Are blockchains and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin a bubble or a revolution? We’ll help you decide for yourself.

What’s inside:

Bitcoin and the blockchain

• How Bitcoin and blockchains work from a technical perspective with no assumed technical knowledge
• Satoshi Nakamoto and the history of Bitcoin, the original blockchain
• A thorough overview of crucial crypto concepts (eg. blocks, keys, mining, nodes, etc.)
• Frameworks for understanding when it actually makes sense to use blockchain
• Major application scenarios for blockchain and cryptocurrencies and where it’ll fall flat

Public blockchains and altcoins

• Emerging trends in blockchain technology
• What you should know before buying any cryptocurrency
• An overview of Etherum and smart contracts
• An overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the top altcoins and stable coins, including Monero (XMR), Tether (USDT), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Alternatives to blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• New kinds of decentralized ledger technology (DLT)
• The economics of both traditional payment methods and cryptocurrencies
• Cryptocurrency security best practices and major breach case studies

Private blockchains

• How blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and traditional banking and finance will interact with one another in the future
• Public blockchains vs private blockchains
• Limitations and shortcomings of public blockchains and cryptocurrencies
• The role of blockchain in the strategy of top tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft
• Case studies of how non-tech companies are effectively utilizing blockchain (eg. Walmart using it to prevent foodborne illness)
• Business blockchain case studies ranging from gaming (e.g. Xbox) to cloud services (e.g. Microsoft Azure’s blockchain-as-a-service and Amazon’s AWS offering)
• Blockchain’s use for big data, internet of things (IoT), and machine learning (ML)

Cryptocurrency regulation and policy

• ICOs vs STOs vs IPOs
• KYC and AML laws
• The debate over whether cryptocurrencies are securities
• The official stance of various countries on crypto
• An overview of crypto policy and regulatory hurdles
• The role of crypto in emerging markets and China
• Digital democracy and voting on the blockchain

The future of decentralized technology

• If, how, and when the tokenization of national currencies will play out
• Facebook and WhatsApp’s upcoming cryptocurrencies
• Currency tokenization and China’s efforts to tokenize the yuan
• Blockchain, IoT, and the tangle
• Cryptocurrencies vs. fiat vs. the gold standard
• Predictions about the future of money, business, and currency
• Why blockchains would do better on Mars than Earth