by Most of the world’s money is now digital. The major currencies, for example, the euro, dollar, and yen – and increasingly even the smaller ones. Don’t exist as physical coins or banknotes anymore. They are, instead, simply entries on a computer somewhere. Over recent years cryptocurrencies have also come to play a role in international commerce as units of account and exchange.
“It’s not a question of whether digital money will replace physical cash”, says David Birch, “but just when it will happen”. One thing is clear: “in a few years we will be able to do everything that we can do with cash now”, he adds.
“The main reason for this is that it’s cheaper and faster to send money electronically than by post. Checks or even sending it by courier. Another reason is that cash is being replay by digital money in financial privacy. If you just have a random guess about somebody else’s money, there’s no point in trying to spend it.”
The reasons for this change are simple. “If you work at a bank”, “you will probably see the internet used for verification of transactions, for sending out statements about what customers owe, and so on.
“It is being used more widely for international wire transfers. The ” SWIFT system for international bank transfers is already largely digital, and international payments can be made in a couple of seconds.
This article looks at the way how cryptocurrency works and the insight they offer into our modern world and recommends the best five cryptocurrency books to understand them deeply from the core.
What distinguishes a cryptocurrency?
The point about a cryptocurrency is that the value of the currency is determin only by cryptography. It’s not determin by some other thing.
So, for example, if you were to make something like Bitcoin. It would be say a cryptocurrency because it’s based on cryptography. Its value would be determin by other people trading it in for their own coins or whatever they had at hand. And it would be a currency because it’s being used as money. It’s going to be a cryptocurrency because the value of the coins is only determined by cryptographic techniques.
We’re going to all have digital currencies in our future, just like we all have digital photographs now. So I may send you a picture and you can keep it on your phone and look at it. That picture might be worth something to you or to some future collector. And that will affect the value of the currency.
It’s not going to become a currency because I gave it to you – that just doesn’t matter. It would be worth something if someone else wanted to pay you for looking at it, maybe some future collector. It has value even if I never do anything with it. Even if I was just keeping it on my phone for everyone to see.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are hot topics these days, with many people looking to buy and sell online. To help anyone navigating through this tricky world of crypto, here’s a list of five cryptocurrency books that will help you understand what cryptocurrency is and how it works.
Book 1: The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna and Michael J.
Book description: The Age of Cryptocurrency provides readers with a broad overview of digital currency and its use, mining, and trading, as well as its future in business. Throughout this book, the authors discuss Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology. There is also a chapter that walks readers through the history of money and how it has evolved.
Blockchain technology has garnered attention from investors all over the world. With many hoping to reap some profit from investing in cryptocurrencies. The blockchain is the technology that allows transactions on cryptocurrency networks to take place. Meaning it has a major impact on how and why Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used..
Book 2: Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton
Book description: In Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency Finn Brunton gives an account that is both authoritative and compelling. He explains the philosophical background in which Bitcoin emerged. He charts the evolution of digital cash technologies and explains how they culminated in Bitcoin.
But Digital Cash is not simply a technical history of cryptocurrency. It is also an account of one man’s life-long journey through the modern world of technology, with a very human story at its heart. It’s a story that begins with Brunton’s youthful conviction that technology can bring about a better world.
Book 3: A History of Money by Glyn Davies
Book description: This book manages to cover a lot more than cryptocurrency and the history of money itself. This is a book that takes you from ancient times to the present day and gives you examples of how money has affected people across history, not just in terms of what happens now but also how it has changed in the past too.
This book manages to cover a lot more than cryptocurrency and the history of money itself. This is a book that takes you from ancient times to the present day and gives you examples of how money has affected people across history, not just in terms of what happens now but also how it has changed in the past too.
The author looks at everything from the origins of money, its various forms through all kinds of cultures, what it means for us today and how it impacts society as a whole.
Book 4: Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff (Infrastructures) by Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz
Book description: “The digital is what we inhabit, yet it leaves few traces. It would seem as though the more we depend on digital data, the more ephemeral it becomes. This book concerns a range of objects left in the wake of transactions: cryptocurrencies, banknotes with leaf prints and knots in strings that indicate an encrypted value; pins shaped like letters or numbers for enciphering messages; discs used to encrypt data and thwart hackers”.
Book 5: The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains: An Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and the Technology that Powers Them by Antony Lewis
Book description: What is Bitcoin? What is a Blockchain? These are questions many people are asking themselves right now. This Book will answer them for you, providing you with the basic understanding necessary to become a part of this revolution.
