Techdirt Reading List: The Blockchain Revolution

from the the-times,-they-are-a-changing dept

We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt.

Well, after doing four copyright books in a row, I figured it was finally time to change things up a bit, so this week, we're moving on to a technology that actually could change a lot of things -- including raising policy questions in a ton of areas: the blockchain. For the longest time, I've been meaning to write a post with the title "the Greatest Trick Bitcoin Ever Pulled Was Making People Think It Was About The Currency," but I never got around to it. Of course, in the last few months, there's been more and more understanding about the importance of the underlying blockchain technology as the truly revolutionary part of all of this. Of course, the blockchain and Bitcoin go hand in hand, and it's Bitcoin that helps make the blockchain actually work the way it needs to work, so attempts by some to separate the two entirely seem a bit extreme.

Either way, Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, who have been writing books about innovation and the culture of innovation for a very long time, have now released Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. And it's a really well written and comprehensive overview of why the blockchain has the potential to be so revolutionary, but it's also about the challenges ahead. If you follow the space closely, I don't think there's anything that surprising about the book, but it does a really good job of pulling together a number of different threads and summarizing the potential of the blockchain very concretely.

And, if you don't understand all this blockchain/Bitcoin stuff at all, or why it matters, but want to understand it, then this is absolutely a book worth reading. Considering the possibility of the blockchain remaking a variety of different businesses, while opening up new areas for possible innovation, I highly recommend check out this book to help you think through the possibilities.

Filed Under: blockchain, don tapscott, reading list, techdirt reading list