows anyone with excess storage to put their computers up for rent, which can disrupt Cloud computing leaders like Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM;
- Nebula Genomics, Encrypgen, Luna DNA, and Zenome are few blockchain start-ups that intend to give consumers the control over their DNA testing data.
Expectedly, developers, tech enthusiasts, and general tech observers are increasingly looking at getting a good grip on this promising technology. If you are trying to learn this technology in depth, or are generally interested in understanding it, you may have been searching for good books. We are happy to bring to you a list of excellent books on Blockchain. With cryptocurrencies being so closely identified with blockchain, we thought of including a few books that touch upon cryptocurrencies as well.
Without further ado, here is our list of recommended books:
“Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking digital cryptocurrencies”, by Andreas M.Antonopoulos
The author is one of the most celebrated figures with respect to Bitcoin, and has written several other books on the subject. This is a recommended starting point for anyone that wants to understand how blockchain works, and how Bitcoin functions. This is quite technical, and if your role is that of a programmer, technical support specialist, system admin, or security specialist, you will greatly benefit from this book. The book explains technical foundations of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, basics of cryptography, data structures, network protocols, and consensus mechanism including ‘mining’. Technical topics are explained with user stories, analogies, relevant code snippets, and examples. The book can be a reference book for tech professionals, a self-study guide for entrepreneurs, and a textbook for courses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
“Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy”, by Melanie Swan
This book provides a comprehensive understanding of how blockchain works. The author is the founder of the Institute for Blockchain studies. The book goes beyond Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, goes even beyond smart contracts, and explains how blockchain could bring about a disruption as fundamentally important as Mainframe, PCs, the Internet, or mobile/social networking had brought about. The book describes the potential of blockchain not only in the financial sector but beyond that, for e.g. other industries and government. It covers the concepts of the blockchain, features of the technology, and functionalities. The book makes a case for using blockchain for automatic tracking of all digital endeavors, for e.g. creating a censorship-resistant organization, building a tamper-proof digital repository for anything that can conceivably create value, and ushering into more efficient and cheaper services.
While Bitcoin is the most famous application of blockchain to date, if blockchain is seeing wider adoption today, the credit for that must go to Ethereum. While Ether is a very popular cryptocurrency, and second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization, Ethereum’s larger value is not in Ether. Ethereum has provided the platform, including smart contracts and standards such as ERC20, which enable other developers or entrepreneurs to build their own crypto tokens and distributed apps (DApps) using it. This book explains Ethereum platform, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, DApps, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). It provides simple explanations, at the same time goes into technical aspects of Ethereum. The author is the architect at IBM’s blockchain group. Consider reading this book if you are planning to write your own Dapp on Ethereum network.
The foreword of this book was written by Vitalik Buterin, who founded Ethereum, but that’s certainly not the only attraction as far as this book is concerned. If you are an entrepreneur looking at how blockchain can help you, this is the book for you. On the other hand, if you an executive or a manager looking after the blockchain technology for your organization, this book
If you are a beginner to this technology, then this is the book for you. The author provides the historical context behind the innovation of blockchain, and explains how it may fundamentally alter our lives in future. A technical understanding of each component of blockchain is provided in this book, and the reader should be able to create her own blockchain, and build apps. The book is easy to read, and has a practical style.
Best Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Books
This was one of the first books I read to understand why Bitcoin and the technology behind Bitcoin, the blockchain, will change money, businesses, and the world. This book is authored by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, father and son in real life. I would say they are the perfect duo to pen down such a book. The book explores various use cases of blockchain across different industries. Considering there is not much to compare, to many it looks like a mere fantasy in many areas. But it is a good book overall for beginners, non-techies and noobs to really get an understanding of the blockchain technology.
Order Blockchain revolution from Amazon
Without a doubt a great book on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for those starting out. The book is written by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey. It gives you a bird’s eye view of Bitcoin’s past, present and its probable future which can be a fate of many other cryptocurrencies that followed Bitcoin. Also, the book becomes highly readable and engaging as you read through because it walks you through the extended use cases of the disruptive blockchain and crypto tech. A book highly recommended for people who aspire to understand bitcoins and blockchains in detail.
Get Hardcopy of the Age of Cryptocurrency from Amazon
This is a blockchain book for businesses, especially for executives and managers looking after the blockchain technology. The writer – William Mougayar – is an entrepreneur himself and an avid researcher on blockchain technologies. If you are someone who wants to understand the implications of blockchains on financial services and develop some POCs & projects around it, this is a must-read. If you are a beginner, this shouldn’t be your first book.
Order Kindle version of Business Blockchain from Amazon
4. Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Technologies
This is one fantastic read. The name of the book – Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencytechnologies: A Comprehensive Introduction – is self-explanatory. Whether you are a student, a software developer, a tech entrepreneur or a researcher in computer science, this book is a good tool to enlighten yourself about ‘Internet Money’. Co-authored by five intelligent personnel, this book gives you a factual picture of every core concept of Bitcoin and the technology behind it. Some of the chapters that are particularly interesting are ‘Community, Politics, and Regulation‘ & ‘Alternative Mining Puzzles‘. Overall the best you can get for all levels.
I have saved the best for last!
This is one of the best sellers in Bitcoin category for programmers and techies. It is written by a prolific computer security scientist and a very popular Bitcoin speaker – Andreas M. Antonopoulos. If you wish to understand the nitty-gritties of Bitcoin’s infrastructure and its foundational cryptographic elements, this book is for you. Beware, it is not an introduction to Bitcoin as it is mostly about programmers and crypto programming. It also requires a basic know-how of Python and C++. Anyone with that kind of programming skills can build their own cryptocurrency and blockchain with the help of this book.
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