Technology guru Don Tapscott, together with his investment banker son Alex, makes a bold claim on the subtitle of the pair’s just-published book, Blockchain Revolution (Penguin Canada, Toronto).They promise that the “technology behind Bitcoin is changing money, business and the world.” Certainly Bitcoin and Blockchain technology are something anyone in the financial services industry needs to pay attention to.The first of seven chapters on Transformations is devoted to reinventing the Financial Services Industry, which the authors dub “the world’s second-oldest profession.” The global financial system supports a global economy worth more than $100 trillion, making it the world’s most powerful industry and foundation of global capitalism, the authors write.And yet, with some of it still running on 1970s mainframe computers, close up the financial system is a “Rube Goldberg contraption of uneven developments and bizarre contradictions.” If ever an industry were ready for disruption, this one would appear to be it.

In an interview at the book launch, Alex Tapscott told me that true “fin tech” (financial technology) is based on the blockchain.And blockchain itself is what The Economist magazine dubbed “The Trust Machine.” Accordingly, the Tapscotts’ book begins with a chapter titled The Trust Protocol.bitcoin mining gpu setupBanks around the world are paying close attention to blockchain, but the financial industry has already rebranded and privatized blockchain technology as “distributed ledger technology.” The goal appears to be to “reconcile the best of bitcoin – security, speed and cost – with an entirely closed system that requires a bank or financial institution’s permission to use,” the authors write.free bitcoin cheat engineTo them, blockchains are more reliable databases than what they already have, permitting buyers, sellers, custodians and regulators “to keep shared, indelible records, thereby reducing cost, mitigating settlement risk, and eliminating central points of failure.” If you’re a financial services executive, you need to pay attention this technology, and hence this book.litecoin worth usd

Investors, particularly those interested in technology, would also do well to spend some time researching this field; the Tapscotts’ book is a convenient place to start.definition of bitcoin in hindiThere are dozens if not hundreds of names of new outfits just springing up, which may be household names among blockheads – my own term for Blockchain cognoscenti – but are probably still below the radar of the general public and broad swath of investors.bitcoin discardedCanadian firms major blockchain innovators And many of the leading firms are Canadian, which should be music to the ears of the federal government and its “innovation” agenda.bitcoin cuda nvidiaFor example, in 2013 a then-19-year old Canadian of Russian descent – Vitalik Buterin – created a company called Ethereum, a new platform that runs decentralized applications such as smart contracts.bitcoin redeemable code

Unlike bitcoin, Ethereum has created powerful tools that let software developers create anything from decentralized games to stock exchanges.bitcoin wie viel pro tagAnd in 2015, one of the first Ethereum software developers was launched, Consensys Systems.ethereal knives gearThe book’s scope goes far beyond the financial world, however.It covers everything from serving the world’s two billion “unbanked” citizens, to “rebuilding” democracy and government, enabling artists, musicians and other creators of intellectual property to get a fair price for their creations, and much more.Ignore this book — already a bestseller according to a tweet today by Don Tapscott — at your peril.Digital Citizen video on blockchain See also a discussion of the Tapscotts and Blockchain Revolution at this half-hour video that recently aired on That Channel’s Digital Citizen Show.

The first complete draft of an upcoming Princeton University textbook on bitcoin is now available.Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies takes comprehensive look at the technology behind bitcoin.The free download is the first complete draft of the book, with an official version expected to be published this summer.Citing its "conversational style", co-author Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton, wrote in an introductory blog post: "If you’re looking to truly understand how bitcoin works at a technical level and have a basic familiarity with computer science and programming, this book is for you."In addition to Narayanan, the book was authored with Electronic Frontier Foundation technology fellow Joseph Bonneau; University of Maryland computer science PhD student Andrew Miller; Princeton University computer science PhD student Steven Goldfeder; Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering assistant professor Jeremy Clark; and Ed Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton who was named as a technology advisor to President Barack Obama last year.

The book assumes a basic understanding of computer science, and is aimed at students, software developers, entrepreneurs, and technology hobbyists.The work addresses a number of questions about bitcoin, focusing on how the technology functions as well as what the future might bring for the network.Further, the authors examine a number of other aspects of the cryptocurrency, including security, user anonymity, regulation and the types of applications that can be built using bitcoin as a platform.For those that want to delve even deeper into the technology, the book's chapters also include a series of "homework questions".In addition, there are programming assignments with which readers can implement various components of bitcoin using simplified models."After reading this book, you’ll know everything you need to be able to separate fact from fiction when reading claims about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies," the authors say."You’ll have the conceptual foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the bitcoin network.