Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies provides a comprehensive introduction to the revolutionary yet often misunderstood new technologies of digital currency. Whether you are a student, software developer, tech entrepreneur, or researcher in computer science, this authoritative and self-contained book tells you everything you need to know about the new global money for the Internet age.

How do Bitcoin and its blockchain actually work? How secure are your bitcoins? How anonymous are their users? Can cryptocurrencies be regulated? These are some of the many questions this book answers. It begins by tracing the history and development of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and then gives the conceptual and practical foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the Bitcoin network, as well as to integrate ideas from Bitcoin into your own projects.

Topics include decentralisation, mining, the politics of Bitcoin, altcoins, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the future of Bitcoin, and more.

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies is an essential introduction to the new technologies of digital currency. It covers the history and mechanics of Bitcoin and the blockchain, security, decentralisation, anonymity, politics and regulation, altcoins, and much more.

The book features an accompanying website that includes instructional videos for each chapter, homework problems, programming assignments, and lecture slides. It is also suitable for use with the authors' Coursera online course. An electronic solutions manual is available only to professors.