Review: Blockchain Babel

Igor Pejic provides a handy guide to understanding what the flip the Blockchain is about, and what it will really mean for us all.

If you ever wondered how a cryptocurrency wallet worked (it functions more like a key than a wallet) or what “hashing” means (it’s where original information is transformed into a code via mathematical scrambling with one-way cryptography) this book explains all of that, alongside the basic principles and workings of the Blockchain and the cryptos that run off it.

“Blockchain has the potential to force the finance industry through a change unseen for centuries.” The ability to move money and assets without a central authority is fundamentally disruptive, and the general consensus seems to be that Blockchain technology will change every industry from the ground up.

This is a list cited in the book of the eight major categories of blockchain applications identified so far:

• General applications
• Cryptocurrencies
• Financial transactions
• Public records
• Identification
• Attestation
• Physical asset keys
• Intangible assets

Yet as much as this broad-ranging disruption is acknowledged, Pejic also encourages us…