Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

I had already read a few superb books about the Blockchain which sparked my imagination with futuristic perspectives on the revolutionary potential of this breakthrough technological platform on which the (in)famous first digital currency, Bitcoin, is still coasting. So, when Don sent me a copy of his last book, Blockchain Revolution, shortly after my article on the matter in the Top 10 was published – once my enthusiastic gratitude damped off a bit - I thought, ‘Why another one?’ What can this book say more than what my favorite ones (among which top are Vigna and Cassey “The Age of Cryptocurrency” and, Melanie Swan “Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy”) said already so clearly, so inspirationally, so forward looking! To make sure I can quickly grasp the novelty I decided to skip the first part and began reading from the Transformations part. And with every page my state of awe spiked up rocket style!Awe at the clarity with which the Tapscotts spell out the paradigm shift from the Internet as we know it, to the Blockchain-enabled Internet (we call it ‘B-Internet’ here). No matter what Chapter or even what page you start with, the reading will shed light on many blind spots under which the established systems ruling in sectors which still practice past century recipes cover up their fallacies to continue channeling incredible wealth. This book spares no one, from the archaic practices of the financial monopolies that, supported by politicians have enslaved us in an almost unescapable gridlock, to the fat intermediaries reaping artists of the value they create - the authors ponder about every crucial transformation brought by this ‘prosperity-enabling holy grail’ poised to unleash wealth where before poverty reigned, and deliver trust elixir to dissolve corrupt stagnation from every dark corner.Current institutional structures are drastically challenged by the rate of change of society, technology and the environment which far outstrips their capacity to adapt. Governments and international organizations are losing their legitimacy to competition from entirely new structures of collective action enabled by the Internet – and Don’s definitive voice on the matter illuminated us in the past decades through numerous articles and over a dozen books. When I first met him on a panel at the United Nations, Don gave me his “Radical Transparency” book – which now sounds like a prologue to the Blockchain Revolution. Since - I have been amazed at the studies his Global Solutions Networks program unraveled to demystify the power of self-organized collective action the Internet can unleash. Embedding the principles of decentralization and sharing (which are spelled out in Chapter two), the Blockchain platform is about to catalyze an even deeper societal transformation.In the authors’ words: “This book is about something bigger than the asset. It’s about the power and potential of the underlying technological platform” (Chapter one). The Blockchain ledger is not simply for accounting monetary transactions. At its core, it is a platform that allows people to come to agreement on virtually anything without intermediaries. It provides a foundation to make social contracts based on the principle of consensus. Foremost, the Blockchain enables a larger function of accounting; performing checks and balances on the self-interests and the corruptible tendencies that exist in society. Unlike traditional representative models of governance, where systems of checks and balance are exercised through third parties, under bitcoin’s consensus model, accountability is distributed directly and exercised by all in the network. This opens the perspective of increased access to critical financial services for all, creating more transparent democracies, and developing services that dramatically reduce barriers for global commerce. The Tapscotts awaken us to such possibilities with clear steps distilled into powerful prosperity recipes for reinventing the financial system, re-architecting the enterprise, rebuilding government and democracy, deploying a trustworthy Internet of Things, and many more.With advances in Blockchain technology now removed from the constraints of Bitcoin, it is possible to encode smart contracts as algorithms that will act as a trusted enforcer of agreements. The idea is that, in removing the need to trust central authorities, blockchains become platforms upon which one can build new forms of non-hierarchal cooperation between strangers. Thus the Blockchain is poised to become a social technology for whole new institutional forms of economies sporting new market dynamics.I’ve worked on this dream in the past 20 years with FIPA – the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (http://www.fipa.org/), and we made amazing progress in implementing distributed extended enterprise models that break the chain of industrial age command and control practices to unleash creative potential and streamline production within the enterprise. Pioneering applications in the fields of manufacturing production and supply chain management based on those early models of Distributed Autonomous Enterprise did not really take off in other areas due to the burden of the entrenched legal infrastructure which could not be equally streamlined at the time. Now ‘the trust protocol’ – as the Tapscotts nicknamed Satoshi Nakamoto’s spark of Genius - is here and ready to disintermediate cumbersome bureaucracies and free productive capacity entangled in the web of rules stacked on old, creeping foundations. The book presents creative ways of building the 2.0 version of the DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization) – together with how such platforms can innovate business models while fostering profound societal transformations.So yeah – you may say – there are already out there a few superb books about the Blockchain that captivated the imagination of disruptive leaders in recent years – so, why read another one?... Because, besides interesting fictional scenarios touching the limits of the impossible, this one spells out the practical steps you can take right now to unleash the potential of this technology to rectify the flaws of current infrastructures which kept us captive in the command-and-control ‘industrial mindset’ of the past Century, and will continue to do so until we finally take action. It offers simple – yet extremely effective, powerful design principles as well as step by step practical recipes which you can apply at once to unleash this latent power to transform entire sectors, from global financial webs to social innovation networks. It gives real-life examples of fallacies of the current practices in almost all industries that can benefit from the blockchain technology, pointing with clarity to why you should care and how to succeed at riding this revolution waves to take your business to new heights, while witnessing the peril of those complacent with the status quo.Yet, to me, the major contribution of this work stems from the definitive clarification of the paradigm shift from an Internet that enables coordination while monetizing the transactions information for the benefit of the enabling platforms owners – to the B-Internet, which breaks down those very platforms to enforce trustworthy collaboration and the creation and fair distribution of value through social and commercial agreements inherently validated on the blockchain-embedded transaction platform itself. As such, you, the social innovators out there – take notice! This book is one significant leap towards answering the hard questions that we culd not answer in the pre B-Internet era: How to enable large scale, free and systematic cooperation in a self-organizing manner that will produce constructive social and economic dynamics?; How can social interactions be aligned with macro-level goals and how policies steering action towards goal achievement can emerge from such interactions?So, set aside a chunk of time every day in your calendar for this journey, as I do to revisit the various chapters as they relate to the various challenges I face – and join the Tapscotts on the Blockchian ride to break the gridlock in which we have been chained for too long - in an ultimate call on the digital economy to unleash its true power for creating a prosperous and fair future – paradoxically, through a technology involving chains!...

3/5 for me. This book is packed full of information on a constantly changing subject. I learned a lot and my only issues are how well the information will stand the test of time and the experience I felt while reading...it got a little redundant. Overall, it is great at explaining blockchain structures to the curious learner who wants to explain Bitcoin to their grandparents at a family dinner!

This is a great "vision" book for understanding what blockchain technologies (shared immutable ledgers, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, etc.) can do for us as a society. The authors cover reinventing business, governments, commerce, etc. very well via blockchain-enabled efforts. The discussions are deep enough to be genuinely thought-provoking.Be aware that the book does approach the problems from a very liberal perspective. We're constantly reminded that lots of people are disenfranchised by governments and big business (third-parties), for example, and you don't get too much defense of existing third-party systems that actually work well.The details of how blockchain itself works are not discussed in any detail, so if you are looking for this kind of info, look elsewhere.I do have 2 big criticisms:1. The authors hold the distinct belief that if we just make data (like the kinds of data managed by big corporations and governments) transparent through a blockchain that it will presumably be put to good, beneficial use for society. After all, blockchains are specifically intended to remove governing third parties. Little is mentioned on how to replace the "good" parts of the things these third parties do - it just magically takes care of itself because the data is transparent. It's a stretch.2. While the book provides a broad look at how many areas of our lives can be impacted by blockchain, there is a strong tendency for the authors to misappropriate other (re)evolutionary trends in technology (like IoT) and claim they are significantly enhanced because of blockchain. While there are some elements of truth here, the benefits of many of them (like IoT) as they describe them are 99% achievable without a blockchain - they simply don't make their case that blockchain makes it better very well.These aside, this book offers great broad perspectives on the possibilities of a blockchain-enabled world. It also provides great overviews of some work-in-flight initiatives.Read this with an appropriately-sized grain of salt, and you can't lose. A must-read for the blockchain-curious and futurists out there.

Bursting.

Blockchain Revolution is required reading if you are working with blockchain. You will find the leading blockchain thinkers and implementers are familiar with this work. Tapscott is a leading voice and influence. It is important to be conversant with his perspective. This is not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of blockchain. It will provide a common point of reference for your blockchain conversations. It is a great place to start, but you will need to do more reading if you are implementing blockchain solutions.

I started this book with no knowledge of blockchain whatsoever. As I read I collected other sources from the book and wrote them in the front. Following up on some of these has opened my eyes further. The first seven chapters were the best but I did get a little of the 'geewhiz' feeling from the book. But at least now I know where to begin a search for education on the topic. A good primer.

Qui n'a pas entendu parler de bitcoin ou chaînes de blocs? Voici un livre qui couvre tous les volets de cette technologie qui est la deuxième révolution internet ou que d'autres ont nommé la 4ième révolution industrielle.Si vous êtes dirigeant d'un entreprise ou d'un organisation, vous vous devez de lire ce livre. Les Tapscotts sont parfaitement placés pour nous décrire cette technologie révolutionnaire et ses impacts sur de nombreux éléments d'une organisation.

I bought this book because of my interest in the implications of blockchain technology beyond bitcoin. I found the book very frustrating to read. There was a lot of "imagine doing this with blockchain, or imagine doing that". The truth is that blockchain technology is very very new. The best examples (Ethereum) are still in the beta phases. Although the authors admit that they are not predicting a blockchain future, but rather advocating for one, the future they are advocating feels remote and utopian. If you are going to advocate for a certain type of future, then you had better provide a coherent vision, and here is where the book fails: the writing felt rushed, excited, and piecemeal. Ideas were repeated over and over and infused with idealistic banalities. I would have liked more narrative, some type of mythology underpinning the book. Instead, we get sampling of blockhain's potential impacts on various sectors of society. My hunch is that the coders involved with blockchain (e.g. Vitalik Buterin) will write better books on the subject than observers like the Tapscotts.Overall, the book provides a nice survey of the actors, issues, controversies of the blockchain scene, but the vision feels amateur, like high schoolers getting ready for prom. Don't get me wrong, I want blockchain to work, and I applaud the Tapscott's desire to make it work, but in terms of writing, the book is subpar.