Blockchain Technology - I Told You So!

What Bitcoins, Ethereum and Other Blockchain Technologies Are and How You Can Use Them for Fun and Profit

By: Thomas Joseph Bernstein

Narrated by: Andrew B. Wehrlen

Length: 1 hr and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Are you curious about blockchain technology? Have you heard of Bitcoin and want to know more about it, but don’t know where to start?

If you’d like to know what blockchain systems are all about, this is the audiobook for you! This audiobook is a thorough introduction to the world of blockchain. It’s easy to follow and covers everything from the basics of blockchain to using blockchain technologies in your business.

Though blockchain technology was designed to be used for Bitcoin, more and more people are discovering that this technology is useful for other industries. Whether recording important transactions, the exchange of legal documents, authorizations, or more, blockchain technology is an entirely new way to maintain secure records.

Some are even touting blockchain technology as the backbone for a new type of Internet. The message is clear: Even if you’re not sure where to begin, now is the time to learn about blockchain technology.

This audiobook focuses on the history and trajectory of blockchain technology. The story of blockchain technology goes far beyond Bitcoin. It can be used to create other kinds of digital currency, but its main function of keeping updated, tamper-­proof records is enough to rewrite the rule book of the Internet.

Blockchain technology is being hailed as the next major movement in the global economy. Keep yourself or your business in the know and learn what blockchain technology can do for you.

Here is a snapshot of what this audiobook will teach you:

• What blockchain technology is and how it works: You’ll learn the basics behind blockchain technology and why companies and organizations all over the world are turning to it
• How blockchain systems came to be: the history of blockchain technology and Bitcoin
• What makes blockchain systems so groundbreaking
• What Bitcoin is and what you need to know about it
• The big picture: what blockchain means for economies
• What blockchain systems already exist: understanding Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple
• How to use blockchain technology: example applications of blockchain technology and how to profit from it
• Bitcoin 101: How to buy, use, and sell Bitcoins
• Blockchain of the future: what you need to know about the potential of blockchain systems

Blockchain systems are revolutionizing the way we share, store, and secure information. Whether you're familiar with blockchain technology (e.g. Bitcoin), or you're completely new to the concept, this audiobook is the perfect guide to the world of blockchain.

©2018 Thomas Joseph Bernstein (P)2018 Thomas Joseph Bernstein

good level of detail

Good level of detail. The author elaborates very well the impacts of blockchain in to the present and future society. Moreover give us a great and very clear view about the Institutional Revolution.

Good Information on How It All Works

It's still somewhat a mystery to me but the book does well explaining how Blockchain works. A must listen if you plan to invest in or use this technology.

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Very informative book

Great informative book. Great performer. Tells you how to invest in crypto, what is crypto and blockchain. Advantages. Risks. Tells you about Eth, Btc and Xrp.

A Great Explanation

This was a short and easy listen that provided an excellent background and explanation of blockchain technology. Even though I already had an idea of how it worked before listening, I thought that the author explained the concept and how the technology worked very well. You don't have to have an IT degree to understand concepts.

The narrator did a very good job. I forgot that he wasn't the author simply reading the book himself. He was the perfect narrator for this book.

Definitely get this book if you want to know how this new and growing technology works and how you can use it.

I requested and received a free copy of this audiobook from the author, publisher, or narrator in exchange for an unbiased review. I was NOT required to write a positive review and this reflects my honest opinion of the work.

A beginner book but still too advanced for me :(

I have absolutely no understanding of either bitcoin or blockchain technology, and was hoping that this book would give me a starting point for further research. This book began by confusing me, followed by providing some illumination, followed by more confusion.

I think that one of my problems is that I don't really understand what bitcoin actually is. All I know is that it's very volatile and I can't decide if it's an investment or a currency. In the media, I seem to be hearing more stories about how people are winning and losing a lot of money, and less about how it is legitimately used for the purchase of goods and services. I also find it a bit creepy that there's so much mystery around the inventor(s) of bitcoin, and that it's often mentioned hand-in-hand with the dark web economy. I used to teach an Intro to Business course at the secondary school level, many years ago, and I recall the lesson I used to teach about money. One of the characteristics of money, I seem to recall, is that it's a medium of exchange that's based on trust. Bitcoin makes my spidey senses tingle, I suppose. Let's just say I'll be a late adapter to this innovation.

And so, my confusion and skepticism about bitcoin possibly doesn't help when I'm trying to grasp the idea of blockchains. An advantage of blockchain technology is that it's unmediated, but on the other hand it sounds to me like miners have a lot of power in the process. And, even though it's secure from a hackability standpoint, I get the impression that modifications could be made based on consensus of the majority of the network participants and my spidey senses get tingly about that, too.

So, I listened to this audiobook and by the end of it I didn't feel that my understanding of this technology increased appreciably. When I teach a new and tricky concept to my students at college, I always try to start by building on something they already know, or give a few examples, or describe some analogies. Pedagogically speaking, this would be considered scaffolding. The author of this audiobook didn't really do this, so as a beginner to the concept, I was over my head within the first three minutes of the book. That doesn't make this a badly written book! It just means that I need a more basic primer than this, given my specific lack of foundation on this topic. I wouldn't be surprised if I decided to do some searching around on the internet to read a few more introductions to bitcoin and blockchain technology, and then revisited this audiobook and discovered that it made more sense to me the second time around.

The author did a good job. I could easily tell that he was trying his best to explain and teach, placing emphasis on specific phrases and concepts. I would listen to this narrator again, for this style of audiobook.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

quick guide

Quick, informative, and very accessible. If you've seen Blockchain and Bitcoin references popping up everywhere, or have an idea how they work but want a clearer , this is the book to get. Parent-friendly too if you have curious family members!

A solid 30000 ft view of cryptocurrency

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This was a decent, high level, overview of cryptocurrency. It was not that technical but gave a good 30,000 foot view of what cryptocurrency is. I'm not sure it provides enough info to actually get you started using blockchain, though. If you are looking for a quick "cliff notes" overview then I would recommend this book. If you ACTUALLY want to start using blockchain, you'll need to do a LOT more research.

A good introduction to the basic ideas

"Blockchain... I told you so!" is a solid description of the general ideas behind blockchain software, and it nicely identifies several areas where it could lead to paradigm shifts. It does explain some of the technical detail, but it has a strange and somewhat annoying method - it starts by repeatedly explaining part of the process and leaving the rest as unexplained technological wizardry, but each time it gives a little more information on the technical details. I would have preferred having it explained from a bird's-eye view from the get-go, followed by more in-depth examinations of each aspect of how blockchains work. Also, occasionally some of the most technical aspects are mentioned with no explanation whatsoever (e.g. Turing machines) and just end up as jargon.

The book certainly does well emphasizing the central idea of decentralization, though perhaps to the point of redundancy. While it lists numerous current and future implications, it gives very few specific examples of current events and doesn't bother to back up its claims of what the future will bring. Near the end, the book has detailed instructions on where to go to get started with cryptocurrencies along with some advice, which is definitely nice. It's so specific as to describe the layout of buttons on a few webpages, which on one hand can be very convenient but on the other could become meaningless before long as websites change their interfaces.

The reader spoke clearly and sounded like he enjoyed the reading the book, which always makes for a nicer listen. He did, however, in my opinion have a substantial surplus of unnecessarily long pauses, which at times were also awkwardly placed.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have
voluntarily left this review.

If you want to know what it is, here is the book

"Blockchain Technology - I Told You So!" by Thomas Joseph Bernstein is a high-level dive into the under-pinning architecture of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency; the blockchain. The audiobook is rather short at only one hour and forty minutes, yet it provides a decent level of information for its length into what the blockchain is and what some of its future uses might be. Andrew B. Wehrlen does an exceptional job with the book's audio narration and I highly recommend any of his science fiction books; if you enjoy his voice. As stated by the author, and many others who have studied this technology, the blockchain is as exciting, revolutionary and innovative as the Internet was to most of us back in the early 1990s. This rather small amount of code built into the Bitcoin protocol, needed to solve a long-term issue with digital assets, will be a foundational component of our digital transactional world. The technology is still in its infancy, but even here is has some big potential. If you are interested in some of the other ways blockchain technology may be leveraged, I think you will find this book informative. It does not go into great detail, and I would have liked more, but for someone who wants a quick primer along with potential uses, pick up this book and give it a listen.

If you are looking for a book covering Bitcoin and its use this book does not provide it. Instead, it focuses on Bitcoin's core system called the blockchain. I want to say that I thought the author did an excellent job with the various analogies he uses throughout the book to describe terms his audience may not be knowledgeable of. He spent time ensuring that not only the newcomer to the technology would be engaged by the book, but even those who may have a deeper understanding would be as well. When you strip away many of the layers, I think the author does a good job of describing the blockchain as a decentralized and distributed network using peer-to-peer to communicate with its users. As the book states, the idea of trust shifts from a "trusted third-party", such as a bank, to a trusted party where the technology itself sets the boundaries and rules. All of this of course is also verified and protected using strong trusted cryptographic hashing algorithms. Although the blockchain was developed to keep a secure distributed transactional ledger (sending or receiving) of Bitcoins, what the blockchain allows is for nearly any digital asset to be secured in this same way. We saw this earlier on the Ethereum blockchain where people could buy, trade, and pair up digital cryptographic kitties. Yes, you can use the blockchain to track digital kitties, you heard me correctly.

Although the blockchain can be used for gaming, there are so many other real-world examples the author provides in this short audiobook. Anything from physical tracking of collectables such as baseball cards to real estate transactions. Nearly anything that can be written down in a ledger and used to validate one's ownership has the potential of being done using blockchain technology. Core to its protocol, the blockchain distributes this record to systems that maintain a copy and continue to validate or confirm new or previous transaction in the ledger. Here again, the author gets to the heart of the blockchain by reiterating that this solution is not dependent on a third-party authority to maintain the ledger or record. This is all done by those who are participating in the system itself. Many of the uses or potential of the blockchain are still being worked out by both commercial and non-commercial entities.

I found the book to be well up-to-date compared to other books on the subject. In a rapidly changing technology such as the blockchain, this is often hard to maintain in nearly any medium. The author also spent a fair amount of time discussing "smart contracts" which is one of the main areas people see the technology impacting the most; next to commodities or currencies. With blockchain technology used for contracts, it is no longer required to have a third-party witness or hold the contract on behalf of the contract members. Now, two or more people would be able to enter into a contract and push the hashed details to the blockchain and a public ledger would be stored sealing the contract by the party members. That is a very powerful and through provoking ideas and what make this technology so powerful. What is even more interesting is that the blockchain can be used for both tangible (physical) and intangible (digital) use-cases. There has been recent discussion of this technology being used to track the music one owns or has purchased instead of relying on Apple or Google (for example) to hold a record of this information on your behalf.

Lastly, I thought the author did a good job of having a chapter covering the limitations and challenges of the blockchain. Today the use of this word or technology is being thrown around as if it is a cure for cancer or can tie your shoes for you. Many companies who have said they will adopt the blockchain have seen their stock prices rise thousands of percent simply putting it in a press release; only to have it fall again after the hype. The technology is not a silver-bullet and I think it does it a disservice when people try to leverage it in a place it does not belong. If your idea does not support a leger-based system, the blockchain may not be a solution for you.

The book's audio was professionally produced by Andrew B. Wehrlen, who at the time of this review has seventy books narrated on Audible. Although this is a non-fiction book, Mr. Wehrlen give it life and keeps what could be a very academic subject interesting and engaging. I do not recall any issues with the audio, and the volume was consistent. As I stated earlier, if you like his voice here, make sure you have a listen to some of his other titles.

In summary, if you want to know the many different uses for blockchain technology from a high-level this may be the book for you. If you are hoping to get a deeper dive or a very technical overview of the blockchain, I would say this is not the book for you. The author takes a rather complex and nebulas technology and provides some great insight into how it is used today and what the future may hold. It is a quick listen and quite informative. If you want to be able to talk intelligently about the subject, I would recommend you pick up the book.

Disclaimer: I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.

this book is for you

This is the book to listen if you want to understand where Ether comes from, who makes it and how. Once we understand this we can look more into mining and understand how the blockchain is maintained and relates to the future of Ethereum.