Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper (Book)
Welcome to the first book review here at blockwhat?, I’m thrilled to have you here and can’t wait to share my enthusiasm for this exciting new technological paradigm with you! There are a lot of really good books and resources out there that do a great job at thoroughly explaining the mysterious and cryptic wilderness called blockchain and I’ll review the best ones out there here for you.
In this category I’ll present the books and resources that helped me the most to start to grasp the mind blowing potential of this new emerging technology. There will be a broad selection spanning from fascinating books, exquisite podcasts to really awesome online resources! I hope that these reviews will give you a good opportunity to dive into this captivating and paradigm-shifting technological revolution.
Without further ado, I’d love to present to you the book that helped me kick start the process of understanding this confusing new paradigm. Let’s get started!
“It’s either going to change everything, or nothing,”
― Nathaniel Popper
The book “Digital Gold” by Nathaniel Popper is a great and very well written account of the history behind Bitcoin (and therefore the first blockchain). What really makes this book stand out, is the narrative quality in which it is written. Based on over 300 individual interviews that Popper conducted with the most important people that played a role in the upbringing of this new technology, it provides a rare and unique insight into the very human stories behind it.
An outstanding strength of this written account is the holistic picture is paints for the reader. It does so by highlighting and expressing the varied facets and aspects that taken together formed the narrative in which this new technology was born.
By providing a lot of different aspects through the manifold interview partners, Poppers does a magnificent job of demonstrating the philosophical world in which Bitcoin was born into. Exploring the interesting crypto-anarchy lands that intermingled with libertarians, the ideological framework is greatly explained.
It’s fascinating to see how the idea was then eventually picked up by individuals who had innovative economics applications in mind with this new technology. These range from shady pirates bringing the technology into the mainstream news for the first time when the infamous dark web marketplace “Silk Road” came into the spotlight, an innovative Argentinian entrepreneur all the way to the milestone creation of one of the first big exchanges for Bitcoin, Mt. Gox.
And of course the technological side is explored as well, providing the reader with a sound, even though only rather basic, understanding of how this innovation function.
Nathaniel Popper is a San Francisco based journalist for the New York Times, where he is covering technology and finance. He frequently writes super interesting articles covering the consequences and ramifications of blockchain at the intersection with other topics, such as Artificial Intelligence or Supply Chain.
I hope that I could excite you for this book and get you to read it, it is really worthwhile investment of your time and money!
Buy it in your local bookstore and support them, otherwise I have complete faith in you that you’ll manage to acquire it by yourself somewhere in this magical digital cyber world of ours.
Let me know if you’ve already read it, are reading it at the moment or plan to read it and feel like conversing about it — I’m definitely down to talk about this awesome book!
If you’re interested in learning more about the history behind blockchain, feel free to click here and indulge yourself in a fascinating and turbulent past.
Yours truly
Till
If you’re interested in more awesome resources to enhance your knowledge about blockchain, check out these other reviews:
- Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper (Book) (this review)
- The Truth Machine by Michael J Casey & Paul Vigna (Book)
- Blockchain Revolution by Don and Alex Tapscott (Book)
- Blockchain Innovation by Frederick Munawa (Podcast)
- Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos (Book)
- Blockchain and the Law by Primavera De Filippi & Aaron Wright (Book)
- Mastering Ethereum by Andreas Antonopoulos and Gavin Wood
- Homo Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari
- Homo Deus by Noah Yuval Harari
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Noah Yuval Harari
