Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies

Andreas M. Antonopoulos

"O'Reilly Media, Inc.", Dec 3, 2014 - Business & Economics - 298 pages

Want to join the technological revolution that’s taking the world of finance by storm? Mastering Bitcoin is your guide through the seemingly complex world of bitcoin, providing the requisite knowledge to help you participate in the internet of money. Whether you’re building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this practical book is essential reading.

Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, is still in its infancy and it’s already spawned a multi-billion dollar global economy. This economy is open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides you with the knowledge you need (passion not included).

This book includes:

• A broad introduction to bitcoin—ideal for non-technical users, investors, and business executives
• An explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects
• Details of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles
• Offshoots of the bitcoin and blockchain inventions, including alternative chains, currencies, and applications
• User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - rmagahiz - LibraryThing

It gives a good basic understanding of the algorithms behind transactions, the blockchain, and some of the better known vulnerabilities. One chapter gives a taste of alt-coins without going into too ...

Excellent overview of bitcoin technology

User Review  - Samuel A. - Overstock.com

This is probably the best tech book I have ever read but I may be biased because I came into it already immensely interested in the subject. As a programmer who was a bit wary of tackling the ...

Contents

• Chapter 1 Introduction: 1
• Chapter 2 How Bitcoin Works: 15
• Chapter 3 The Bitcoin Client: 31
• Chapter 4 Keys Addresses Wallets: 61
• Chapter 5 Transactions: 111
• Chapter 6 The Bitcoin Network: 139
• Chapter 7 The Blockchain: 161
• Chapter 8 Mining and Consensus: 175
• Chapter 9 Alternative Chains Currencies and Applications: 217
• Chapter 10 Bitcoin Security: 233
• Appendix A Transaction Script Language Operators Constants and Symbols: 239
• Appendix B Bitcoin Improvement Proposals: 245
• Appendix C pycoin ku and tx: 249
• Appendix D Bitcoin Explorer bx Commands: 259
• Index: 263
• About the Author: 273

About the author

Andreas is a passionate technologist, who is well-versed in many technical subjects. He is a serial tech-entrepreneur, having launched businesses in London, New York, and California. He has earned degrees in Computer Science and Data Communications and Distributed Systems from UCL. With experience ranging from hardware and electronics to high level business and financial systems technology consulting and years as CTO/CIO/CSO in many companies -- he combines authority and deep knowledge with an ability to make complex subjects easy to understand. More than 200 of his articles on security, cloud computing and data centers have been published in print and syndicated worldwide. His expertise includes Bitcoin, crypto-currencies, Information Security, Cryptography, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Linux, Open Source and robotics software development. He also has been CISSP certified for 12 years.As a bitcoin entrepreneur, Andreas has founded three bitcoin businesses and launched several community open-source projects. He often writes articles and blog posts on bitcoin, is a permanent host on Let's Talk Bitcoin and prolific public speaker at technology events. Andreas serves on the advisory boards of several bitcoin startups and serves as the Chief Security Officer of Blockchain.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies
• Author: Andreas M. Antonopoulos
• Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2014
• ISBN: 1491902647, 9781491902646
• Length: 298 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / E-Commerce / General; Business & Economics / E-Commerce / Online Trading; Business & Economics / Entrepreneurship; Business & Economics / Finance / General; Business & Economics / Personal Finance / General; Computers / Electronic Commerce; Computers / Internet / General; Computers / Security / Cryptography & Encryption; Computers / Security / General