Buy new:
$28.50$28.50
FREE delivery:
Tuesday, Feb 7
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: 3Nbooks
Buy used: $23.76
Other Sellers on Amazon
& FREE Shipping
100% positive
95% positive over last 12 months

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


Follow the Author
OK
Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain 2nd Edition
Price | New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Abridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
Enhance your purchase
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
- ISBN-101491954388
- ISBN-13978-1491954386
- Edition2nd
- PublisherO'Reilly Media
- Publication dateJuly 25, 2017
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7 x 0.85 x 9.19 inches
- Print length411 pages
Frequently bought together
- +
- +
More items to explore
From the brand

-
-
Sharing the knowledge of experts
O'Reilly's mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 40 years, we've inspired companies and individuals to do new things (and do them better) by providing the skills and understanding that are necessary for success.
Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help them do just that.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
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 : 3.53 ounces
- Dimensions : 7 x 0.85 x 9.19 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #70,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Web Encryption
- #40 in Digital Currencies
- #50 in Money & Monetary Policy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2020
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
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.
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).
One final note: this book is a great resource not just for programming, but simply understanding, Bitcoin. Much of it is reasonably complex and requires programming background, but the book does not require you to actually be plugging code into a command line to appreciate the insights and explanations.
Top reviews from other countries

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.

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

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


![]() |