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The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
"Views differ on bitcoin, but few doubt the transformative potential of Blockchain technology. The Truth Machine is the best book so far on what has happened and what may come along. It demands the attention of anyone concerned with our economic future." --Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard, Former Treasury Secretary
From Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, the authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet's Next Big Thing: The Blockchain.
Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the "legacy systems" once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this--a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain.
In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society's faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping.
Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we've relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes--moving humanity forward, not backward.
From Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, the authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet's Next Big Thing: The Blockchain.
Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the "legacy systems" once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this--a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain.
In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society's faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping.
Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we've relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes--moving humanity forward, not backward.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2018
About the author
Michael J. Casey
10 books48 followersA native of Perth, Western Australia,
Michael Casey is writer and researcher in the fields of economics, finance, and digital technology and culture. He is currently Senior Advisor for the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT's renowned Media Lab, while also providing consulting services and speaking globally on the evolving digital governance of the global economy. Casey was previously a journalists, including 18 years at the Wall Street Journal covering global economics and markets.
He is the author of four books. Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image (Vintage, 2009) is a history of and cultural commentary on Alberto Korda's famous image of Che Guevara, the world's most reproduced photographic image. It was chosen as one of New York Times' critic Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten picks of 2009. The Unfair Trade: How Our Broken Global Financial System Destroys the Middle Class (Crown, 2012) looks at the global financial crisis through the stories of ordinary citizens around the world. The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain are Challenging the Global Economic Order (co-authored with Paul Vigna; St. Martin's Press, 2015) is an expose on the economic, cultural and political changes heralded by the technology behind bitcoin and digital currencies. Finally,
Michael Casey is writer and researcher in the fields of economics, finance, and digital technology and culture. He is currently Senior Advisor for the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT's renowned Media Lab, while also providing consulting services and speaking globally on the evolving digital governance of the global economy. Casey was previously a journalists, including 18 years at the Wall Street Journal covering global economics and markets.
He is the author of four books. Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image (Vintage, 2009) is a history of and cultural commentary on Alberto Korda's famous image of Che Guevara, the world's most reproduced photographic image. It was chosen as one of New York Times' critic Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten picks of 2009. The Unfair Trade: How Our Broken Global Financial System Destroys the Middle Class (Crown, 2012) looks at the global financial crisis through the stories of ordinary citizens around the world. The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain are Challenging the Global Economic Order (co-authored with Paul Vigna; St. Martin's Press, 2015) is an expose on the economic, cultural and political changes heralded by the technology behind bitcoin and digital currencies. Finally,
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June 2, 2018
This could have been good, but they got enough details wrong (not due to facts changing, but just sloppiness and bad editing), plus a huge amount of filler (half of the book?) that it wouldn’t be worthwhile for most people. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of other better books about cryptocurrency beyond the initial bitcoin and basic blockchain tech level.
I’m a relative expert in this topic (involved in anonymous electronic cash and similar projects since 1992, currently working in the cryptocurrency space in technology and security) so I was already familiar with essentially all of the content in the book. The problem with a book like this is that in addition to constantly moving goalposts, a lot of projects are rather deceptive, and if you write about things with too high a level of credulity it will ultimately be misleading. There is probably some value in just summarizing what projects say they intend to do, but a lot more value in actual analysis.
The “fluff” level was high, but there was probably a solid 50-100 page book inside. If that had been combined with some deeper analysis of projects, technology, and results, it would be worth reading.
I’m a relative expert in this topic (involved in anonymous electronic cash and similar projects since 1992, currently working in the cryptocurrency space in technology and security) so I was already familiar with essentially all of the content in the book. The problem with a book like this is that in addition to constantly moving goalposts, a lot of projects are rather deceptive, and if you write about things with too high a level of credulity it will ultimately be misleading. There is probably some value in just summarizing what projects say they intend to do, but a lot more value in actual analysis.
The “fluff” level was high, but there was probably a solid 50-100 page book inside. If that had been combined with some deeper analysis of projects, technology, and results, it would be worth reading.
February 28, 2018
This book is a primer on blockchain technology written by two experienced financial journalists with a ringside seat. They previously wrote a book about Bitcoin, the first, but far from only, application of blockchain technology, also known as distributed ledger technology. It’s the basic technology behind “token economics” and is conceptually associated with peer-to-peer and decentralized processing.
The authors provide a current snapshot of industry developments and a thoughtful review of the challenges, risks, and opportunities that now present themselves. One of those challenges is scalability. For reasons I won’t try to explain here, that one issue has fractured the industry into permissionless (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum) and permissioned segments, the former behaving more like the original ideal of the democratized digital economy and the latter being a variation of the gatekeepers model (think banks) we have today.
But why should you care if you are outside the universe of tech investors, banks, entrepreneurs, and engineers? Because tech exists to serve a larger purpose. And that larger purpose, in this case, as the authors point out, extends, at a minimum, to the Internet of Things, but may ultimately impact not just our economy, but our society and our democracy. It could, as one example the authors offer, eventually lead to things like the commercialization of your personal reputation. (Admittedly a long way off.)
This is not a book about Bitcoin, although it does come up a lot. The relevance is that Bitcoin uses blockchain technology. And whether you think Bitcoin is fool’s gold or not, the underlying technology has worked pretty well. In nine years, no one has hacked the system.
The Internet and its digital revolution have one over-riding problem: digital data can be replicated. In essence that means that any digital system can be compromised. And as we’ve discovered there is no shortage of people in the world who will make every attempt to do so. It’s easy money and some people, for some perverse reason, consider it “fun.” (Or payback, perhaps.)
Protecting the integrity of the digital world, as a result, has proven to be a monumental task. It’s expensive, requires a lot of people, and ultimately fails. In part, this has contributed to the reality that the Internet, once perceived to be the ultimate egalitarian state, is now the ultimate monopoly. A handful of giant companies, whose names you can easily identify, now control it. And while no one really knows what that will mean longer term, the yellow flags are starting to be hoisted, particularly following the 2016 presidential election.
The easiest way to think of blockchain, perhaps, is that it goes back to the original digital ideal of the pure democracy, but incorporates security protocols that reduce the forces favoring consolidation of the gatekeepers. In short, it is the architecture that makes good on the original vision. Maybe.
There are a few hurdles, however. The first is that you have to accept that the system is better, but not perfect. Before you can evaluate that decision, however, you must accept that the current system of accounting that governs our banks and corporations is far from perfect, too. Accounting is not truth. And that is the truth. Accounting is an approximation of truth and sometimes the gap, as we saw during the 2008 financial crisis, can be huge – as in big enough to cause a “healthy” bank like Lehman Brothers to disappear overnight.
That, I fear, is going to be a very hard sell to the average citizen. Or, more accurately, once you let the cat out of the bag people are going to be aghast and it is unlikely they will see doubling down on technology as the best way forward. It is human nature to not want to think about what we don’t want to think about. And most people don’t want to think about the fact that Wall Street really has no idea what the companies whose stocks it trades are worth. Or that our biggest employers really don’t know if they are making or losing money. That sounds a lot like chaos and we don’t like to go there, particularly since that same Wall Street is playing its game of chance with our retirement and our savings.
It’s important to accept that, however, because blockchains do not promise perfection. They might be better, but better is relative. Digital, by definition, means replicable, for good or bad. The risk can be reduced, but it can’t be eliminated.
And that brings us to the second big challenge. Like any system of security and trust, blockchains will require that we all agree on some fundamental rules. And this, I fear, will be an even bigger hurdle than the first. And the reason is the asymmetry of power that exists today.
Our economy and our society, and particularly our politics, are today ruled by minorities. It might be a numeric minority, or it might not be, but its opinion falls short of a complete consensus. There is no democracy if by democracy we mean everyone has an equal say in things. That’s not even close to being today’s reality.
And as we witness day in and day out, the people who benefit from that asymmetry today want to make the balance of power even more asymmetrical – to their benefit, of course. That’s why we have lobbyists and why corporations and wealthy individuals invest so much money in the political process. If power were allocated symmetrically, it would be a lousy investment.
It is that asymmetry, even more than the unanticipated security challenge, that has allowed corporate America to hijack the digital economy to the degree it has. It’s not just that the corporations did it; it is the fact that Washington let them, and in fact facilitated them. (And we, the users, of course, let the politicians let them.)
I don’t yet see, frankly, how blockchain technology gets around that. The banks and the tech giants will seize the agenda and rework it to their advantage, as it appears, from the information provided in this book, they are already doing. In the end, if that continues, we will have the next big thing that looks and smells a little different but is the same old thing when it comes to asymmetric power. Maybe a few new products, like crypotcurrencies or blockchain-enabled supply chains, but the same old players pulling the same old strings to their advantage.
My ultimate takeaway from the book: It’s ultimately a battle between an ideology of individualism and an ideology built on the common good. Liberal democracy, as we know it today, and have known it since the founding of the country, is built on a foundation of individualism (e.g, individual rights, freedoms, and opportunities). And it has worked remarkably well.
The Achilles Heel of individualism, however, is the asymmetric allocation of power. It is a weakness, moreover, that has been great exaggerated and accelerated by technology. Technology, to date, has done nothing quite so dramatically as it has enhanced the asymmetric allocation of power in our economy, our society, and our politics.
The ultimate promise of blockchain technology, therefore, as I think the authors see it, is the opportunity to double down on individualism. The blockchain, might, if the predictions hold, provide the means to overcome the inherent inequities of modern capitalism fueled by the creation of digital monopolies.
They might be right. But, as Yogi Berra noted, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” And I’m with Yogi on this one. I don’t see the 1%, however you define it, just walking away and letting the other 99% of us back into the fight.
Perhaps more importantly, Washington shows no resolve to do anything to impede the asymmetric accumulation of power by corporations and wealthy individuals. According to the authors, while the central banks of England, Japan, and Canada are all actively exploring blockchain technologies, our own government seems content to leave it in the hands of private initiatives like the corporate consortium, Hyperledger, dominated by companies like IBM and Intel.
I may be wrong. I dearly hope I am. At any rate, it’s a very good book and you will do yourself an injustice if you don’t read it.
The authors provide a current snapshot of industry developments and a thoughtful review of the challenges, risks, and opportunities that now present themselves. One of those challenges is scalability. For reasons I won’t try to explain here, that one issue has fractured the industry into permissionless (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum) and permissioned segments, the former behaving more like the original ideal of the democratized digital economy and the latter being a variation of the gatekeepers model (think banks) we have today.
But why should you care if you are outside the universe of tech investors, banks, entrepreneurs, and engineers? Because tech exists to serve a larger purpose. And that larger purpose, in this case, as the authors point out, extends, at a minimum, to the Internet of Things, but may ultimately impact not just our economy, but our society and our democracy. It could, as one example the authors offer, eventually lead to things like the commercialization of your personal reputation. (Admittedly a long way off.)
This is not a book about Bitcoin, although it does come up a lot. The relevance is that Bitcoin uses blockchain technology. And whether you think Bitcoin is fool’s gold or not, the underlying technology has worked pretty well. In nine years, no one has hacked the system.
The Internet and its digital revolution have one over-riding problem: digital data can be replicated. In essence that means that any digital system can be compromised. And as we’ve discovered there is no shortage of people in the world who will make every attempt to do so. It’s easy money and some people, for some perverse reason, consider it “fun.” (Or payback, perhaps.)
Protecting the integrity of the digital world, as a result, has proven to be a monumental task. It’s expensive, requires a lot of people, and ultimately fails. In part, this has contributed to the reality that the Internet, once perceived to be the ultimate egalitarian state, is now the ultimate monopoly. A handful of giant companies, whose names you can easily identify, now control it. And while no one really knows what that will mean longer term, the yellow flags are starting to be hoisted, particularly following the 2016 presidential election.
The easiest way to think of blockchain, perhaps, is that it goes back to the original digital ideal of the pure democracy, but incorporates security protocols that reduce the forces favoring consolidation of the gatekeepers. In short, it is the architecture that makes good on the original vision. Maybe.
There are a few hurdles, however. The first is that you have to accept that the system is better, but not perfect. Before you can evaluate that decision, however, you must accept that the current system of accounting that governs our banks and corporations is far from perfect, too. Accounting is not truth. And that is the truth. Accounting is an approximation of truth and sometimes the gap, as we saw during the 2008 financial crisis, can be huge – as in big enough to cause a “healthy” bank like Lehman Brothers to disappear overnight.
That, I fear, is going to be a very hard sell to the average citizen. Or, more accurately, once you let the cat out of the bag people are going to be aghast and it is unlikely they will see doubling down on technology as the best way forward. It is human nature to not want to think about what we don’t want to think about. And most people don’t want to think about the fact that Wall Street really has no idea what the companies whose stocks it trades are worth. Or that our biggest employers really don’t know if they are making or losing money. That sounds a lot like chaos and we don’t like to go there, particularly since that same Wall Street is playing its game of chance with our retirement and our savings.
It’s important to accept that, however, because blockchains do not promise perfection. They might be better, but better is relative. Digital, by definition, means replicable, for good or bad. The risk can be reduced, but it can’t be eliminated.
And that brings us to the second big challenge. Like any system of security and trust, blockchains will require that we all agree on some fundamental rules. And this, I fear, will be an even bigger hurdle than the first. And the reason is the asymmetry of power that exists today.
Our economy and our society, and particularly our politics, are today ruled by minorities. It might be a numeric minority, or it might not be, but its opinion falls short of a complete consensus. There is no democracy if by democracy we mean everyone has an equal say in things. That’s not even close to being today’s reality.
And as we witness day in and day out, the people who benefit from that asymmetry today want to make the balance of power even more asymmetrical – to their benefit, of course. That’s why we have lobbyists and why corporations and wealthy individuals invest so much money in the political process. If power were allocated symmetrically, it would be a lousy investment.
It is that asymmetry, even more than the unanticipated security challenge, that has allowed corporate America to hijack the digital economy to the degree it has. It’s not just that the corporations did it; it is the fact that Washington let them, and in fact facilitated them. (And we, the users, of course, let the politicians let them.)
I don’t yet see, frankly, how blockchain technology gets around that. The banks and the tech giants will seize the agenda and rework it to their advantage, as it appears, from the information provided in this book, they are already doing. In the end, if that continues, we will have the next big thing that looks and smells a little different but is the same old thing when it comes to asymmetric power. Maybe a few new products, like crypotcurrencies or blockchain-enabled supply chains, but the same old players pulling the same old strings to their advantage.
My ultimate takeaway from the book: It’s ultimately a battle between an ideology of individualism and an ideology built on the common good. Liberal democracy, as we know it today, and have known it since the founding of the country, is built on a foundation of individualism (e.g, individual rights, freedoms, and opportunities). And it has worked remarkably well.
The Achilles Heel of individualism, however, is the asymmetric allocation of power. It is a weakness, moreover, that has been great exaggerated and accelerated by technology. Technology, to date, has done nothing quite so dramatically as it has enhanced the asymmetric allocation of power in our economy, our society, and our politics.
The ultimate promise of blockchain technology, therefore, as I think the authors see it, is the opportunity to double down on individualism. The blockchain, might, if the predictions hold, provide the means to overcome the inherent inequities of modern capitalism fueled by the creation of digital monopolies.
They might be right. But, as Yogi Berra noted, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” And I’m with Yogi on this one. I don’t see the 1%, however you define it, just walking away and letting the other 99% of us back into the fight.
Perhaps more importantly, Washington shows no resolve to do anything to impede the asymmetric accumulation of power by corporations and wealthy individuals. According to the authors, while the central banks of England, Japan, and Canada are all actively exploring blockchain technologies, our own government seems content to leave it in the hands of private initiatives like the corporate consortium, Hyperledger, dominated by companies like IBM and Intel.
I may be wrong. I dearly hope I am. At any rate, it’s a very good book and you will do yourself an injustice if you don’t read it.
March 16, 2018
50% speculation and fluff; 20% talking their book. I feel dumber for having read it.
February 17, 2021
Essentially a sequel to the authors excellent primer on blockchain technologies, "The Age of Cryptocurrency." The book goes over the basics of how the blockchain ledger is managed and then enters into speculative ideas over how a permissionless system of trust might reshape society. They are very much on the maximalist side, which makes the analysis more fun, seeing the possibility of a post-work world where with the help of blockchain everything is automated and optimized and much human labor has been reduced to coding. While the first book focused primarily on Bitcoin and other currencies that can run on blockchain, this one looks more at nascent projects building on Ethereum to allow contracts to be created with perfect trust and individuals to monetize and be credited for their creative output online. All in al it is a further chapter in the disintermediation of social institutions, which, as the authors themselves note, might put central banks at odds with their long-time institutional partners. In a perfectly blockchained financial world accountants will be about as necessary as street lamp lighters.
The book contains about 30% solid information and 70% speculation and exploration of various then-ongoing projects, some of which seem to have proceeded and some not. It is worth reading as an update to the 2015 prequel but given all the changes in this field still playing out some of it is already dated. This is the challenge of course in writing about a rapidly-evolving field.
The book contains about 30% solid information and 70% speculation and exploration of various then-ongoing projects, some of which seem to have proceeded and some not. It is worth reading as an update to the 2015 prequel but given all the changes in this field still playing out some of it is already dated. This is the challenge of course in writing about a rapidly-evolving field.
April 7, 2019
So many times I complained because I couldn’t understand the phenomenon of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. I didn’t understand how they are created, and why their value is so volatile. From my point of view, fueled by banks and other authorities, it was clear speculation, an investment bubble created by our basic instincts, driven by a bunch of greedy guys.
The Truth Machine explores a short history of publicly maintained databases, such as Wikipedia and presents it as an excellent example of how we should create and store information in the future. Then, the concept of encryption is presented which, by blending with a public database, makes a good starting point to illustrate how Bitcoins work. I still might be wrong, but for me, Bitcoin is a value chain with a limited amount of values. This limitation, mixed with a whole exchanging mechanism around, makes it so valuable. I think that I have acknowledged the concept of ciphered peer-to-peer deals and, by catching that, now I understand why all financial institutions and governments oppose it so ferociously. Frankly speaking, peer-to-peer... (if you like to read my full review please visit my blog: https://leadersarereaders.blog/the-tr...)
The Truth Machine explores a short history of publicly maintained databases, such as Wikipedia and presents it as an excellent example of how we should create and store information in the future. Then, the concept of encryption is presented which, by blending with a public database, makes a good starting point to illustrate how Bitcoins work. I still might be wrong, but for me, Bitcoin is a value chain with a limited amount of values. This limitation, mixed with a whole exchanging mechanism around, makes it so valuable. I think that I have acknowledged the concept of ciphered peer-to-peer deals and, by catching that, now I understand why all financial institutions and governments oppose it so ferociously. Frankly speaking, peer-to-peer... (if you like to read my full review please visit my blog: https://leadersarereaders.blog/the-tr...)
August 13, 2019
I sought out this book hoping to learn more about how blockchain technology works. The author did a good job expounding on the opportunities this technology offers. I have a much clearer understanding of how blockchain works and some of the drawbacks. The author has a vast knowledge of the history and current state of blockchain and I really appreciated getting an insider’s viewpoint.
This book was exhaustively researched and has a huge amount of information in it. I was mightily impressed with his thoroughness.
I especially enjoyed his discussion of how blockchain could be used to keep any information (not just currency) safe. The potential for uncrackable privacy is exciting. I’m really hopeful that the world may have found a solution that will help reduce theft and disruption through dispersal of information. It’s an ingenious solution: make the data so hard to find and collect that it becomes cost prohibitive to steal.
There are so many uses for this technology and I was mightily impressed with the author’s thorough research of all the players and all the different incubator projects and companies working in the blockchain world. He really plumbed the depths of all the work going on right now.
Casey did a fine job of showing all the many different ways blockchain could be implemented. I never knew there were so many uses for this technology or that it is being utilized for non-financial purposes in industries such as shipping, manufacturing, construction, retail, government and dozens of other sectors. He waxes on endlessly about how blockchain technology is the cure for all that ails the world. It gets a bit tiring at times, but I do find his pie-eyed enthusiasm somewhat endearing.
I particularly enjoyed his discussion on how blockchain could be used to improve the problem of personal identification. This is a huge problem in the developing world and there are some fascinating new ideas for detaching the system of identification from governments and big business.
There was so much good about this book, but unfortunately, the author is such a fanboy that he tends to gloss over criticisms of the technology. He continually makes summary judgments on the nefariousness of the major institutions of the world: all governments are out to control us, all corporations are evil, all those with power are greedy, etc. There are good and bad things about these entities and his heavy-handed dismissal of these institutions got a bit tiring.
I can appreciate his libertarian mindset but it tends to blind him to the finer points of the opportunities and drawbacks of blockchain. The characters and institutions in the book tend to be portrayed as either heroes or villains. Casey pays less attention to the gray areas that are the most interesting components of this debate.
Case in point: he dismisses the entire advertising industry as a greedy manipulator hellbent on mind control. Sure, there’s a lot of annoying advertising, but that advertising bankrolls free access to content. He’s so busy blasting authority that he neglects to explain how average people will pay for content if advertising goes away.
He touched on this briefly, but I wish he had spent more time explaining the downside of blockchain, for example: crime. It seems as though cryptocurrency has been a catalyst for scammers, drug dealers, oligarchs and all the evildoers in the world.
Blockchain cuts out middlemen, distributes power and increases efficiency. This is fantastic as long as the people using the system have upright intentions. But what happens when those with nefarious purposes are given an uncrackable, highly flexible tool that can effortlessly move funds and resources across borders without a trace? It’s going to bring a whole new level of creativity and efficiency to activities such as extortion, bribery, corruption, drugs and a spate of other crimes.
Our current financial system has a lot of downside, but it does attempt to curtail the villains of the world. I was hoping for a more balanced discussion of this issue. His rose-colored glasses kept him from a frank analysis of some very thorny problems we’ll need to work out. I get it, free markets are great, but there’s a real downside to them too. I felt as though a deeper understanding of this issue conflicted with his worldview.
I’m really glad I read this book. It was a bit tedious to get through, but I learned so much.
This book was exhaustively researched and has a huge amount of information in it. I was mightily impressed with his thoroughness.
I especially enjoyed his discussion of how blockchain could be used to keep any information (not just currency) safe. The potential for uncrackable privacy is exciting. I’m really hopeful that the world may have found a solution that will help reduce theft and disruption through dispersal of information. It’s an ingenious solution: make the data so hard to find and collect that it becomes cost prohibitive to steal.
There are so many uses for this technology and I was mightily impressed with the author’s thorough research of all the players and all the different incubator projects and companies working in the blockchain world. He really plumbed the depths of all the work going on right now.
Casey did a fine job of showing all the many different ways blockchain could be implemented. I never knew there were so many uses for this technology or that it is being utilized for non-financial purposes in industries such as shipping, manufacturing, construction, retail, government and dozens of other sectors. He waxes on endlessly about how blockchain technology is the cure for all that ails the world. It gets a bit tiring at times, but I do find his pie-eyed enthusiasm somewhat endearing.
I particularly enjoyed his discussion on how blockchain could be used to improve the problem of personal identification. This is a huge problem in the developing world and there are some fascinating new ideas for detaching the system of identification from governments and big business.
There was so much good about this book, but unfortunately, the author is such a fanboy that he tends to gloss over criticisms of the technology. He continually makes summary judgments on the nefariousness of the major institutions of the world: all governments are out to control us, all corporations are evil, all those with power are greedy, etc. There are good and bad things about these entities and his heavy-handed dismissal of these institutions got a bit tiring.
I can appreciate his libertarian mindset but it tends to blind him to the finer points of the opportunities and drawbacks of blockchain. The characters and institutions in the book tend to be portrayed as either heroes or villains. Casey pays less attention to the gray areas that are the most interesting components of this debate.
Case in point: he dismisses the entire advertising industry as a greedy manipulator hellbent on mind control. Sure, there’s a lot of annoying advertising, but that advertising bankrolls free access to content. He’s so busy blasting authority that he neglects to explain how average people will pay for content if advertising goes away.
He touched on this briefly, but I wish he had spent more time explaining the downside of blockchain, for example: crime. It seems as though cryptocurrency has been a catalyst for scammers, drug dealers, oligarchs and all the evildoers in the world.
Blockchain cuts out middlemen, distributes power and increases efficiency. This is fantastic as long as the people using the system have upright intentions. But what happens when those with nefarious purposes are given an uncrackable, highly flexible tool that can effortlessly move funds and resources across borders without a trace? It’s going to bring a whole new level of creativity and efficiency to activities such as extortion, bribery, corruption, drugs and a spate of other crimes.
Our current financial system has a lot of downside, but it does attempt to curtail the villains of the world. I was hoping for a more balanced discussion of this issue. His rose-colored glasses kept him from a frank analysis of some very thorny problems we’ll need to work out. I get it, free markets are great, but there’s a real downside to them too. I felt as though a deeper understanding of this issue conflicted with his worldview.
I’m really glad I read this book. It was a bit tedious to get through, but I learned so much.
April 29, 2018
Wow, why aren’t we seeing this in the news! Decentralized blockchain technology is changing the world as we know it.
As stated in this book, “If the future foreseen by this book comes to pass, we’ll witness the biggest employment shakeup the world has ever seen. And this time, the most vulnerable jobs are not the usual suspects: the factory workers, the low-level clerks, or the retail store assistants.
“Now it’s the accountants, the bankers, the portfolio managers, the insurers, the title officers, the escrow agents, and the trustees—and, yes, even the lawyers. To be sure, the common refrain that lawyers will be replaced by “smart contracts” is somewhat inaccurate since the terms of agreements, the actual contracts themselves, will still need to be negotiated by human beings. Nonetheless, the legal industry is also in for a huge shakeup. Lawyers who don’t understand code are likely going to be valued far less than those who do. (One of the most employable joint degrees to have will be a law-plus–computer science degree.) In any case, you get the idea: the middle class is facing a tidal wave.”
Decentralized blockchain technology is a record keeping ledger that is transparent immutable and uses algorithms to used smart contracts and this will drastically cut costs and speed up processes that use to take days. All of this is being done automatically through little human oversight.
Let me give you a few examples:
In banking, the processed syndicated loans, which now takes weeks, will be processed in minutes. Best of all, these transactions become programmable and able to communicate information and instructions as well.
Remember when Chipotle’s customers got sick from contaminated foods? Decentralized supply chains would almost eliminate the spread of food contamination because each step within the process would be noted within the blockchain ledger and would be traceable and this would naturally enhance trust in the data.
The book also stated: “The World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency that feeds 80 million people worldwide, is putting 10,000 Azraq refugees through a pilot that uses a blockchain system to better coordinate food distribution. In doing so, the WFP is tackling a giant administrative challenge: how to ensure, in an environment where theft is rampant, and few people carry personal identifying documents, that everyone gets their fair share of food.
“This Azraq blockchain pilot ensures that people aren’t double-spending their food entitlements. That’s a pretty important requirement in refugee camps, where supplies are limited and where organized crime outfits have been known to steal and hoard food for profit.”
Ride sharing services like Uber will also be replaced by services like Tel Aviv-based, blockchain-powered ride-sharing application that have no middlemen or controlling authority.
Medical record keeping will advance and allow us to centralize and organize all our records in a secured platform that we control.
Anything can be digitized—a title, contracts, copyrights, personal IDs, solar grids, commodity exchanges, investment funds, blockchain-certified marriage certificates, online voting systems, and supply-chain platforms.
Blockchain even has the likelihood of helping us reduce our carbon-missions output which will help with climate change.
Our ability to do background checks will be dramatic. For example, we will know if an individual hangs out with high-school dropouts or people with graduate degrees. It will show our payment history, sleep patterns, travel history, and, of course, our online surfing.
If social media companies agree to share our data, a whole new identity could be formed that would be much more informative than anything produced by, say, credit score keepers such as Equifax.
The book states: “This is precisely what a new breed of algorithmic credit-scoring companies and other such big data–driven startups are doing. Putting all of that into a blockchain-proven system could be a powerful way to get people to trust each other and expand their social and economic exchanges.”
Decentralized blockchains are just the beginning. Our world is changing faster than we realize through artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, quantum computing, and advanced materials, and these discoveries are creating a radical shift in the way we live.
As stated in this book, “If the future foreseen by this book comes to pass, we’ll witness the biggest employment shakeup the world has ever seen. And this time, the most vulnerable jobs are not the usual suspects: the factory workers, the low-level clerks, or the retail store assistants.
“Now it’s the accountants, the bankers, the portfolio managers, the insurers, the title officers, the escrow agents, and the trustees—and, yes, even the lawyers. To be sure, the common refrain that lawyers will be replaced by “smart contracts” is somewhat inaccurate since the terms of agreements, the actual contracts themselves, will still need to be negotiated by human beings. Nonetheless, the legal industry is also in for a huge shakeup. Lawyers who don’t understand code are likely going to be valued far less than those who do. (One of the most employable joint degrees to have will be a law-plus–computer science degree.) In any case, you get the idea: the middle class is facing a tidal wave.”
Decentralized blockchain technology is a record keeping ledger that is transparent immutable and uses algorithms to used smart contracts and this will drastically cut costs and speed up processes that use to take days. All of this is being done automatically through little human oversight.
Let me give you a few examples:
In banking, the processed syndicated loans, which now takes weeks, will be processed in minutes. Best of all, these transactions become programmable and able to communicate information and instructions as well.
Remember when Chipotle’s customers got sick from contaminated foods? Decentralized supply chains would almost eliminate the spread of food contamination because each step within the process would be noted within the blockchain ledger and would be traceable and this would naturally enhance trust in the data.
The book also stated: “The World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency that feeds 80 million people worldwide, is putting 10,000 Azraq refugees through a pilot that uses a blockchain system to better coordinate food distribution. In doing so, the WFP is tackling a giant administrative challenge: how to ensure, in an environment where theft is rampant, and few people carry personal identifying documents, that everyone gets their fair share of food.
“This Azraq blockchain pilot ensures that people aren’t double-spending their food entitlements. That’s a pretty important requirement in refugee camps, where supplies are limited and where organized crime outfits have been known to steal and hoard food for profit.”
Ride sharing services like Uber will also be replaced by services like Tel Aviv-based, blockchain-powered ride-sharing application that have no middlemen or controlling authority.
Medical record keeping will advance and allow us to centralize and organize all our records in a secured platform that we control.
Anything can be digitized—a title, contracts, copyrights, personal IDs, solar grids, commodity exchanges, investment funds, blockchain-certified marriage certificates, online voting systems, and supply-chain platforms.
Blockchain even has the likelihood of helping us reduce our carbon-missions output which will help with climate change.
Our ability to do background checks will be dramatic. For example, we will know if an individual hangs out with high-school dropouts or people with graduate degrees. It will show our payment history, sleep patterns, travel history, and, of course, our online surfing.
If social media companies agree to share our data, a whole new identity could be formed that would be much more informative than anything produced by, say, credit score keepers such as Equifax.
The book states: “This is precisely what a new breed of algorithmic credit-scoring companies and other such big data–driven startups are doing. Putting all of that into a blockchain-proven system could be a powerful way to get people to trust each other and expand their social and economic exchanges.”
Decentralized blockchains are just the beginning. Our world is changing faster than we realize through artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, quantum computing, and advanced materials, and these discoveries are creating a radical shift in the way we live.
February 10, 2020
I should've known just by the bombastic title - "..the future of EVERYTHING'" that parts of the book would be sketchy, to say the least.
I get that the authors truly feel humanity is on the cusp of a revolution, but that feeling just isn't justified by the facts they present: Government 'middlemen' won't all be going away any time soon, there are still decisionmakers behind the technology who need to make policy decisions about it (e.g hard forks), and none of it is scalable at this point in time.
On the other hand I did learn a few things by reading this book: a very general introduction to the distributed ledger system, the various cyrpto-coin families and how they relate to each other, Lightening, what ICOs are really about and the liminal regulatory space in which they reside, the less exciting but still worthwhile use that traditional players may be making of distributed ledger systems (a bit for-profit companies adopting OSS models- not a bad outcome at all), looking at the 'I.D Problem' from a global perspective (I'm not sure if Blockchain technology is the solution, but am glad the authors brought the problem to my attention).
There were some needless jabs at specific politicians - even if I agree with some of the criticism, I don't the reader's attention should have been hijacked for this purpose.
Overall, it's a very decent read - I won't have listened to it till the end had it not been so, but I do hope a more grounded, informative book about this topic comes along.
I get that the authors truly feel humanity is on the cusp of a revolution, but that feeling just isn't justified by the facts they present: Government 'middlemen' won't all be going away any time soon, there are still decisionmakers behind the technology who need to make policy decisions about it (e.g hard forks), and none of it is scalable at this point in time.
On the other hand I did learn a few things by reading this book: a very general introduction to the distributed ledger system, the various cyrpto-coin families and how they relate to each other, Lightening, what ICOs are really about and the liminal regulatory space in which they reside, the less exciting but still worthwhile use that traditional players may be making of distributed ledger systems (a bit for-profit companies adopting OSS models- not a bad outcome at all), looking at the 'I.D Problem' from a global perspective (I'm not sure if Blockchain technology is the solution, but am glad the authors brought the problem to my attention).
There were some needless jabs at specific politicians - even if I agree with some of the criticism, I don't the reader's attention should have been hijacked for this purpose.
Overall, it's a very decent read - I won't have listened to it till the end had it not been so, but I do hope a more grounded, informative book about this topic comes along.
February 6, 2022
A waste of time and money.
Basically this is a long rant about the future of Blockchain and where it "could" affect our lives. The authors shoved Blockchain wherever any new inventor took it into the book, addressing healthcare, industrial, finance, and any other solution with the same utopianism that Blockchain advocates are characterized with.
It simply could have been a long article, as the book never goes deep enough to analyze any of the "revolutionary" ideas that it collected, and continues to narrate in an open-ended manner that adds a positive twist to all the failures of Blockchain to date.
Granted, "the Future of Everything" is in the title, yet one would assume that the authors did more than collect names of projects and ideas, with some anecdotes about the founders, and would have probably addressed the paradigms and their shift in each of the systems that Blockchain would potential disrupt.
Don't buy it, go read articles and listen to a few excited YouTubers if you'd like to peek into what Blockchain "could" offer.
Basically this is a long rant about the future of Blockchain and where it "could" affect our lives. The authors shoved Blockchain wherever any new inventor took it into the book, addressing healthcare, industrial, finance, and any other solution with the same utopianism that Blockchain advocates are characterized with.
It simply could have been a long article, as the book never goes deep enough to analyze any of the "revolutionary" ideas that it collected, and continues to narrate in an open-ended manner that adds a positive twist to all the failures of Blockchain to date.
Granted, "the Future of Everything" is in the title, yet one would assume that the authors did more than collect names of projects and ideas, with some anecdotes about the founders, and would have probably addressed the paradigms and their shift in each of the systems that Blockchain would potential disrupt.
Don't buy it, go read articles and listen to a few excited YouTubers if you'd like to peek into what Blockchain "could" offer.
November 8, 2018
I really didn't know a single thing about blockchain before reading this book. For that reason, this title was excellent for me, as I took it as an overview for the layperson as to what blockchain could theoretically do and what it has already done.
It did a great job of accomplishing its aim to educate the unwashed masses like myself. I actually didn't mind it's political sections either, unlike most people. As a Libertarian, it was refreshing to hear commentators from The Left who are so well spoken. It's always good to hear the other side.
My gripes with the book were that it got really in the weeds at a few points. That's fine, except I thought the general idea of the work was to dumb things down.
This would be made more forgivable if they didn't gloss over some other sections where blockchain was utterly fascinating.
That said, I loved nearly every chapter. Really fun read. Recommended.
It did a great job of accomplishing its aim to educate the unwashed masses like myself. I actually didn't mind it's political sections either, unlike most people. As a Libertarian, it was refreshing to hear commentators from The Left who are so well spoken. It's always good to hear the other side.
My gripes with the book were that it got really in the weeds at a few points. That's fine, except I thought the general idea of the work was to dumb things down.
This would be made more forgivable if they didn't gloss over some other sections where blockchain was utterly fascinating.
That said, I loved nearly every chapter. Really fun read. Recommended.
April 14, 2024
This book was like filling up a 5 gallon jug of kool-aid then preparing a large funnel and shoving it deep into my mouth hole. Seriously need to start reading more anti bitcoin/blockchain books so I stop feeling so bullish on the future of the tech. The book does a great job giving concrete examples of how blockchain/decentralized ledgers can prove truth in digitally certified ways that has not been possible before. It was interesting reading this book since it was written mostly in 2016/2017 yet still holds water today even though a lot has changed in the crypto landscape since then.
September 8, 2018
Brilliant absolutely brilliant, no nonsense factual information about the potential of blockchain. It's restored my faith in the technology having been disillusioned with it after actually experimenting with Ethereum and attending quite a few blockchain meetups.
It's not technology heavy and covers wide range of potential applications.
It's not technology heavy and covers wide range of potential applications.
January 26, 2019
The first third of this book does a better job than most of explaining in layman's terms what a blockchain is and what its potential benefits are. But the rest of the book feels half-finished, planting several seeds that don't ever find a full flowering. Perhaps that's the drawback of writing about a subject that is evolving so quickly -- every new day's headlines would seem to demand an alteration or updating of the blockchain story, and any book on the subject has to decide to go to press at SOME point or risk never being published at all. Overall: not bad, but it left me feeling dissatisfied.
June 6, 2018
Nothing in this book a person couldn’t learn from reading a handful of blogs, articles and a little documentation.
July 31, 2018
The hype cycle is a branded graphical presentation developed and used by Gartner to represent the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies. The five phases of the hype cycle are:
Technology Trigger
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
The 2017 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies has blockchain in the Peak of Inflated Expectations. In The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything, authors Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey present an interesting overview of what blockchain is capable of. The authors admit that there is still a lot to do in reference to blockchain before it can be seen as fully enterprise-ready solution. As it’s in the peak of inflated expectations, there are still a lot more questions than answers around this technology.
In a nutshell, a blockchain is simply a list of records, and are securely linked. It is simply an extension (and much more secure version) of the double-entry bookkeeping accounting method created by Luca Pacioli in the 15th-century. To that, the authors provide a compelling case for the use of blockchain. The devil is always in the details, and when it comes to blockchain, those details still need to be worked out.
Vigna and Casey lay out the problems with the old economy and commerce and paint of a picture of how blockchain can revolutionize many parts of that. The authors go to great lengths to separate Bitcoin from blockchain. While Bitcoin uses blockchain technology, it is but one use of the technology. It’s worth noting that the original Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto does not even use the term blockchain.
The book is a high-level overview of the potential of blockchain and a synopsis of many blockchain success stories and case studies. The book does not detail any blockchain failures. This is a high-level book about the potential of blockchain technology, but does not provide a deep technical detail of how blockchain actually works, the underlying cryptography that provides security, and other technical topics.
From a security perspective, the authors write that one of the biggest successes of Bitcoin is that after almost a decade, the core Bitcoin blockchain security has not been hacked. But as Ron Rivest did note at RSA Conference 2018 USA, he is taken aback by the lack of advanced security controls in blockchain. While the underlying cryptography is quite resilient, there is a lot more to security than just the crypto.
Most of the success stories the authors highlight are smaller initiatives, and none that have a truly global reach. How blockchain would actually work in the enterprise is something many of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced firms are working on, but it is at this point not a ready for prime time technology.
The book does a great job of showing some of the successes of blockchain to date. As a technology and solution, it has tremendous potential as the book shows. But it is still definitely a work in progress.
For those looking to a book about the future potential of blockchain by two people intimately involved with it, The Truth Machine makes for an interesting read.
Can blockchain live up to its hype and potential? We’ll only know when it leaves the peak of inflated expectations, and if it ever makes it to the plateau of productivity.
Technology Trigger
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
The 2017 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies has blockchain in the Peak of Inflated Expectations. In The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything, authors Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey present an interesting overview of what blockchain is capable of. The authors admit that there is still a lot to do in reference to blockchain before it can be seen as fully enterprise-ready solution. As it’s in the peak of inflated expectations, there are still a lot more questions than answers around this technology.
In a nutshell, a blockchain is simply a list of records, and are securely linked. It is simply an extension (and much more secure version) of the double-entry bookkeeping accounting method created by Luca Pacioli in the 15th-century. To that, the authors provide a compelling case for the use of blockchain. The devil is always in the details, and when it comes to blockchain, those details still need to be worked out.
Vigna and Casey lay out the problems with the old economy and commerce and paint of a picture of how blockchain can revolutionize many parts of that. The authors go to great lengths to separate Bitcoin from blockchain. While Bitcoin uses blockchain technology, it is but one use of the technology. It’s worth noting that the original Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto does not even use the term blockchain.
The book is a high-level overview of the potential of blockchain and a synopsis of many blockchain success stories and case studies. The book does not detail any blockchain failures. This is a high-level book about the potential of blockchain technology, but does not provide a deep technical detail of how blockchain actually works, the underlying cryptography that provides security, and other technical topics.
From a security perspective, the authors write that one of the biggest successes of Bitcoin is that after almost a decade, the core Bitcoin blockchain security has not been hacked. But as Ron Rivest did note at RSA Conference 2018 USA, he is taken aback by the lack of advanced security controls in blockchain. While the underlying cryptography is quite resilient, there is a lot more to security than just the crypto.
Most of the success stories the authors highlight are smaller initiatives, and none that have a truly global reach. How blockchain would actually work in the enterprise is something many of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced firms are working on, but it is at this point not a ready for prime time technology.
The book does a great job of showing some of the successes of blockchain to date. As a technology and solution, it has tremendous potential as the book shows. But it is still definitely a work in progress.
For those looking to a book about the future potential of blockchain by two people intimately involved with it, The Truth Machine makes for an interesting read.
Can blockchain live up to its hype and potential? We’ll only know when it leaves the peak of inflated expectations, and if it ever makes it to the plateau of productivity.
July 22, 2021
Yuck. Authors misconstrue facts to suit their purposes. Most of the examples are really poorly thought out. And what emerges is a sort of echo chamber book that might resemble the conversation you and your friends had about why you all bet on dogecoin circa 2019.
For example, the authors lead into the book with The idea that public trust has eroded in large institutions. Fair enough. But they make the bold statement that it all started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. What? Everyone knows that the erosion of trust started after the failure of Bee Movie. That box office flop was the catalyst for my lack of faith in what been an unshakable faith in the entertainment industry. But really? No discussion of Vietnam, Nixon? Lack of faith in large institutions didn’t start in 2008. If you want to get real patriotic for a second, point to 1776. There’s better examples but the authors lack of effort, or editing, or whatever make it so that this book is basically nonsense.
There’s also this discussion of how people trust the ratings on Uber and that’s how a decentralized system really works. But it totally misses the point that Uber is the central hub that all of these ratings go through. If you have a problem you can call or talk to someone in the customer support wing of that organization. This example is so bad that it actually contradicts the point the author is trying to make.
The rest of the book is a combination of fluff and similarly bad examples. I’m actually increasingly becoming pro blockchain as I see more used cases for the technology, but this book is a terrible advocate and representation for the tech.
For example, the authors lead into the book with The idea that public trust has eroded in large institutions. Fair enough. But they make the bold statement that it all started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. What? Everyone knows that the erosion of trust started after the failure of Bee Movie. That box office flop was the catalyst for my lack of faith in what been an unshakable faith in the entertainment industry. But really? No discussion of Vietnam, Nixon? Lack of faith in large institutions didn’t start in 2008. If you want to get real patriotic for a second, point to 1776. There’s better examples but the authors lack of effort, or editing, or whatever make it so that this book is basically nonsense.
There’s also this discussion of how people trust the ratings on Uber and that’s how a decentralized system really works. But it totally misses the point that Uber is the central hub that all of these ratings go through. If you have a problem you can call or talk to someone in the customer support wing of that organization. This example is so bad that it actually contradicts the point the author is trying to make.
The rest of the book is a combination of fluff and similarly bad examples. I’m actually increasingly becoming pro blockchain as I see more used cases for the technology, but this book is a terrible advocate and representation for the tech.
May 15, 2018
Dude1: so did you hear about blockchain?
Dude2: that bitcoin thing?
Dude1: yeah, but it's like way bigger than that. It's going to change the world.
Dude2: No way! How? Give me some examples.
Dude1: Well it can help out the 'unbanked' people in 3rd world countries.
Dude2: ....
Dude1: And it can usher in the self-sovereign individual so you aren't reliant on "the man"
Dude2: uh...
Dude1: And it's totally going to disintermediate the 3rd party 'trusted' parties.
Dude2: you sure it's not 1998 all over again? Sounds like LDAP.
Dude1: What's LDAP?
Dude2:
This is mostly a work of fiction. Here are all the ways that blockchain technology could, maybe, possible, if we're lucky, change the world. The problem is it's all a work in progress so who knows. It would have felt a bit more believable to me if the authors did more than skim the top of the issues that are supposed addressed.
Dude2: that bitcoin thing?
Dude1: yeah, but it's like way bigger than that. It's going to change the world.
Dude2: No way! How? Give me some examples.
Dude1: Well it can help out the 'unbanked' people in 3rd world countries.
Dude2: ....
Dude1: And it can usher in the self-sovereign individual so you aren't reliant on "the man"
Dude2: uh...
Dude1: And it's totally going to disintermediate the 3rd party 'trusted' parties.
Dude2: you sure it's not 1998 all over again? Sounds like LDAP.
Dude1: What's LDAP?
Dude2:
This is mostly a work of fiction. Here are all the ways that blockchain technology could, maybe, possible, if we're lucky, change the world. The problem is it's all a work in progress so who knows. It would have felt a bit more believable to me if the authors did more than skim the top of the issues that are supposed addressed.
October 24, 2018
The Truth Machine is a follow up to The Age of Cryptocurrency. It delves into the unlimited potential of blockchain to eliminate middlemen, establish bonds of trust, tackle poverty and social justice issues, and create a transparent peer-to-peer economy.
September 29, 2022
Buku crypto lagi!
Paul Vigna dan Michael Casey adalah dua jurnalis Wall Street Journal yang berpengalaman meliput soal ekonomi, keuangan, dan bisnis. Buku kolaborasi pertama mereka "The Age of Cryptocurrency" (2015) sudah pernah saya review. Nah, ternyata begitu buku pertama itu terbit, dunia teknologi menyadari potensi luar biasa dari blockchain pasca Ethereum, dan perkembangannya melesat sangat cepat.
Michael Casey kemudian meninggalkan WSJ karena direkrut oleh MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative, dan buku ini ditulis ketika dia bekerja di sana (sekarang hanya jadi advisor di MIT DCI, sementara pekerjaannya sendiri adalah sebagai Chief Content Officer di CoinDesk).
Kalau mengira lahirnya Bitcoin dan teknologi blockchain itu hanya mempengaruhi transaksi uang yang memotong bank sebagai middleman, maka anda (dan saya juga, sebelum membaca buku-buku tentang crypto) salah besar. Meskipun lahirnya Bitcoin berhubungan dengan niat tersebut, dan fungsinya sebagai alat pembayaran tanpa middlemen merupakan suatu terobosan besar, tetapi ternyata teknologi blockchain yang mendasarinyalah yang menyimpan potensi luar biasa untuk mengubah dunia.
Hal inilah yang menjadi topik utama pembahasan buku ini. Bukan lagi soal cryptocurrency, melainkan tentang aplikasi teknologi blockchain sebagai alat pencatatan transaksi terpercaya yang otomatis, terdistribusi, dan keamanannya dijaga cryptography, serta bagaimana ia akan mengubah sistem bermasyarakat di berbagai bidang.
Bidang apa saja? Apa saja yang membutuhkan pencatatan transaksi, perjanjian, kepemilikan, perdagangan, data pribadi, sertifikasi, verifikasi, dll. Bisa di bidang keuangan, kesehatan, energi, pemerintahan, perdagangan, kesenian, bisa dibilang semua bidang. Dengan teknologi blockchain, atau lebih luasnya Decentralized Ledger Technology (DLT), semua proses di atas bisa dilakukan (idealnya) jauh lebih cepat, lebih murah, dan jangkauannya lebih luas.
Kalau anda sulit membayangkannya, mungkin bisa dibandingkan dengan sistem operasi Android di mana di atasnya bisa dibangun berbagai apps yang mengakomodasi berbagai kebutuhan.
Untuk jangkauan luas, kekurangan dari Bitcoin dan Ethereum saat ini adalah skalanya. Kemampuan sistem bitcoin terlalu terbatas dan proses mining membutuhkan energi sangat besar yang tidak ramah lingkungan, Ethereum lebih canggih tetapi juga masih terbatas. Mengenai ini, Vigna&Casey menyebut IOTA yang dengan teknologi Tangle tampak menjanjikan dalam hal scalability, karena Tangle tidak memakan banyak energi, dan semakin besar jaringannya, semakin kuat dan aman sistemnya (kebalikan dari Bitcoin).
Banyak sekali startup dan riset blockchain yang dibahas di sini dengan macam-macam aplikasinya. Era inovasi dan 'pencarian' yang menarik. Seperti era awal dotcom, kata mereka. Karena itu pula, investor harus menyadari ini, bahwa berinvestasi dalam sesuatu yang baru dan masih mencari bentuk, akan banyak yang rugi. Tetapi dari 'chaos' ini jugalah lahir infrastruktur yang menjadi dasar kemajuan teknologi berikutnya. "Crypto needs to grow up," karenanya, kita semua, tidak hanya para techies melainkan segala profesi , perlu ikut andil dalam pertumbuhannya.
"We all must take an interest in this technology, to shape it to the needs and demands of the widest respresentation of humanity. Otherwise it will itself end up shaping humanity, with no guarantees it will do so for the better."
Oya, saran mereka sehubungan dengan ini: "Invest in coding education for all."
Catatan pribadi:
Menurut saya, keterlibatan Michael Casey di MIT Media Lab DCI membuat buku ini jauh lebih menarik (dan penting!) daripada buku-buku bisnis bertema semacam 'how to make a profit in a crypto economy'. Mengapa? Karena sudut pandang periset akademik biasanya lebih idealis, dan mempunyai visi dan tujuan lebih luas dari sekadar keuntungan bisnis, termasuk bagaimana dampaknya terhadap orang-orang miskin, dan juga perubahan iklim. Bahasannya luas sekali.
Nah, bagi yang awam tentang per-crypto-an seperti saya, 2 buku dari Paul Vigna & Michael Casey ini (The Age of Cryptocurrency, The Truth Machine) sangat saya rekomendasikan, karena isinya sangat mudah diikuti, dan membahas mulai dari sejarah uang dan sistem pembayaran, kelahiran Bitcoin dan teknologi blockchain, hingga pengembangan dan inovasinya di berbagai bidang.
Memang buku ini terbitan 2018 (meskipun ada update tahun 2019), jadi tentu sudah banyak perkembangan baru tentang crypto, karena kemajuannya cepat sekali. Mudah-mudahan mereka berdua bikin buku lagi tentang situasi crypto terbaru.
-dydy-
Paul Vigna dan Michael Casey adalah dua jurnalis Wall Street Journal yang berpengalaman meliput soal ekonomi, keuangan, dan bisnis. Buku kolaborasi pertama mereka "The Age of Cryptocurrency" (2015) sudah pernah saya review. Nah, ternyata begitu buku pertama itu terbit, dunia teknologi menyadari potensi luar biasa dari blockchain pasca Ethereum, dan perkembangannya melesat sangat cepat.
Michael Casey kemudian meninggalkan WSJ karena direkrut oleh MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative, dan buku ini ditulis ketika dia bekerja di sana (sekarang hanya jadi advisor di MIT DCI, sementara pekerjaannya sendiri adalah sebagai Chief Content Officer di CoinDesk).
Kalau mengira lahirnya Bitcoin dan teknologi blockchain itu hanya mempengaruhi transaksi uang yang memotong bank sebagai middleman, maka anda (dan saya juga, sebelum membaca buku-buku tentang crypto) salah besar. Meskipun lahirnya Bitcoin berhubungan dengan niat tersebut, dan fungsinya sebagai alat pembayaran tanpa middlemen merupakan suatu terobosan besar, tetapi ternyata teknologi blockchain yang mendasarinyalah yang menyimpan potensi luar biasa untuk mengubah dunia.
Hal inilah yang menjadi topik utama pembahasan buku ini. Bukan lagi soal cryptocurrency, melainkan tentang aplikasi teknologi blockchain sebagai alat pencatatan transaksi terpercaya yang otomatis, terdistribusi, dan keamanannya dijaga cryptography, serta bagaimana ia akan mengubah sistem bermasyarakat di berbagai bidang.
Bidang apa saja? Apa saja yang membutuhkan pencatatan transaksi, perjanjian, kepemilikan, perdagangan, data pribadi, sertifikasi, verifikasi, dll. Bisa di bidang keuangan, kesehatan, energi, pemerintahan, perdagangan, kesenian, bisa dibilang semua bidang. Dengan teknologi blockchain, atau lebih luasnya Decentralized Ledger Technology (DLT), semua proses di atas bisa dilakukan (idealnya) jauh lebih cepat, lebih murah, dan jangkauannya lebih luas.
Kalau anda sulit membayangkannya, mungkin bisa dibandingkan dengan sistem operasi Android di mana di atasnya bisa dibangun berbagai apps yang mengakomodasi berbagai kebutuhan.
Untuk jangkauan luas, kekurangan dari Bitcoin dan Ethereum saat ini adalah skalanya. Kemampuan sistem bitcoin terlalu terbatas dan proses mining membutuhkan energi sangat besar yang tidak ramah lingkungan, Ethereum lebih canggih tetapi juga masih terbatas. Mengenai ini, Vigna&Casey menyebut IOTA yang dengan teknologi Tangle tampak menjanjikan dalam hal scalability, karena Tangle tidak memakan banyak energi, dan semakin besar jaringannya, semakin kuat dan aman sistemnya (kebalikan dari Bitcoin).
Banyak sekali startup dan riset blockchain yang dibahas di sini dengan macam-macam aplikasinya. Era inovasi dan 'pencarian' yang menarik. Seperti era awal dotcom, kata mereka. Karena itu pula, investor harus menyadari ini, bahwa berinvestasi dalam sesuatu yang baru dan masih mencari bentuk, akan banyak yang rugi. Tetapi dari 'chaos' ini jugalah lahir infrastruktur yang menjadi dasar kemajuan teknologi berikutnya. "Crypto needs to grow up," karenanya, kita semua, tidak hanya para techies melainkan segala profesi , perlu ikut andil dalam pertumbuhannya.
"We all must take an interest in this technology, to shape it to the needs and demands of the widest respresentation of humanity. Otherwise it will itself end up shaping humanity, with no guarantees it will do so for the better."
Oya, saran mereka sehubungan dengan ini: "Invest in coding education for all."
Catatan pribadi:
Menurut saya, keterlibatan Michael Casey di MIT Media Lab DCI membuat buku ini jauh lebih menarik (dan penting!) daripada buku-buku bisnis bertema semacam 'how to make a profit in a crypto economy'. Mengapa? Karena sudut pandang periset akademik biasanya lebih idealis, dan mempunyai visi dan tujuan lebih luas dari sekadar keuntungan bisnis, termasuk bagaimana dampaknya terhadap orang-orang miskin, dan juga perubahan iklim. Bahasannya luas sekali.
Nah, bagi yang awam tentang per-crypto-an seperti saya, 2 buku dari Paul Vigna & Michael Casey ini (The Age of Cryptocurrency, The Truth Machine) sangat saya rekomendasikan, karena isinya sangat mudah diikuti, dan membahas mulai dari sejarah uang dan sistem pembayaran, kelahiran Bitcoin dan teknologi blockchain, hingga pengembangan dan inovasinya di berbagai bidang.
Memang buku ini terbitan 2018 (meskipun ada update tahun 2019), jadi tentu sudah banyak perkembangan baru tentang crypto, karena kemajuannya cepat sekali. Mudah-mudahan mereka berdua bikin buku lagi tentang situasi crypto terbaru.
-dydy-
June 30, 2021
So disappointed
Starts with a blurry tech explanation on a patronizing tone, and moves on to a wide review of possible blockchain applications without ever looking critically at their tradeoffs and downsides.
Between blindsighted technologist ideology, poor tech insight, an obsession for market inefficiencies, a blatant disregard for social consequences & for countries' sovereignties, not a word on the monetary properties of BC, and a clear misunderstanding of energy's role in economics, the book provided the most shallow, ideologically biased look into the subject.
The following technical concepts in the first three chapters were used before being explained, most of the time ambiguously:
51% attack, network nodes, mining, blocks, proof-of-stake, double-entry book-keeping, hashes,transaction validation. What's the point of reading a book that doesn't explain what it's talking about
Amongst the most messed-up ideas:
-data-residency laws are a hindrance to decentralization. Inclusion, opportunity & innovation are prizes that justify the destruction of national sovereignties.
Yet another case of capitalism trying to subject people's sovereignty to financial interests under the guise of morals.
-Local regulations of a supply chain pose a limit to the automated, de-nationalized nature of BC.
Clearly, all the western working classes dream to be assigned India-level social protection by an algorithm. Also another case of capitalism trying to trample the law under the excuse of progress.
-BC must be used to circumvent banks & large incumbents.
How are we supposed to achieve that with a digital currency that structurally can't emit credit?
-Energy grids need to be decentralized and use photovoltaïc. To avoid cheats, energy equipment must be monitored and surveiled, with data being stored in the blockchain.
Energy grids are always decentralized, otherwise they're not grids. It's the energy production that the author wants to see decentralized.
Knowing that it takes 20 years of energy-yield for a photovoltaïc pannel to recoup its manufacturing cost (out of 30 years of life-expectancy), that its energy can't be stored in battery without a 60% loss, that it takes strong polluting chems & heavy metals to manufacture, & that it's impossible to keep producing a sustainable amount of electricity when the sun's not out, a photovoltaïc-relying community will still need to have access to a pilotable, centralized, reliable source of energy. This means that using photovoltaïc will require twice as much infrastructure investment (one photovoltaïc, one pilotable) in order to have solar pannels that don't work half the time and that can't be recycled.
Clearly the author isn't too energy savvy, and this doesn't bode well for the rest of the book.
-Self-governing identities (vs. gov-issud IDs) are needed and could be drawn and extrapolated from a person's online activity. That way, we could use our online content as ID at the bar.
Influencers are gonna be so happy about this one.
-Online surveillance is unavoidable, and is acceptable so long as it has privacy.
Whoa… Big dash of Orwell, there, pal.
-the advertisement-model of funding the internet will stay, subjecting ourselves to watching ads in return for tokens would allow money to flow back into the pockets of creators.
Wouldn't it be much simpler if we just paid for websites?
-let's make a market-dependent smart-car turned public transportation. Depending on market demand, the smart-car will decide to make itself available or not.
Why don't we just get trains & subways instead, they're much cheaper and long-lasting? Also, why darn must we subject public transportation prices to market fluctuations?
-a large chunk of middle-class jobs will be destroyed by BC. What the unemployed of tomorrow must do: become creatives.
Sounds like a solid plan, bruh.
Long story short:
Forget about this book if you're looking for the tech aspect, forget about it if you have any critical sense, forget about it if you like economics.
Starts with a blurry tech explanation on a patronizing tone, and moves on to a wide review of possible blockchain applications without ever looking critically at their tradeoffs and downsides.
Between blindsighted technologist ideology, poor tech insight, an obsession for market inefficiencies, a blatant disregard for social consequences & for countries' sovereignties, not a word on the monetary properties of BC, and a clear misunderstanding of energy's role in economics, the book provided the most shallow, ideologically biased look into the subject.
The following technical concepts in the first three chapters were used before being explained, most of the time ambiguously:
51% attack, network nodes, mining, blocks, proof-of-stake, double-entry book-keeping, hashes,transaction validation. What's the point of reading a book that doesn't explain what it's talking about
Amongst the most messed-up ideas:
-data-residency laws are a hindrance to decentralization. Inclusion, opportunity & innovation are prizes that justify the destruction of national sovereignties.
Yet another case of capitalism trying to subject people's sovereignty to financial interests under the guise of morals.
-Local regulations of a supply chain pose a limit to the automated, de-nationalized nature of BC.
Clearly, all the western working classes dream to be assigned India-level social protection by an algorithm. Also another case of capitalism trying to trample the law under the excuse of progress.
-BC must be used to circumvent banks & large incumbents.
How are we supposed to achieve that with a digital currency that structurally can't emit credit?
-Energy grids need to be decentralized and use photovoltaïc. To avoid cheats, energy equipment must be monitored and surveiled, with data being stored in the blockchain.
Energy grids are always decentralized, otherwise they're not grids. It's the energy production that the author wants to see decentralized.
Knowing that it takes 20 years of energy-yield for a photovoltaïc pannel to recoup its manufacturing cost (out of 30 years of life-expectancy), that its energy can't be stored in battery without a 60% loss, that it takes strong polluting chems & heavy metals to manufacture, & that it's impossible to keep producing a sustainable amount of electricity when the sun's not out, a photovoltaïc-relying community will still need to have access to a pilotable, centralized, reliable source of energy. This means that using photovoltaïc will require twice as much infrastructure investment (one photovoltaïc, one pilotable) in order to have solar pannels that don't work half the time and that can't be recycled.
Clearly the author isn't too energy savvy, and this doesn't bode well for the rest of the book.
-Self-governing identities (vs. gov-issud IDs) are needed and could be drawn and extrapolated from a person's online activity. That way, we could use our online content as ID at the bar.
Influencers are gonna be so happy about this one.
-Online surveillance is unavoidable, and is acceptable so long as it has privacy.
Whoa… Big dash of Orwell, there, pal.
-the advertisement-model of funding the internet will stay, subjecting ourselves to watching ads in return for tokens would allow money to flow back into the pockets of creators.
Wouldn't it be much simpler if we just paid for websites?
-let's make a market-dependent smart-car turned public transportation. Depending on market demand, the smart-car will decide to make itself available or not.
Why don't we just get trains & subways instead, they're much cheaper and long-lasting? Also, why darn must we subject public transportation prices to market fluctuations?
-a large chunk of middle-class jobs will be destroyed by BC. What the unemployed of tomorrow must do: become creatives.
Sounds like a solid plan, bruh.
Long story short:
Forget about this book if you're looking for the tech aspect, forget about it if you have any critical sense, forget about it if you like economics.
July 29, 2020
I'm a bit saddened that this book is consistently brought-up as one of the best primers on blockchain. I find the writing to be stilted and predictable...at times, it feels like the written version of a big blockchain infomercial, where nearly every societal ill is magically solved via blockchain.
The key premise the book argues (and repeats, and repeats, and repeats some more) is that blockchain removes the role of the "trusted 3rd party." Great—transactions will be cheaper and more democratic. But then just about every example of a practical blockchain application, guess what is referenced—some new trusted 3rd party which uses blockchain (see IOTA, for example). And it feels like it most of these examples, something goes terribly wrong...but don't worry, the authors tell us, someday the kinks will be worked out. And if you say—well, I'm a Bitcoin purist, we don't need a trusted 3rd party . . .well, unfortunately, by design, that means you can only handle about 3 transactions a second. See you in 10,000 years once you get done paying for those Allbirds . . .
The main issue I have is that common folks generally don't have issues with trusted 3rd parties. Do I really care that Visa is processing my transaction? Not really. Or that EZPass is handling my tolls? Again, seems to be ok. In other words, I'm ok with the status quo (warts and all). Would say most folks are relatively phlegmatic about ""trusted 3rd parties" handling their transactions and think it's hard to drive a "blockchain revolution" on the back of general indifference.
From a literary perspective, it's just hard to read what feels like "the advertisement" section in the Economist for hundreds of pages (If you've ever gotten fooled and started reading the first couple paragraphs, and realized by the unabashed, stilted language you weren't reading critical journalism, you'll understand what I mean).
There's also the occasional comic-style exaggerated language that will grate on you over time...the number of times they reference banks as "old boys' clubs" for example. And language can get sloppy at times; for example, they refer to the CDS marketing as having "an estimated nominal value of $600 trillion . . ."—clearly they mean "notional" value.
Unfortunately, the comic hyperbole is not just limited to the language; for example, the opening of Chapter 9 "Everyone's a Creator" is probably one of the most absurdly aggressive predictions I've read around blockchain. In a Jetson like moment the authors contend, "machines will input the financial data, analyze the financial data, and audit the financial data" thereby making asset managers, investors and accountants defunct. While blockchain could plausibly make some of the mundane functions automated, something tells me that blockchain won't be automatically forecasting, with utmost precision, how well Beyond Burger will penetrate the meatless market. Or whether an E&P company is inflating forecasted production with aggressive type curves...or discovering that, "Aha! Blockbuster is buying video stores so they can amortize the videocassette assets over a longer time period than they could depreciate them, thereby inflating earnings . . " (a la Chanos) and so on. In other words, unless blockchain has a "crystal ball" ledger that sees into the future, something tells me data interpretation won't be disrupted anytime soon.
The key premise the book argues (and repeats, and repeats, and repeats some more) is that blockchain removes the role of the "trusted 3rd party." Great—transactions will be cheaper and more democratic. But then just about every example of a practical blockchain application, guess what is referenced—some new trusted 3rd party which uses blockchain (see IOTA, for example). And it feels like it most of these examples, something goes terribly wrong...but don't worry, the authors tell us, someday the kinks will be worked out. And if you say—well, I'm a Bitcoin purist, we don't need a trusted 3rd party . . .well, unfortunately, by design, that means you can only handle about 3 transactions a second. See you in 10,000 years once you get done paying for those Allbirds . . .
The main issue I have is that common folks generally don't have issues with trusted 3rd parties. Do I really care that Visa is processing my transaction? Not really. Or that EZPass is handling my tolls? Again, seems to be ok. In other words, I'm ok with the status quo (warts and all). Would say most folks are relatively phlegmatic about ""trusted 3rd parties" handling their transactions and think it's hard to drive a "blockchain revolution" on the back of general indifference.
From a literary perspective, it's just hard to read what feels like "the advertisement" section in the Economist for hundreds of pages (If you've ever gotten fooled and started reading the first couple paragraphs, and realized by the unabashed, stilted language you weren't reading critical journalism, you'll understand what I mean).
There's also the occasional comic-style exaggerated language that will grate on you over time...the number of times they reference banks as "old boys' clubs" for example. And language can get sloppy at times; for example, they refer to the CDS marketing as having "an estimated nominal value of $600 trillion . . ."—clearly they mean "notional" value.
Unfortunately, the comic hyperbole is not just limited to the language; for example, the opening of Chapter 9 "Everyone's a Creator" is probably one of the most absurdly aggressive predictions I've read around blockchain. In a Jetson like moment the authors contend, "machines will input the financial data, analyze the financial data, and audit the financial data" thereby making asset managers, investors and accountants defunct. While blockchain could plausibly make some of the mundane functions automated, something tells me that blockchain won't be automatically forecasting, with utmost precision, how well Beyond Burger will penetrate the meatless market. Or whether an E&P company is inflating forecasted production with aggressive type curves...or discovering that, "Aha! Blockbuster is buying video stores so they can amortize the videocassette assets over a longer time period than they could depreciate them, thereby inflating earnings . . " (a la Chanos) and so on. In other words, unless blockchain has a "crystal ball" ledger that sees into the future, something tells me data interpretation won't be disrupted anytime soon.
July 28, 2020
Реестры, что изменят наш мир
Из аннотации к книге должно быть понятно, про что сама книга, так что перейду сразу к сути и начну с плюсов. Информации много: историческая подоплека, с чего пошло и как развивается, области применения, где используется и тестируется. А так же акцент на том, что еще много предстоит сделать и на это уйдет немало времени. В отдельности остановлюсь на последнем.
Технология блокчейн может сильно повлиять на повседневную жизнь и картину мира будущего. И действительно повлияет, ибо это происходит уже сейчас. Например: к таким исчезающим профессиям как водитель, кассир и официант прибавятся бухгалтер, банкир и нотариус. Нам не нужны будут посредники, а учёт будет прозрачным и его почти невозможно будет поменять.
Как бы оно не случилось, мне понравилось, что Пол Винья и Майкл Кейси не забывают подчеркнуть, что на самом деле технология еще не совершенна. Так же нужно учитывать юридические и правовые механизмы, которые не поспевают за скоростью и конкуренцией инноваций. К тому же, авторы указывают на то, что весь сегодняшний мир криптовалюты и программного обеспечения на блокчейне — огромный пузырь, которому еще предстоит лопнуть.
Тут плавно переходим к минусам: как по мне, то они недостаточно акцентировали внимание на факторе пузыря. Сейчас туда вкладывается несоразмерно много денег, хотя большинство стартапов не принесут даже малой выгоды. Могли бы еще пару раз упомянуть это, раз уж повторялись они часто.
Где-то после трети книги замечаешь, что идеи и мысли проговариваются по второму кругу. Авторы приводят в пример новые компании, которые появляются в разных уголках мира, но их цели и подход мало чем отличается. Вообще, возникало чувство, что Майкл и Пол сначала узнали об этих стартапах и под них писали книгу, а не наоборот. Можно было бы тут сократить, а потратить больше места на объяснение аспектов из финансового мира, программирования и криптографии.
Не до конца понимаю, для кого именно эта книга, так как в ней моментами плохо разжёвываются термины и понятия. Я слабо разбираюсь в финансовой сфере, и когда об этом заходила речь — было сложно продолжать воспринимать новую информацию. Напротив, я чаще понимал чем нет о чём говорят авторы с технической стороны, но пояснений всё равно было недостаточно. Ну��но знать больше, чтобы с легкостью прочитать книгу? Но тогда человек обладающий этими знаниями очень мало сможет из нее почерпнуть.
Шрифт в русской версии книги оставлю на совесть верстальщикам.
Подводя итог, я понял одну важную вещь: мы неминуемо перейдем на блокчейн. Даже если не полностью и не во всех сферах, два мира — новый и старый — будут существовать параллельно. Авторы не пишут что нужно уже сейчас менять образовательную систему, чтобы подготовить людей, если мы хотим именно открытый блокчейн, который избавит нас от посредников. Ей и так нужны кардинальные перемены, ибо чтобы самому разобраться в этом мире, например оплата налогов, можно поседеть. А будущее обещает быть еще более “захватывающим”.
Из аннотации к книге должно быть понятно, про что сама книга, так что перейду сразу к сути и начну с плюсов. Информации много: историческая подоплека, с чего пошло и как развивается, области применения, где используется и тестируется. А так же акцент на том, что еще много предстоит сделать и на это уйдет немало времени. В отдельности остановлюсь на последнем.
Технология блокчейн может сильно повлиять на повседневную жизнь и картину мира будущего. И действительно повлияет, ибо это происходит уже сейчас. Например: к таким исчезающим профессиям как водитель, кассир и официант прибавятся бухгалтер, банкир и нотариус. Нам не нужны будут посредники, а учёт будет прозрачным и его почти невозможно будет поменять.
Как бы оно не случилось, мне понравилось, что Пол Винья и Майкл Кейси не забывают подчеркнуть, что на самом деле технология еще не совершенна. Так же нужно учитывать юридические и правовые механизмы, которые не поспевают за скоростью и конкуренцией инноваций. К тому же, авторы указывают на то, что весь сегодняшний мир криптовалюты и программного обеспечения на блокчейне — огромный пузырь, которому еще предстоит лопнуть.
Тут плавно переходим к минусам: как по мне, то они недостаточно акцентировали внимание на факторе пузыря. Сейчас туда вкладывается несоразмерно много денег, хотя большинство стартапов не принесут даже малой выгоды. Могли бы еще пару раз упомянуть это, раз уж повторялись они часто.
Где-то после трети книги замечаешь, что идеи и мысли проговариваются по второму кругу. Авторы приводят в пример новые компании, которые появляются в разных уголках мира, но их цели и подход мало чем отличается. Вообще, возникало чувство, что Майкл и Пол сначала узнали об этих стартапах и под них писали книгу, а не наоборот. Можно было бы тут сократить, а потратить больше места на объяснение аспектов из финансового мира, программирования и криптографии.
Не до конца понимаю, для кого именно эта книга, так как в ней моментами плохо разжёвываются термины и понятия. Я слабо разбираюсь в финансовой сфере, и когда об этом заходила речь — было сложно продолжать воспринимать новую информацию. Напротив, я чаще понимал чем нет о чём говорят авторы с технической стороны, но пояснений всё равно было недостаточно. Ну��но знать больше, чтобы с легкостью прочитать книгу? Но тогда человек обладающий этими знаниями очень мало сможет из нее почерпнуть.
Шрифт в русской версии книги оставлю на совесть верстальщикам.
Подводя итог, я понял одну важную вещь: мы неминуемо перейдем на блокчейн. Даже если не полностью и не во всех сферах, два мира — новый и старый — будут существовать параллельно. Авторы не пишут что нужно уже сейчас менять образовательную систему, чтобы подготовить людей, если мы хотим именно открытый блокчейн, который избавит нас от посредников. Ей и так нужны кардинальные перемены, ибо чтобы самому разобраться в этом мире, например оплата налогов, можно поседеть. А будущее обещает быть еще более “захватывающим”.
May 16, 2018
This is a follow-on book about blockchain and cryptocurrencies by the authors of "Age of Cryptocurrencies", Paul Vigna and Michael Casey. While their first book was first published in Jan 2015 and mostly about bitcoin and how its creation ignited the world of cryptocurrencies, the "Truth Machine" discusses mostly the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies, its many possible real-world applications. The book also covers the ICO craze that started in 2016 and reached its peak at 2017 and how the regulators are dealing with the it. The authors introduce many different use cases of blockchain solving real-life business and social problems with decentralized solutions.
The authors are bold in choosing the title "The Truth Machine" for the book. It alleges to the ideal that blockchain leads the path to the absolute truth that anyone can trust without a trusted intermediary, owing to the immutable natural of the decentralized digital ledger and the ability to record and prove the authenticity of information ("the truth") through advanced and sophisticated consensus algorithms. The claim of "Truth Machine" is a hyperbole that the authors do acknowledge as one has to consider the truth of the original source before recording the information in the blockchain. Nevertheless, together with the ability to the authors painted an optimistic view of blockchain and its potential impact to the all aspects of the society, in a wide spectrum of use cases from reinventing online publication to self-sovereign identity solution to solving climate change, reminding us that record keeping is fundamental to human existence and a foundation of civilization.
Overall, this book should be valuable to anyone following the development of blockchain. There are so much development in this space that the book can only cover a small subset of the topics and so one should only treat this as a supplementary material to help one keep up with the ongoing development in this space. For the topics like ICO or Token economics, the book only scratches the surface. For those really want to dive deep into this space, this book is no substitute for reading the white papers, attending meetups, listening to expert interviews in podcasts and YouTube channels and participating in Telegram Groups.
The authors are bold in choosing the title "The Truth Machine" for the book. It alleges to the ideal that blockchain leads the path to the absolute truth that anyone can trust without a trusted intermediary, owing to the immutable natural of the decentralized digital ledger and the ability to record and prove the authenticity of information ("the truth") through advanced and sophisticated consensus algorithms. The claim of "Truth Machine" is a hyperbole that the authors do acknowledge as one has to consider the truth of the original source before recording the information in the blockchain. Nevertheless, together with the ability to the authors painted an optimistic view of blockchain and its potential impact to the all aspects of the society, in a wide spectrum of use cases from reinventing online publication to self-sovereign identity solution to solving climate change, reminding us that record keeping is fundamental to human existence and a foundation of civilization.
Overall, this book should be valuable to anyone following the development of blockchain. There are so much development in this space that the book can only cover a small subset of the topics and so one should only treat this as a supplementary material to help one keep up with the ongoing development in this space. For the topics like ICO or Token economics, the book only scratches the surface. For those really want to dive deep into this space, this book is no substitute for reading the white papers, attending meetups, listening to expert interviews in podcasts and YouTube channels and participating in Telegram Groups.
April 14, 2018
Most people who have heard of Blockchain have the media and other news outlets as their source for information. I find most of what is out there as not accurate, highly overblown (both good and bad) and just too much noise. That's not to say there hasn't been good information out there, but it is difficult for someone not in the field to separate uninformed opinions from facts.
A couple of weeks ago I was at a Blockchain event and this book was a topic of discussion by someone who has been involved with Blockchain for about 2 years, so I picked it up. The book is a good read and has value but it does depend on your expectations.
If you are looking for a book that goes deep on how Blockchain works, this is not the book and a better source would be one of several MOOCs that are offered for free. If you are looking to get more information on Blockchain and some view on it's potential then this would be a good place to start.
The authors do a good job in dispelling some of the myths around Blockchain and offer good insights into the potential of leveraging Blockchain for uses not necessarily related to cryptocurrency. There are parts of the book where the authors speculate on the potential of Blockchain to enable economic development and a level playing field across the globe. While this is an interesting view and I would agree with their theory, Blockchain is an enabler, not a solution.
The one negative I see about the book (and the hype around Blockchain in general) is that it gives the perception that Blockchain itself is the solution. Blockchain can remove many barriers and friction that exist today in how value is exchanged between 2 or more parties. The significance of Blockchain is that it gives people the freedom to develop new solutions and deploy new business and social models that would be difficult to deploy using non-Blockchain methodologies.
A couple of weeks ago I was at a Blockchain event and this book was a topic of discussion by someone who has been involved with Blockchain for about 2 years, so I picked it up. The book is a good read and has value but it does depend on your expectations.
If you are looking for a book that goes deep on how Blockchain works, this is not the book and a better source would be one of several MOOCs that are offered for free. If you are looking to get more information on Blockchain and some view on it's potential then this would be a good place to start.
The authors do a good job in dispelling some of the myths around Blockchain and offer good insights into the potential of leveraging Blockchain for uses not necessarily related to cryptocurrency. There are parts of the book where the authors speculate on the potential of Blockchain to enable economic development and a level playing field across the globe. While this is an interesting view and I would agree with their theory, Blockchain is an enabler, not a solution.
The one negative I see about the book (and the hype around Blockchain in general) is that it gives the perception that Blockchain itself is the solution. Blockchain can remove many barriers and friction that exist today in how value is exchanged between 2 or more parties. The significance of Blockchain is that it gives people the freedom to develop new solutions and deploy new business and social models that would be difficult to deploy using non-Blockchain methodologies.
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August 16, 2021I get it: DLT, Bitcoin, smart contracts, ICOs and tokens...this is all new and exciting. And indeed: who knows how all of this will develop. So a critical engagement with claims actors in the crypto space make would have been welcome. At least thats what I was hoping to get (plus some insights on the mechanisms/intuitions behind various financial crypto products that are hailed as being potentially revolutionary).
Instead, what you get is a concatenation of seemingly disparate ideas of how all of this is new and revolutionary, based mainly on assertions that at times seem to be copied directly from the value proposition of various crypto ventures.
Worse: some parts of the book seem to be an implicit endorsement of how to avoid SEC regulation, which is ironic given that the premise of the book is supposedly based o how the “traditional financial system” is untrustworthy, with a tendency to excesses and instability, because no one is watching, regulating or even understanding the complexities of it. guess what, the crypto space is all that too with an additional layer of complexity (code).
From financial journalists you would have expected at least some analytical views on how most of the stuff described in the book ( ICOs, exchanges, synthetic assets) is pretty darn similar to what we see in “traditional finance”. Instead, you get page after page crypto excitement about seemingly “revolutionary” ideas that could “redefine what money is” (p114, spoiler: they are describing a coin exchange the way your intro to Econ textbook describes money, I.e as a veil over barter, and they call it “digital barter”).
To be fair, some of the use cases and applications described in the book are interesting (and hands down: the technology is fascinating, with lots of potential), but given the pace of development in the crypto sphere, not all of the info in the book is up to date.
Instead, what you get is a concatenation of seemingly disparate ideas of how all of this is new and revolutionary, based mainly on assertions that at times seem to be copied directly from the value proposition of various crypto ventures.
Worse: some parts of the book seem to be an implicit endorsement of how to avoid SEC regulation, which is ironic given that the premise of the book is supposedly based o how the “traditional financial system” is untrustworthy, with a tendency to excesses and instability, because no one is watching, regulating or even understanding the complexities of it. guess what, the crypto space is all that too with an additional layer of complexity (code).
From financial journalists you would have expected at least some analytical views on how most of the stuff described in the book ( ICOs, exchanges, synthetic assets) is pretty darn similar to what we see in “traditional finance”. Instead, you get page after page crypto excitement about seemingly “revolutionary” ideas that could “redefine what money is” (p114, spoiler: they are describing a coin exchange the way your intro to Econ textbook describes money, I.e as a veil over barter, and they call it “digital barter”).
To be fair, some of the use cases and applications described in the book are interesting (and hands down: the technology is fascinating, with lots of potential), but given the pace of development in the crypto sphere, not all of the info in the book is up to date.
November 7, 2018
Like many of you, I suspect, my knowledge of blockchain prior to reading this book was limited. Friday night, I attended the public revealing of SUKU--a blockchain technology developed by Citizen's Reserve--at the home of some friends. There, I met the principals of the company, including the former lead of Deloitte's global blockchain group. This book was given away for free, and I began reading immediately.
Take note of the title: "The Truth Machine." The authors claim, perhaps provocatively, that double-entry accounting was a key--if not *the* key innovation--that unlocked the potential of free enterprise and capitalism in the West. They then do a pretty good job defending that claim and explaining how blockchain offers the potential of a worldwide revolution of similar import.
The idea is that ledgers are at the heart of how societies function, and blockchain offers an immutable, digital ledger distributed across a network of computers that solves the problem of "third-party trust." I.e., no longer will a third party (such as a government, title company, or bank) be required to certify the trust required in a transaction between two unknown parties--at least in the digital realm. They further offer possibilities for ways in which the digital blockchain can be used to interface with physical reality.
The book ends on a philosophical note, covering a broad swath of abstract ideas, including identity and social cohesion. A nice touch was the inclusion of "crypto graffiti" in the closing paragraphs.
Recommended for anyone wanting a layman's understanding of this new phenomenon called blockchain.
Take note of the title: "The Truth Machine." The authors claim, perhaps provocatively, that double-entry accounting was a key--if not *the* key innovation--that unlocked the potential of free enterprise and capitalism in the West. They then do a pretty good job defending that claim and explaining how blockchain offers the potential of a worldwide revolution of similar import.
The idea is that ledgers are at the heart of how societies function, and blockchain offers an immutable, digital ledger distributed across a network of computers that solves the problem of "third-party trust." I.e., no longer will a third party (such as a government, title company, or bank) be required to certify the trust required in a transaction between two unknown parties--at least in the digital realm. They further offer possibilities for ways in which the digital blockchain can be used to interface with physical reality.
The book ends on a philosophical note, covering a broad swath of abstract ideas, including identity and social cohesion. A nice touch was the inclusion of "crypto graffiti" in the closing paragraphs.
Recommended for anyone wanting a layman's understanding of this new phenomenon called blockchain.
July 3, 2018
I skimmed through this book (hence the 3 stars). If you're looking for a book to explain blockchain (transactions bundled into a block chain by cryptographic locks) and bitcoin in a technical way, this is not the book. This book is great for providing you with a series of events (news) and contexts behind Blockchain technology in recent years (it started in 2008/2009). Blockchain technology is new technology that the author believes will lead to the 4th industrial revolution - the first 3 are age of mechanical production (1760s), age of science and mass production (1900s) and digital revolutions (1950s). The author states that blockchain is the truth machine for the world's transactions. Blockchain supposedly removes the intermediaries, such as bankers, and in general human errors and fraud, involved in our current centralized transaction system. Blockchain creates an "immutable", shared record of truths (transactions are secured and pure). Basically, blockchain may help eliminate the potential for fraudulent tampering of transactions.
My personal thoughts: I liked some of the stories in the book. I enjoyed some of the scenarios and news events that were discussed. It gave me a good historical foundation for blockchain. I feel like even 5% of knowledge from this book will put you ahead of understanding blockchain contextually better than a majority of people today. It's such a young and unpredictable technology at this time so learning as much as you can will put you ahead of the crowd.
My personal thoughts: I liked some of the stories in the book. I enjoyed some of the scenarios and news events that were discussed. It gave me a good historical foundation for blockchain. I feel like even 5% of knowledge from this book will put you ahead of understanding blockchain contextually better than a majority of people today. It's such a young and unpredictable technology at this time so learning as much as you can will put you ahead of the crowd.
August 20, 2018
An introduction to blockchain technology. I was hoping to learn real and concrete facts about blockchains, blockchain applications, and their economic and technical significance. Instead I got to read high level speculation (and even hype) about blockchain's potential, along with off-hand forecasts. The authors seem to quote press releases and drop big numbers:
Yeah. I was expecting less hype and more actual facts.
The book does a reasonable job in introducing blockchain concepts, potential use cases and the biggest challenges on the technology's way. Maybe it's a three-star book, but my expectations were far higher...
There were a few interesting ideas worth noting. Such as
It could be true, in some parts of the world. At least it's a great reminder that your data is valuable and that the #mydata movement is worthwhile.
The book also makes a case of decentralized energy grid, claiming that that's a way to eliminate even 30% of power loss caused by transmission. That's a fascinating claim.
..is worth about $20 trillion. If poor people could use that capital as collateral, he says, the multiplier effect from all that credit flowing through the global economy could create growth rates in excess of 10 percent in ...
Yeah. I was expecting less hype and more actual facts.
The book does a reasonable job in introducing blockchain concepts, potential use cases and the biggest challenges on the technology's way. Maybe it's a three-star book, but my expectations were far higher...
There were a few interesting ideas worth noting. Such as
..our accumulated digital and online footprints provide so much information that they far exceed the informational power of official documents like birth certificates and passports.
It could be true, in some parts of the world. At least it's a great reminder that your data is valuable and that the #mydata movement is worthwhile.
The book also makes a case of decentralized energy grid, claiming that that's a way to eliminate even 30% of power loss caused by transmission. That's a fascinating claim.
March 12, 2018
Starting with a look at the properties of bitcoin that are special and valuable, the book opens a discussion about where there are real opportunities for further valuable innovation. The invention of a digital asset that can not be easily replicated is a fascinating development that does deserve exploration.
This is a philosophical discussion touching immutable records, radically distributed systems, personal sovereignty particularly over one's data and identity. The authors talk about what it means for the controlling software to be open source and that the bitcoin blockchain is permission-less so that anyone can participate and contribute.
Micro-payments have the potential to improve the advertising and media markets. Supply chain applications clearly could improve the traceability of products, access to markets and also the financing, particularly for small parties. The ICO market seems questionable at the moment but clearly has the potential to open finance options, tokens may also be useful functionally in tracking intellectual property.
I have not generally enthused much about "blockchain" applications. Too often I feel proponents have distorted the significance of the critical properties of bitcoin. This book does a very good discussing and illustrating novel applications in the context of a solid assessment of what bitcoin represents.
This is a philosophical discussion touching immutable records, radically distributed systems, personal sovereignty particularly over one's data and identity. The authors talk about what it means for the controlling software to be open source and that the bitcoin blockchain is permission-less so that anyone can participate and contribute.
Micro-payments have the potential to improve the advertising and media markets. Supply chain applications clearly could improve the traceability of products, access to markets and also the financing, particularly for small parties. The ICO market seems questionable at the moment but clearly has the potential to open finance options, tokens may also be useful functionally in tracking intellectual property.
I have not generally enthused much about "blockchain" applications. Too often I feel proponents have distorted the significance of the critical properties of bitcoin. This book does a very good discussing and illustrating novel applications in the context of a solid assessment of what bitcoin represents.
September 9, 2018
I have been dipping my toe into the blockchain world, seeing it as a disruption to the financial world. I picked this book off of the library shelf to learn more about where blockchain will take us.
If you are someone who doesn't know much about blockchains, the various players and the history, this is a good overview. If you are someone, like me, who is continually reading about that world, there isn't much here that is new or interesting. Read Crypto Medium articles. As the blockchain world is running faster than dog years, a book published at the beginning of 2018 is already out of date.
I did want to see if there are any new ideas as to the impact this technology will make on the world. The idea of using tokens to pay for car charging at a stranger's house was interesting. I already knew about tokenization of physical assets, tracking their ownership or movement. Think aircraft parts, where the history is of supreme importance. Recently I've learned about a project that is working to tokenize music ownership & payments. Such ideas are like the Internet in the mid-1990's. Lots of things to try & see what sticks. But the iterations are faster and less forgiving.
All in all, this was a good book when it was written. But the realm of blockchain moves too fast for books.
If you are someone who doesn't know much about blockchains, the various players and the history, this is a good overview. If you are someone, like me, who is continually reading about that world, there isn't much here that is new or interesting. Read Crypto Medium articles. As the blockchain world is running faster than dog years, a book published at the beginning of 2018 is already out of date.
I did want to see if there are any new ideas as to the impact this technology will make on the world. The idea of using tokens to pay for car charging at a stranger's house was interesting. I already knew about tokenization of physical assets, tracking their ownership or movement. Think aircraft parts, where the history is of supreme importance. Recently I've learned about a project that is working to tokenize music ownership & payments. Such ideas are like the Internet in the mid-1990's. Lots of things to try & see what sticks. But the iterations are faster and less forgiving.
All in all, this was a good book when it was written. But the realm of blockchain moves too fast for books.
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