Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

by Melanie Swan
Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

by Melanie Swan

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Overview

Bitcoin is starting to come into its own as a digital currency, but the blockchain technology behind it could prove to be much more significant. This book takes you beyond the currency ("Blockchain 1.0") and smart contracts ("Blockchain 2.0") to demonstrate how the blockchain is in position to become the fifth disruptive computing paradigm after mainframes, PCs, the Internet, and mobile/social networking.

Author Melanie Swan, Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies, explains that the blockchain is essentially a public ledger with potential as a worldwide, decentralized record for the registration, inventory, and transfer of all assets—not just finances, but property and intangible assets such as votes, software, health data, and ideas.

Topics include:

  • Concepts, features, and functionality of Bitcoin and the blockchain
  • Using the blockchain for automated tracking of all digital endeavors
  • Enabling censorship-resistant organizational models
  • Creating a decentralized digital repository to verify identity
  • Possibility of cheaper, more efficient services traditionally provided by nations
  • Blockchain for science: making better use of the data-mining network
  • Personal health record storage, including access to one’s own genomic data
  • Open access academic publishing on the blockchain

This book is part of an ongoing O’Reilly series. Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies introduces Bitcoin and describes the technology behind Bitcoin and the blockchain. Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy considers theoretical, philosophical, and societal impact of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781491920497
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date: 02/19/2015
Pages: 149
Sales rank: 1,138,327
Product dimensions: 6.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Melanie Swan is the Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies and a Contemporary Philosophy MA candidate at Kingston UniversityLondon and Universityé Paris VIII. She has a traditional markets background with an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the Universityof Pennsylvania, and work experience at Fidelity and JP Morgan. She has a new markets background as an entrepreneur and advisor to startups GroupPurchase and Prosper, and developed virtual world digital asset valuation and accounting principles for Deloitte. She was involved in the early stages of the Quantified Self movement, and founded DIYgenomics in 2010, an organization that pioneered the crowdsourced health research study. She is an instructor at Singularity University, an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a contributor to the Edge’s Annual Essay Question.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Blockchain 1.0: Currency 1

Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency 1

The Double-Spend and Byzantine Generals' Computing Problems 2

How a Cryptocurrency Works 3

eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity 3

Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin 4

Summary: Blockchain 1.0 in Practical Use 5

Relation to Fiat Currency 5

Regulatory Status 7

2 Blockchain 2.0: Contracts 9

Financial Services 13

Crowdfunding 12

Bitcoin Prediction Markets 13

Smart Property 14

Smart Contracts 16

Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects 18

Wallet Development Projects 19

Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs 19

Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation 20

Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine 21

Counterparty Re-creates Ethereums Smart Contract Platform 22

Dapps, DAOs, DACs, and DASs: Increasingly Autonomous Smart Contracts 22

Dapps 23

DAOs and DACs 24

DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations 25

Automatic Markets and Tradenets 26

The Blockchain as a Path to Artificial Intelligence 26

3 Blockchain 3.0: Justice Applications Beyond Currency, Economics, and Markets 29

Blockchain Technology Is a New and Highly Effective Model for Organizing Activity 29

Extensibility of Blockchain Technology Concepts 30

Fundamental Economic Principles: Discovery, Value Attribution, and Exchange 30

Blockchain Technology Could Be Used in the Administration of All Quanta 31

Blockchain Layer Could Facilitate Big Data's Predictive Task Automation 31

Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models 32

Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System 33

Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services 34

Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel 35

Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity 35

Digital Identity Verification 36

Blockchain Neutrality 38

Digital Divide of Bitcoin 38

Digital Art: Blockchain Attestation Services (Notary, Intellectual Property Protection) 39

Hashing Plus Timestamping 39

Proof of Existence 40

Virtual Notary, Bitnotar, and Chronobit 42

Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection 43

Digital Asset Proof as an Automated Feature 44

Batched Notary Chains as a Class of Blockchain Infrastructure 44

Personal Thinking Blockchains 45

Blockchain Government 46

Decentralized Governance Services 47

PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution 50

Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections 51

Random-Sample Elections 52

Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets 53

Societal Maturity Impact of Blockchain Governance 54

4 Blockchain 3.0: Efficiency and Coordination Applications Beyond Currency, Economics, and Markets 55

Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin 55

Community Supercomputing 56

Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief 57

Charity Donations and the Blockchain-Sean's Outpost 57

Blockchain Genomics 58

Blockchain Genomics 2.0: Industrialized All-Human-Scale Sequencing Solution 59

Blockchain Technology as a Universal Order-of-Magnitude Progress Model 60

Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin 60

Blockchain Health 61

Healthcoin 61

EMRs on the Blockchain: Personal Health Record Storage 61

Blockchain Health Research Commons 62

Blockchain Health Notary 63

Doctor Vendor RFP Services and Assurance Contracts 63

Virus Bank, Seed Vault Backup 63

Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy 63

Learncoin 64

Learning Contract Exchanges 65

Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin 65

The Blockchain Is Not for Every Situation 67

Centralization-Decentralization Tension and Equilibrium 68

5 Advanced Concepts 71

Terminology and Concepts 71

Currency, Token, Tokenizing 72

Communitycoin: Hayek's Private Currencies Vie for Attention 73

Campuscoin 74

Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption 75

Currency: New Meanings 76

Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies 76

Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable 77

Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features 79

6 Limitations 83

Technical Challenges 83

Business Model Challenges 87

Scandals and Public Perception 88

Government Regulation 89

Privacy Challenges for Personal Records 90

Overall: Decentralization Trends Likely to Persist 91

7 Conclusion 93

The Blockchain Is an Information Technology 94

Blockchain AI: Consensus as the Mechanism to Foster "Friendly" AI 95

Large Possibility Space for Intelligence 95

Only Friendly AIs Are Able to Get Their Transactions Executed 95

Smart Contract Advocates on Behalf of Digital Intelligence 96

Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe 97

A Cryptocurrency Basics 99

B Ledra Capital Mega Master Blockchain List 103

Endnotes and References 107

Index 125

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