Mastering Bitcoin

Mastering Bitcoin

Andreas M. Antonpolulos
O’Reilly Media Inc 2015

This book contains a lot of code. I am not a programmer so I will not do it justice in this review. Still I learned a lot as it does a good job of explaining bitcoin and its source code known as forks. He also gets into alt coins which are digital currencies implemented using the same pattern as bitcoin but with a completely separate blockchain and network. There are also a number of protocol layers that can be implemented on top of bitcoin’s blockchain. Meta coins and meta chains are software layers implemented on top of bitcoin. They extend the core bitcoin protocol and add features and capabilities.

Some alternative blockchain implementations are not coins at all. But they use a consensus algorithm and a distributed ledger as a platform for contracts, registration, or some other application.

Some contenders offer a digital currency or digital payment network but without using a decentralized ledger or a consensus mechanism, e.g., Ripple.

Evaluation of alt coins

• Does the coin introduce significant innovation
  
• Is the difference compelling enough to attract users away from bitcoin
  
• Does the alt coin address an interesting niche or application\Can it attract enough miners to be secured against consensus attacks
  
  

Financial considerations:

• Total market capitalization
  
• How many users/wallets
  
• How many merchants
  
• How many daily transactions, (volume)
  
• How much value is transacted daily.
  
  

Blockchain’s decentralized organization and consensus system will significantly reduce the cost of organization and coordination on large scale systems while removing opportunities for concentration of power, corruption, and regulatory capture.