I now understand why bitcoin is important, and I hope it succeeds. But so far, it seems like it's only the digital gold aspect that is succeeding, but not the money - there's really not much you can buy with it, and not much of an incentive to use it rather than a credit card. With a credit card, you have some protection - which is why vendors like bitcoin so much; no chargebacks.

I had a bit of trouble keeping up with all the players, but it was a pretty interesting story, and interesting characters, including behind-the-scenes glimpses of the rich and successful and how they so things.

There is a forum I participate in that has donation drives with a preference for bitcoin. I opened an account with Coinbase about a year or so ago, and used it kind of like Paypal, buying and then sending aroung $20. The second time, I bought a little extra, as it seemed more efficient - I think it was an extra $20. Several months later I had over $50. Since then, I bought $100 worth, and now have over $200 worth. So, that made me a little more interested in how it works. But I'm still not willing to invest more than I care to lose. ( )

While giving a great account of the early days of Bitcoin and blockchain, the subtle question of true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto does impress throughout the book. More importantly than that, this book allows almost anyone to access the base of information needed to begin digesting the roots and the implications of the blockchain technology. Great place to start, or to expand your knowledge of Bitcoin. And even if you understand it well already, the historical accounts and dramas of the early adopters of Bitcoins are fascinating enough to keep you reading. Thank you for compiling this work and bringing it to us all! ( )

Part adventure, part biography, part true crime - this fascinating look at the initial beginnings of Bitcoin was captivating. A variety of ideals and different personalities come into play in creating a new technology which will be as disruptive in the long term to the financial sector as Amazon has been to consumer retail. ( )

This was a decent overview of part of the story of Bitcoin, with a focus on some of the people involved rather than the technology. It neglected most of the cypherpunks history, as well as the "digital gold currency" movement (which would be complicated, given the title), and missed many of the interesting events even around Bitcoin itself. However, the details of some of the personalities were worth reading, and as a broad overview, it's not bad. ( )

$995 mxn

Very interesting account of the history of bitcoin and some good information about how it works ( )

I didn't pay much attention to BitCoin when it first came out. I've done a little web development over the years, but I'm not a coder. I've also had a curiosity surrounding encryption (when I taught middle school math, we had a unit on encryption), but again, am not an expert in the subject. But I think the main reason I didn't pay attention to BitCoin is that I'm a Luddite, and I have massive suspicion for any new technology, especially financial technologies (which I generally judge to be exploitative).

I recently started helping out on a friend's blockchain venture, and finally had to study up on this field. The vast majority of this research has been online, but I was hoping to supplement my research with some books. This was the only one I could find that comes strongly recommended.

The book was published two years ago, so it doesn't get into the recent Initial Coin Offering phase, or Ethereum and Smart Contracts. That said, it does cover the fascinating origins in 2008 up into 2014. Our author did a massive amount of research, and collated the seemingly-disparate threads into one unified narrative.

Somewhat surprisingly, BitCoin's origins aren't closely tied with Silicon Valley, and only recently has it really been gaining a foothold there. Additionally, even with BitCoin's meteoric rise, it still only has provisional support from the IRS and SEC, and hasn't yet been adopted by any American banks. It seems as though we're still in the very beginnings of the cryptocurrency era. ( )

Beautiful insight into creation of Bitcoin and the thought process of the like minded creators of crypto-currency. Some chapters were quite boring to read and felt like had no (or very limited) connection to either the preceding or succeeding chapter. Nevertheless a good read. ( )

This is an excellent overview of the history of Bitcoin and the many people involved with Bitcoin over the course of its creation and ascendance. Popper does an excellent job telling the human interest side of the story and leaves most technical details to the appendix. The book follows many individuals however the narrative abruptly stops with little to no conclusion about these individuals or the state of Bitcoin at the time this went to press. I also found the technical details lacking which was unfortunate since many questions about the technical details appeared in the book but were not mentioned in the appendix. ( )