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The Story of the Blockchain: A Beginner's Guide to the Technology Nobody Understands
**Now required reading for "The Business of Blockchain & AI" course at Columbia Business School** Blockchain technology is one of the most exciting ideas to come around in a long time, empowering cryptocoins like Bitcoin and Litecoin along with platforms such as Ripple and Ethereum. It has the potential to revolutionize money and banking while wrestling the rest of the internet away from today's gatekeepers. But it’s notoriously hard to understand, as most of the existing explanations are either too technical or too ideological. The Story of the Blockchain is a book written for the rest of us. Using a series of anecdotes from everyday life and analogies from more relatable areas, Omid Malekan takes you back to the very beginning, walking you through why this technology was invented in the first place, how it’s being utilized today, and why it might eventually impact everything. Each chapter covers a unique aspect of this frontier technology, like privacy, initial coin offerings or what it's like to be invested in the coins themselves, but the overall book still flows like an easy to follow story, one that ends with a simple tutorial on how to safely make your first cryptocoin transactions. When all is said and done, you won't just understand this revolution. You'll be a part of it.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 20, 2018
193 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 25, 2018
THE starting point on cryptocurrency
I picked this up on a recommendation for a starting point to understand Bitcoin, Ethereum, and crypto. I wasn't disappointed, and you won't be either if that's what you're looking for.
As William Gibson said "The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed." Maybe you've heard that blockchain and crypto are the future but haven't taken the plunge to learn about them yet. If so, I strongly recommend you pick up this book as your guide. The author has done a great job more evenly distributing the future in an entertaining and accessible way.
I picked this up on a recommendation for a starting point to understand Bitcoin, Ethereum, and crypto. I wasn't disappointed, and you won't be either if that's what you're looking for.
As William Gibson said "The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed." Maybe you've heard that blockchain and crypto are the future but haven't taken the plunge to learn about them yet. If so, I strongly recommend you pick up this book as your guide. The author has done a great job more evenly distributing the future in an entertaining and accessible way.
September 10, 2022
Excellent blockchain primer.
January 2, 2019
“The simplest definition of a blockchain is a technology that allows for something digital to exist in only one place. Imagine if you could download a music file and enjoy it with all of the conveniences of digital technology, but with one difference: The moment you sent it to your friend to listen to, you yourself no longer could.
“The blockchain achieves this feat by combining multiple technologies, from cryptography to peer-to-peer networks (the same ones, ironically, that powered Napster), to form a decentralized and distributed public ledger of who owns, or has access to, something, at any given moment in time.
“Let’s say that you were the first person ever to purchase a digital music file from a record label via a blockchain. As soon as the transaction happened, a network of independent computers around the world would communicate with each other and write into the ledger that ownership of a file has been transferred from a record company to you. Let’s also say that after you finished listening to the song, you decided to send it to a friend. After first confirming that you in fact own the file by checking the existing entries in the ledger, all of those computers would then agree on the transfer to your friend, and enter that exchange into the ledger as well.
“Follow this process across thousands or even millions of transactions, and you can see how the blockchain preserves the integrity of ownership. Everyone knows who owns what, because everyone can follow the existing ledger back to the beginning of time. There is no room for dispute. Whenever you receive something, the community has already made sure that the sender actually owns it, by looking at the path of how they acquired it.
“In some ways, this process is similar to how your local municipality tracks the ownership of property, and has done so for centuries. By going to the local clerk’s office, you can look up who owns a house you might be interested in buying. By looking at the chain of previous owners, you can make sure the current seller is the rightful titleholder. The blockchain digitizes this process while also improving it.
“The clerk’s office is a centralized store of information, and history has proven time and again that such places are fragile. If the office doesn’t keep proper backups, vital information might be lost. If an employee makes a mistake in entering a transaction, it might go unnoticed. Worse yet, a malicious actor could bribe the office to change a record after the fact, or even submit forgeries to wrongly transfer a property to their name. The blockchain does away with these vulnerabilities.
“Because the system is distributed, copies of the same chain are kept at thousands of independent locations around the world by different participants. Because it is decentralized, it cannot easily be penetrated or changed by any one bad actor. Since nobody owns the blockchain, it is almost impossible to corrupt it in its entirety. This integrity is accomplished by the consensus mechanism, the process by which independent volunteers continuously come to agree on who owns something today and who should rightfully own it tomorrow.”
“The blockchain achieves this feat by combining multiple technologies, from cryptography to peer-to-peer networks (the same ones, ironically, that powered Napster), to form a decentralized and distributed public ledger of who owns, or has access to, something, at any given moment in time.
“Let’s say that you were the first person ever to purchase a digital music file from a record label via a blockchain. As soon as the transaction happened, a network of independent computers around the world would communicate with each other and write into the ledger that ownership of a file has been transferred from a record company to you. Let’s also say that after you finished listening to the song, you decided to send it to a friend. After first confirming that you in fact own the file by checking the existing entries in the ledger, all of those computers would then agree on the transfer to your friend, and enter that exchange into the ledger as well.
“Follow this process across thousands or even millions of transactions, and you can see how the blockchain preserves the integrity of ownership. Everyone knows who owns what, because everyone can follow the existing ledger back to the beginning of time. There is no room for dispute. Whenever you receive something, the community has already made sure that the sender actually owns it, by looking at the path of how they acquired it.
“In some ways, this process is similar to how your local municipality tracks the ownership of property, and has done so for centuries. By going to the local clerk’s office, you can look up who owns a house you might be interested in buying. By looking at the chain of previous owners, you can make sure the current seller is the rightful titleholder. The blockchain digitizes this process while also improving it.
“The clerk’s office is a centralized store of information, and history has proven time and again that such places are fragile. If the office doesn’t keep proper backups, vital information might be lost. If an employee makes a mistake in entering a transaction, it might go unnoticed. Worse yet, a malicious actor could bribe the office to change a record after the fact, or even submit forgeries to wrongly transfer a property to their name. The blockchain does away with these vulnerabilities.
“Because the system is distributed, copies of the same chain are kept at thousands of independent locations around the world by different participants. Because it is decentralized, it cannot easily be penetrated or changed by any one bad actor. Since nobody owns the blockchain, it is almost impossible to corrupt it in its entirety. This integrity is accomplished by the consensus mechanism, the process by which independent volunteers continuously come to agree on who owns something today and who should rightfully own it tomorrow.”
November 24, 2021
- The author, Omid Malekan, tried to explain the terms and concepts of Blockchain in simplest forms, and he succeed! Even for a “noob” like me, the book did not present confusion and frustration, despite its quite complex subject matter. On the contrary, the experience was quite engaging and entertaining, one can even say – illuminating! Before reading the book, I had very vague ideas about blockchain; after reading the book, my understanding of the blockchain, its history and prospects, improves considerably. As of now, I’m pretty convinced that blockchain technology is the future, and it will affect our daily lives greatly, just as AI will.
- I especially like the fun facts and trivia, stories related to the blockchain that the author included. Some were very amusing, as was the story of a guy who bought a pizza way back then with 10.000 Bitcoins. He must have cried his eyes out now at the current situation, with Bitcoin valued at 50.000+ USD. The most expensive pizza in the history of mankind, surely!!!
- Highly recommended for all “laymen”, like me, who want to introduce themselves to the new technology that everybody seem to talk about these days.
https://binhinlovewithbooks.blogspot....
Welcome to my reading blog, where I review the books that I read!!!
Updates are coming…
- I especially like the fun facts and trivia, stories related to the blockchain that the author included. Some were very amusing, as was the story of a guy who bought a pizza way back then with 10.000 Bitcoins. He must have cried his eyes out now at the current situation, with Bitcoin valued at 50.000+ USD. The most expensive pizza in the history of mankind, surely!!!
- Highly recommended for all “laymen”, like me, who want to introduce themselves to the new technology that everybody seem to talk about these days.
https://binhinlovewithbooks.blogspot....
Welcome to my reading blog, where I review the books that I read!!!
Updates are coming…
September 20, 2018
A good narrative about Blockchain that provides accessible ideas to start to move someone up the ladder. The fact that it is fundamentally the first extension of the core idea of double entry accounting since the 1400’s was a interesting way to see that an industry such as accounting with deep experience and massive investments into IT systems was still just supercharging an old model that worked well until now.
Security is the issue driving the change, especially around digital assets that can be copied and distributed world side in a clickstime. The tension between security and transparency will remain a large factor it appears, and this technology reveals the trade offs clearly so maybe something will be on the horizon with this new understanding.
I read it in intervals over a few months, but it was a good intro to the area of Blockchain and E-currencies such as Bitcoin, which we learn is just one type of a Blockchain, and many others interesting things.
Security is the issue driving the change, especially around digital assets that can be copied and distributed world side in a clickstime. The tension between security and transparency will remain a large factor it appears, and this technology reveals the trade offs clearly so maybe something will be on the horizon with this new understanding.
I read it in intervals over a few months, but it was a good intro to the area of Blockchain and E-currencies such as Bitcoin, which we learn is just one type of a Blockchain, and many others interesting things.
January 31, 2019
Basically a giant accounting system of the cyberspace.
Omid Malekan does a great job of explaining block chain as the natural progression of accounting systems from paper to cyberspace, with enhancements that seeks to increase efficiencies by removing middlemen and possible errors by combining P2P and cryptography.
Blockchain is still in its infancy and mistakes are being made all the time. That's how progress happen.
This guy draws everyday examples as analogies to various concepts explained inside.
Omid Malekan does a great job of explaining block chain as the natural progression of accounting systems from paper to cyberspace, with enhancements that seeks to increase efficiencies by removing middlemen and possible errors by combining P2P and cryptography.
Blockchain is still in its infancy and mistakes are being made all the time. That's how progress happen.
This guy draws everyday examples as analogies to various concepts explained inside.
June 19, 2019
Surprisingly simple to follow,!
I am very impressed how easy this book was to follow. he did a great job of breaking down the basics. it is organized well and flows perfectly. Diff purchasing a hard copy for referencing in the future.
I am very impressed how easy this book was to follow. he did a great job of breaking down the basics. it is organized well and flows perfectly. Diff purchasing a hard copy for referencing in the future.
March 16, 2021
Everything that you wanted to know about Block chain, but were afraid to ask
Most people consider block chain to move as incomprehensible as quantum mechanics. This book rectified this situation, and gives a plan to get started.
Most people consider block chain to move as incomprehensible as quantum mechanics. This book rectified this situation, and gives a plan to get started.
July 27, 2021
A great big picture perspective of a complicated subject. The author has a talent for explaining complex concepts in simple terms. Easy to follow and extremely informative. I learned a lot from this book.
August 22, 2021
Great primer and introductory text on crypto currency and blockchain
This book lays out complex cryptocurrency and blockchain theory in simple terms. Also describes the ecosystem and industry context for a person trying to get started in this space
This book lays out complex cryptocurrency and blockchain theory in simple terms. Also describes the ecosystem and industry context for a person trying to get started in this space
November 13, 2024
Excellent introduction.
I’m reading this at the end of 2024 after discovering Omid Malekan on YouTube. Some of the info is outdated, but most of it is solid and intuitive explanations. I’m immediately moving onto his next book.
I’m reading this at the end of 2024 after discovering Omid Malekan on YouTube. Some of the info is outdated, but most of it is solid and intuitive explanations. I’m immediately moving onto his next book.
September 14, 2025
Great primer on blockchain/crypto for beginners (trust me, I’m currently reading three different introductory books on blockchain). This one stands out as clear, accessible, and genuinely helpful for anyone coming in without prior familiarity.
October 12, 2018
A great easy to read introduction
A great easy to read introduction with many examples and a nice writing style. It will leave you wanting to know more.
A great easy to read introduction with many examples and a nice writing style. It will leave you wanting to know more.
November 26, 2018
Great highlevel overview of blockchain and BitCoin related technologies. Great place to start to get familiar with the area.
January 6, 2019
Very well explained.
Now I have a clear understanding of what Blockchain is and how Bitcoin was created and how both may impact the future.
Now I have a clear understanding of what Blockchain is and how Bitcoin was created and how both may impact the future.
January 19, 2019
I found this book to be very readable and informative about this subject. The author does have a talent for explaining complex subjects.
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June 16, 2020A very easy and clear introduction to Blockchain
November 24, 2024
was a high-level overview of the main concepts/topics related to Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
April 9, 2020
More emphasis on cryptocurrency than blockchain. A short informative read.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews