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Books, Crypto, Entertainment, Finance, Observation

The Best Books on Cryptocurrency

Above:Photo Credit / Krzysztof Kowalik on Unsplash

So much is going on in the area of Crypto-currencies, Blockchain, Alt Coins, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that it can make your head spin. And that is not to even mention Crypto Mining, Farming, Baking and Trading, all of which have had skyrocketing activity recently.

How much interest there is runs the gamut from the curious onlooker to the serious professional. And then there are predictions regarding the future of the world financial system, the political and legal ramifications of the rise of crypto and all the opinions going every which way, and more.

Based on all of the above it only makes sense to put together a list of fundamental ground floor guidebooks to help anyone who wants and needs to really understand what all the fuss is about. Bitcoin and the whole area of blockchain technology has come so far already, and is so established and entrenched that it is unlikely to disappear completely anytime soon, no matter which way the political winds may blow.

So if you are a beginner an intermediate or even advanced learner that wants to know more, these are the best books to really dig into the phenomena and explosion of information and viewpoints. To make it easier they are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the various publishers), and with some links for a variety of options of where to purchase.

Mastering Blockchain – Third Edition: A deep dive into distributed ledgers, consensus protocols, smart contracts, DApps, cryptocurrencies

Buy at Bookshop

Blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, and it has applications in finance, government, media, and many other industries. With a legacy of providing technologists with executable insights, the third edition of Mastering Blockchain is thoroughly revised and updated with the latest blockchain research, including four new chapters on consensus algorithms, Serenity (Ethereum 2.0), tokenization, and enterprise blockchains.

Apart from covering the basics, including blockchain’s technical underpinnings, cryptography, and consensus protocols, this book provides you with expert knowledge on decentralization, decentralized application development on Ethereum, Bitcoin, alternative coins, smart contracts, alternative blockchains, and Hyperledger.

Furthermore, you will explore how to implement blockchain solutions beyond cryptocurrencies, such as the Internet of Things with blockchain, blockchain scalability, enterprise blockchains, and tokenization using blockchain, and the future scope of this fascinating and disruptive technology.

By the end of this book, you will have gained a thorough understanding of the various facets of blockchain technology and be comfortable applying them to diverse real-world scenarios.

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Key Features

  • Updated with four new chapters on consensus algorithms, Ethereum 2.0, tokenization, and enterprise blockchains
  • Dive deep into foundational pillars of blockchain technology such as decentralization, cryptography, and consensus protocols
  • Get to grips with Solidity, Web3, cryptocurrencies, smart contract development and solve scalability, security, and privacy issues
  • Discover the architecture of different distributed ledger platforms including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth, Corda, and Quorum

Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology& Altcoins For Beginners: Explore The Decentralized World, Investing in Crypto Blueprint, Mining Basics+

Buy at Bookshop

Do you want to understand what Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency actually is? Do you want to understand how it could change the world & finance industry FOREVER? Do you want to discover how you can get started investing in Crypto TODAY?

By now we’ve all heard of it, yet few of us understand it, and without understanding it how could you even dream of investing in it?

You hear all the tech ‘bros’ talking about it, you hear the media slandering it, you can see the bankers are scared by it’s potential, but you still don’t quite get the fuss.

Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

But, luckily, this book has been written for people just like you.

The purpose of it is to demystify the world of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Decentralization & The Blockchain.

And, if those 4 words currently sound like a foreign language to you, you’re not alone. But, after this book, you’ll be the one explaining about the ‘Crypto Craze’ to everyone you see!

Inside, we will go over the origins & history of Bitcoin, it’s potential to change the world, as well as how it could all go wrong.

And, of course, we will go over how you can invest in potentially the greatest wealth transfer the world has ever seen.

Here’s a tiny Example of what’s inside..

  • Exactly What Bitcoin Actually Is And How It Is Drastically Disrupting The Global Economy 
  • Everything You Need To Know About The ‘Bitcoin Halving’ Cycles & How To Maximize Your Gains From Them
  • What Is A ‘Blockchain’ And How It Could Quite Literally Revolutionize EVERY Aspect Of Your Life In The Coming Decades
  • What Are ‘Altcoins’ And How They Are Different To Bitcoin & What Their Purpose In All Of This Is…
  • Why We Are Still In The VERY Early Days Of The Crypto ‘Boom’

And SO Much More!

So, If You Want To FINALLY Understand The World Of Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency So You Can Actually Understand What All The Fuss Is About And Whether You Want To Get Involved, Then Scroll Up And Click

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Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe

buy at Bookshop

From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus–how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.

Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.

Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number–infinity–to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.

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Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.

As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

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When a pseudonymous programmer introduced “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” to a small online mailing list in 2008, very few paid attention. Ten years later, and against all odds, this upstart autonomous decentralized software offers an unstoppable and globally-accessible hard money alternative to modern central banks. The Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of Bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.

While Bitcoin is a new invention of the digital age, the problem it purports to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Ammous takes the reader on an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells, to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the reader with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied civilizational collapse.

With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of Bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for final settlement of large payments–a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.

Ammous’ firm grasp of the technological possibilities as well as the historical realities of monetary evolution provides for a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of voluntary free market money. As it challenges the most sacred of government monopolies, Bitcoin shifts the pendulum of sovereignty away from governments in favor of individuals, offering us the tantalizing possibility of a world where money is fully extricated from politics and unrestrained by borders.

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Business, Crypto, Economics, Finance, Observation

Bitcoin and Crypto’s Crash is not the First, the Largest or the Last

Above: Photo by Michael Krahn on Unsplash with elements added by Lynxotic

Coming after a frenzied run-up the hand wringing is no surprise

I many ways it seems as if Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies appeared suddenly in 2021 out of the head of Zeus. Protean and fully formed, with billions and trillions in market caps, and all your sisters, brothers, cousins and even the Uber driver climbing aboard.

And the FOMO blog posts, where every hour an innocent reader is assaulted by a story, perhaps true, perhaps exaggerated and certainly foolhardy in retrospect, of an innocent putting their life savings into Dogecoin and suddenly having, theoretically, huge gains at their disposal.

Meanwhile, craggy faced, ancient stock market mavens would interject famous last words that now appear to be wise. However, all that notwithstanding, this week’s crash is nothing new or unexpected.

In reality, as can be seen from the graphic below, provided by Visual Capitalist, there have been so may crashes / corrections and doomsday prognostications since 2012 in Bitcoin that it seems like a miracle the there’s any thing such as Crypto at all.

There’s a reason it’s not dead and it’s in the DNA

The resiliency, far from a shock to those that have been around more than a fortnight, is kinda the point. When Satoshi Nakamoto built the system architecture of Bitcoin and since then inspired the over 8000 new crypto entities that have been developed, it was, just like the internet itself that was build to survive WWIII, supposed to be as indestructible as possible.

Like physical gold, which is considered have been adopted as a store of value partly due to its indestructibility and immutability (alchemy notwithstanding) the volatility and sometimes violent-seeming life story of Bitcoin is a necessary adjust to its role in finance, commerce and even individual monetary survival.

Not for the faint of heart, perhaps

While the mainstream and those forces opposed to the adoption or survival of Bitcoin and Crypto are out in force pointing to the “unsuitability” of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for any “legitimate” use as a trade or savings vehicle, the progress so far, in spite of the obvious fact that volatility has always been baked in to the situation, is an obvious refutation of that viewpoint.

Will the current drop in dollar values relative to Bitcoin end it’s popularity and strip it of the respect it has thusfrar earned among many? In a word, no. In essence what is happening is, as many have foretold, what happens often and repeatedly, the excess attention and dollars that were pumped into crypto by you brother, sister, cousin and Uber driver are now getting blown out, since those were more speculation and psychosis than any kind of vote for viability or permanency.

And, why not? Where was to concern, shock and hesitation by the masses when the prices seemed to only rise for weeks and even months across so many products and coins it was impossible to keep count? Why was to feeding frenzy and the mania-like piling on not ignored as an anomaly?

The herd does as the herd will do. Diamond hands and Paper hands will ebb and flow as long as the rivers flow to the sea and humans herd like buffalo. And, in all likelihood, dollars and euros and yen will be long forgotten when the last bitcoin is transferred to the final wallet in the sky.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Lynxotic does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Business, Crypto, Economics, Finance

Elon Musk is taking sides in the ‘True Battle’ between Crypto & Fiat

Video

Above:Photo Credit / Unsplash / Collage / Lynxotic

If you are stuck on the word ‘fiat’ this post can help you (everyone else too)

In a single, 14 word reply to a follower (@TheRealShifo) that asked “Yo Elon what do you think about the peeps who are angry at you because of crypto?” He gave a simple answer that is the often unmentioned, yet most important, question regarding crypto vs. fiat, government issued, currency such as the US dollar.

Looking around during the ongoing frenzy surrounding crypto and digital finance you’ll see countless ‘news” stories and blog posts comparing, or pretending to compare cryptocurrencies, especially the two biggest Bitcoin and Ethereum (as coin sometimes referred to as “Ether”) and they virtually always quote the “price” fluctuations of those coins as a certain number of dollars and cents.

Interestingly I have yet to see any of these “comparisons” use the reverse valuation method, such as, “the US dollar is currently worth .00002703 Bitcoin. Can you imagine everything using that as a standard – CNBC quoting stock prices in Bitcoin, your house is “worth” 32 Bitcoins (if you’re in California, for example).

The reason this comes off sounding strange and ridiculous is that all communication related to the US dollar, which has been a fiat currency since abandoning any “backing” (such as gold) and continuing on by decree (or fiat) of the government with no backing other than than decree, also carries a decree (tacit) not to undermine it in public.

So when Elon says:

“The true battle is between fiat & crypto. On balance, I support the latter.”

Simple and straightforward and yet intentionally shrouded in mystery

Musk is directly comparing crypto, generally, and fiat currencies around the world that “float” against each other. And by inference, doing so in terms of the difference between a fiat currency like the US Dollar and a crypto currency, like Bitcoin.

A fiat currency is money that is not backed by a physical commodity like gold, but instead backed by the government that issued it. Most modern currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, euro, pound and yen, are fiat money.

from Wikipedia

The term fiat derives from the Latin word fiat, meaning “let it be done” used in the sense of an order, decree or resolution.

— common Definition

The fact that Bitcoin was created as a digital alternative to fiat money stands at the forefront of that point. The fact that it was designed precisely to counter the drawbacks and dangers of a system based on fiat paper money (or digital ledgers of those paper dollars such as your bank balance or any method to keep track of how many “imaginary” paper dollars you “have”) is exactly the real issue at hand.

photo credit: twitter

It’s no secret that many attack those goals and intentions superficially and dismiss the entire discussion with a wave of the hand. They willfully use the complexity of the cryptographic solutions, at the heart of cryptocurrency, as a way to gloss over the real and substantive problems being targeted.

They prey on the ignorance of the majority to try and discount out of hand any value at all for the movement and the various products.

Opening up the door to this exact exchange and characterizing it as a “battle” in one fowl swoop clarifies and simplifies the real issues and the real reason for the existence, and according to many, including Elon Musk, the need for monetary “reform” or change via a shift toward crypto.

Opening up the door to this exact exchange and characterizing it as a “battle” in one fowl-swoop clarifies and simplifies the real issues and the real reason for the existence of, and the need for, monetary “reform” or change via a shift toward crypto.

D.L.

The “price” of Bitcoin or any other crypto currency on any given day has almost nothing whatsoever to do with that debate.

Speculation abounds but not just in Crypto

The “price” is a function of, mostly, speculation and scarcity, due, in the case of Bitcoin to the mining cap, or at least a perceived scarcity. And additionally the various perceived advantages of crypto such as privacy, decentralization, use of block chain systems, etc.

But the price is like the smoke above the battlefield, not the reason for the battle or any indicator who is winning or who is on the side of might or right.

Two major questions that arise from this tweet and the potential shift toward a clearer and simpler dialogue on crypto are the following:

  1. Is crypto generally, and Bitcoin / Ether more specifically established and entrenched enough to withstand the coming backlash from governments that feel threatened and other status quo institutions that will do whatever it takes to discourage or even stamp out crypto usage?
  2. Will the very battle itself, that Elon Musk says is the current “true” battle, bring even more attention to the weaknesses and problems with the current fiat money system and thereby increase, perhaps inadvertently yet massively, the size of the battle and its stakes?

Alternative systems of trade have been tolerated in the US for some time now. How are those air miles doing? What about the chips and points for perks you got at the Indian Casino? Is it too late to outlaw all crypto without causing a revolution in the streets?

The other side of the (clipped) coin

It is truly surprising to see how little is to be found in the media about the deeper reasons for the rise of crypto. How it sometimes seems like direct criticism of fiat currency is almost taboo.

Naturally any internet search will find many “rabbit hole” sources for all kinds of information critical of the current monetary system, the same system the near total collapse of which in 2008 inspired the creation of bitcoin.

It appears that Elon Musk is emphasizing, in a subdued manner, exactly the way that the nonsense-furor over huge price gains or declines is completely missing the actual point. The “true battle”.

Many stories in the media and millions of private comments are currently following a kind of convoluted logic – first the popularity of crypto (which is linked to the unpopularity of the very messed up fiat system) artificially and massively increases prices in many crypto assets.

This “bubble”, a typical outcome of human herding behavior in financial markets, inevitably bursts or sees large setbacks. Then the coin or crypto system itself is blamed for the human stupidity and greed that caused the distortions of price, just like happened in the dot-com bubble and the 2007 housing bubble and subsequent crash.

The difference is that the crypto bubble, in an interesting way, is in reality due to a surge in skepticism toward fiat currencies, a boom in the prevalence of mistrust toward governments and a combination of fear and greed that is growing, not dissipating.

Although many have rightly criticized Elon Musk’s tweets and odd Saturday Night Live appearance, and there is a kind of mini-backlash (growing?) against all things Musk, in this case it is a healthy and wise tweet that we have shown above.

Reframing, or more aptly refocusing the discussion away from prices and speculative profits and back to the real reasons that cryptos were initially created and why it has gained such massive support is a welcome shift. That this reframing comes from the likes of Musk himself, is fitting and who better to put forth a message to simplify and clarify the nature of the real “battle” at hand.

The following video has some interesting data and arguments for, and mainly against, the fiat regime under which we have lived for most of the last century. Although, in a sense, a kind of advertisement for Gold and Silver, the overview is nevertheless accurate and does not exaggerate the dangers and issues that revolve around the fiat system.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Lynxotic does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Find books on Money and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

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Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page