Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain 2nd Edition

by Andreas Antonopoulos (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-1491954386

ISBN-10: 1491954388

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Join the technological revolution that's taking the world of finance by storm. Mastering Bitcoin is your guide through the seemingly complex world of bitcoin, providing the knowledge you need to participate in the internet of money. Whether you're building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this revised and expanded second edition provides essential detail to get you started.
Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, is still in its early stages and yet it's already spawned a multi billion dollar global economy. This economy is open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides the knowledge. You simply supply the passion.
The second edition includes:

A broad introduction to bitcoin ideal for non technical users, investors, and business executives
An explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects
Details of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer to peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles
New developments such as Segregated Witness, Payment Channels, and Lightning Network
Improved explanations of keys, addresses and wallets
User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts

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About the Author

Andreas is a passionate technologist, who is well-versed in many technical subjects. He is a serial tech-entrepreneur, having launched businesses in London, New York, and California. He has earned degrees in Computer Science and Data Communications and Distributed Systems from UCL. With experience ranging from hardware and electronics to high level business and financial systems technology consulting and years as CTO/CIO/CSO in many companies ― he combines authority and deep knowledge with an ability to make complex subjects easy to understand. More than 200 of his articles on security, cloud computing and data centers have been published in print and syndicated worldwide. His expertise includes Bitcoin, crypto-currencies, Information Security, Cryptography, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Linux, Open Source and robotics software development. He also has been CISSP certified for 12 years.

As a bitcoin entrepreneur, Andreas has founded three bitcoin businesses and launched several community open-source projects. He often writes articles and blog posts on bitcoin, is a permanent host on Let’s Talk Bitcoin and prolific public speaker at technology events. Andreas serves on the advisory boards of several bitcoin startups.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 2nd edition (July 25, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 411 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1491954388
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1491954386
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.47 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.85 x 9.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #58,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8 in Computer Cryptography
- #12 in Web Encryption
- #37 in Digital Currencies

Customer Reviews:
912 ratings

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Andreas M. Antonopoulos

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Andreas M. Antonopoulos is an acclaimed author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. Andreas makes complex subjects accessible and easy to understand. He is known for delivering electric talks that combine economics, psychology, technology, and game theory with current events, personal anecdote, and historical precedent—effortlessly transliterating the complex issues of blockchain technology out of the abstract and into the real world.

In 2014, Antonopoulos authored the groundbreaking book, Mastering Bitcoin, widely considered to be the best technical guide ever written about the technology. His second book, The Internet of Money, unveiled the “why” of bitcoin—and became a bestseller on Amazon as did the follow up books The Internet of Money Volume Two, and The Internet of Money Volume Three. Mastering Ethereum, a technical guide to the Ethereum network, was published in late 2018. His most recent book Mastering the Lightning Network explains Bitcoin's second layer payment network. His books have been translated and published in 14 languages so far.

He is a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, serves on the Oversight Committee for the Bitcoin Reference Rate at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and has appeared as an expert witness in hearings around the world, including the Australian Senate Banking Committee and the Canadian Senate Commerce, Banking and Finance Committee.

As an entrepreneur, Andreas has founded a number of bitcoin businesses and launched several community open-source projects. He serves as an advisor to several bitcoin and crypto-currency companies. He is a widely published author of articles and blog posts on bitcoin, is a permanent host on the popular Speaking of Bitcoin Podcast, and a frequent speaker at technology and security conferences and meetups worldwide.

Andreas can be contacted via twitter (@aantonop) or via the contact forms on his website aantonop.com

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Luciana Reynaud Ferreira

Bitcoin Bible

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book is a prereq for anyone who wants to understand how Bitcoin works. Even though it was made for programmers, as a non-technical person I was able to grasp the main concepts perfectly. The code snippets are followed by clear explanations of the processes portrayed, but even if you don't understand 100% of the technical parts, don't get stuck and don't give up. Move on, keep reading. Andreas is an impeccable communicator and any person can learn a lot from reading this masterpiece in its entirety. This book is fundamental if you want to have bitcoin in your life.

One person found this helpful

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Jeff

Not an easy read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 22, 2022

Verified Purchase

Was told this was an intro to bitcoin/crypto, if you have a computer science degree. This is not crypto for idiots! This for people who want to develop software or apps for crypto.

One person found this helpful

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Pen Name

A Comprehensive Technical Guide to Cryptocurrency

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

Excellent book for readers with technical background who want to understand how bitcoin works under the hood. It's well-written and not dry. The author builds your understanding step-by-step of how bitcoin works.

One person found this helpful

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Joshua M. Levine

Despite all the free bitcoin resources, this book is more than worth the price

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

I recently went back to Mastering Bitcoin and the graphical explanation of how to get from a public key to a P2PKH address is crystal clear. This is not the first time that I was using some internet source and ended up having to go back to Mastering Bitcoin to see what the correct answer was.

It is also nice to have clear and correct information all in one place, and presented in order. If you start at the beginning of this book and finish at the end, you will have covered everything you need to know about the bitcoin code protocol at the time the book was written.

Note that you can get this book online for free... in small pieces. If you are considering buying it maybe try using the online version to read about something you are on clear on before paying.

2 people found this helpful

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andrea

the reference

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 26, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is really a reference on bitcoin from a technical point of view.
It is written with an underlying consistency which allow to have a proper view on the topic. If you have tech background this is the typical textbook that will not get quickly outdated and gives a good foundation which you cannot have just by reading blogs and attending meetup. Armed with the learnings form this text it is possible to follow all the last progress in the field.
I am looking forward to read the ethereum book from the same author.
A really complete overview about blockchain would need also good textbooks about finance and law. Not easy. For me this is still a missing piece in available literature.
If the goal is understanding the technology I would say that you have what is needed buying this book: reading more than once and doing the labs is necessary (it doesn't come for free).

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Martin Brossman

Seldom do you find someone with this depth of understanding & being a great teacher.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

I am not a programmer and know this book was written for a more technical audience but the first few chapters were the most grounded and clear explanation of Bitcoin. I plan on also reading his other book the "Internet of Money" which is clearly written for the general public. Thank you Andreas for your passion and commitment to explaining things that can be accessible to both the beginner, intermediate and advanced person interested in Bitcoin and Open Blockchain. Hope to meet you someday or interview you remotely.

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austin

By Far, the Best Development Resource for Bitcoin

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 31, 2020

Verified Purchase

Mastering Bitcoin does not disappoint. Most of the knowledge in this book is available online (the book is actually open-source on Github), but having every aspect of Bitcoin explained in one location has been very useful and convenient for me. This book follows the usual O'Reilly format, which, combined with the clear, working examples and top-down explanation makes the concepts easy to grasp, even with little to no past exposure. Everything I've struggled with while developing a block explorer and mobile wallet has been covered in this book... Base 58, encryption algorithms, signing transactions, block formats, multisig, segwit, BIPs, scripting capabilities... you name it, this book explains it.

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violet

Deep understanding of Bitcoin and Blockchain

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

I am reading this book right now. Even though I do not understand everything described in this book, I can tell and feel that Andreas' deep knowledge about Bitcoin and he is trying hard to make it understandable for other people.

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Top reviews from other countries

John Channing

Long, repetitive, and vague

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 9, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book was recommended to me by a good friend and experienced software developer. After seeing the number of 5-star reviews I decided to buy it. Why then, have I given it such a poor review? And why am I puzzled that so many other people gave it a 5-star review when I do not consider it being even close to being worth that?

The most significant problem with this book is that it tries to be too many things to too many people. Mastering Bitcoin is neither a developer's guide as it is not detailed enough about the code, nor is it a generally accessible book explaining the theory and concepts of Bitcoin. Including lots of random code samples and hexadecimal does not impress an experienced developer, even though it may look impressive to the uninitiated. It is also highly repetitive, restating the same basic points over and over again whilst also lacking in clarity and detail on things that require it.

It reads like a book that has had no editorial input. The author also repeatedly makes statements that are vague, imprecise, or in some cases contradictory. Again, this would be picked up by a good editor (or these days by any AI grammar checking application.) A good editor in my view would have forced the author to rework many of the chapters which would have resulted in a much shorter but equally informative book.

Speaking as someone who has spent over 2 decades building large distributed systems used in financial services, the book does not describe in any detail the key elements of a well-designed distributed system. How are the APIs specified? How is API versioning managed? How has it been tested? How does it scale? What penetration testing has been conducted?

There are so many holes in the book and, I fear, in the concepts and implementation of Bitcoin, reading this book has left me feeling that it is actually quite dangerous. For example, which version of the Wallet code should you use? Many are mentioned, but they appear to be in varying states of completeness and/or buggy. How do you establish that the code and the person/people writing it can be trusted?

Ultimately, I have learned quite a lot by reading the book, hence why it gets 2 stars, but it is neither a well-written book nor one that satisfactorily answers my questions.

One person found this helpful

GersprungledDog

This book is fantastic. REALLY

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book is fantastic. REALLY. Ten out of ten.
It explains everything very cleverly. I used to machine code a Motorola 6502 chip on my Commodore Pet in the late 70's so I am not fazed by the coding sections. Thank goodness AA wrote this BIBLE for bitcoin for the masses.... as that is what this book is.
I am reading it now for a second time...just as enjoyable if not more so because I understand the whole thing so much better.
Do not bother looking for another book...this is the one.

The book also taught me a very useful lesson.The Bread wallet now allows one touch payment to suppliers. My Bread wallet was not set up to require my passcode before making a payment. MAKE SURE YOURS IS BEFORE SCANNING CODES.

BUY THIS BOOK

14 people found this helpful

n1msr

Excellent technical explanation on Bitcoin

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a great story and technical explanation. There are many (too many?) books that talk about Bitcoin and blockchain without explaining the detail. If you want a technical explanation, with code samples. get this book! You don't need to be a developer to understand it, but you need some technical knowledge or awareness and plenty of curiosity. I learned so much from reading particular chapters.

I am looking forward to a new book by the same author and publisher later in 2018 on "Mastering Ethereum".

4 people found this helpful

D C W MORLEY

Contains good stuff but not for the innocent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

I still don't understand all about Bitcoin, but this book explains quite a lot. The problem with Bitcoin as I see it is that either you are simply buying and selling or you are delving into the structure, perhaps for the sheer interest. If you are in the first camp, you don't need this book. If you are in the second camp, buy the book and put it on the shelf with all the others.

2 people found this helpful

David Tickner

Deep

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

I tried to read all of this along with Tor and the Dark Web. I read the latter in one day. As for this - it is thick and deep. Is it necessary to go that deep? I am still struggling to get through it. To understand a currency it is great to have this available as a reference but if I wanted to purchase dollars I wouldn't want such a deep read. This goes above and beyond with examples of all sorts including code which you can skip if you're not that way inclined. Well written and if I ever get to the end of it I might amend this review. Not a casual read.

One person found this helpful

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Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain 2nd Edition

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