Want to know what books Kevin Werbach recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Kevin Werbach's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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Since Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the digital currency has been hailed as an Internet marvel and decried as the preferred transaction vehicle for all manner of criminals. It has left nearly everyone without a computer science degree confused: Just how do you "mine" money from ones and zeros?
The answer lies in a technology called blockchain, which can be used for much more than Bitcoin. A general-purpose tool for creating secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer applications, blockchain technology has been compared to the Internet itself in both form and impact. Some have said this tool... more Since Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the digital currency has been hailed as an Internet marvel and decried as the preferred transaction vehicle for all manner of criminals. It has left nearly everyone without a computer science degree confused: Just how do you "mine" money from ones and zeros?
The answer lies in a technology called blockchain, which can be used for much more than Bitcoin. A general-purpose tool for creating secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer applications, blockchain technology has been compared to the Internet itself in both form and impact. Some have said this tool may change society as we know it. Blockchains are being used to create autonomous computer programs known as "smart contracts," to expedite payments, to create financial instruments, to organize the exchange of data and information, and to facilitate interactions between humans and machines. The technology could affect governance itself, by supporting new organizational structures that promote more democratic and participatory decision making.
Primavera De Filippi and Aaron Wright acknowledge this potential and urge the law to catch up. That is because disintermediation--a blockchain's greatest asset--subverts critical regulation. By cutting out middlemen, such as large online operators and multinational corporations, blockchains run the risk of undermining the capacity of governmental authorities to supervise activities in banking, commerce, law, and other vital areas. De Filippi and Wright welcome the new possibilities inherent in blockchains. But as Blockchain and the Law makes clear, the technology cannot be harnessed productively without new rules and new approaches to legal thinking. less 
Kevin WerbachThis is a book that’s focused purely on the legal questions. It fleshes out the idea that this technology is a new kind of law, that this is an opportunity to build structures that serve the same purpose as law but achieve the ends by means of technology. (Source)
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Kevin WerbachI recommended it not because I completely agree, but because I think he’s a serious critic. He’s a very cheeky critic who is making fun of it, but he is an IT professional, a technically sophisticated guy. It’s not that he fails to understand the basic mechanics of it. (Source)
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A field manual to the technologies that are transforming our lives
Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future.
We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our existence. We're told that innovations--from... more A field manual to the technologies that are transforming our lives
Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future.
We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our existence. We're told that innovations--from augmented-reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars--will make life easier, more convenient and more productive. 3D printing promises unprecedented control over the form and distribution of matter, while the blockchain stands to revolutionize everything from the recording and exchange of value to the way we organize the mundane realities of the day to day. And, all the while, fiendishly complex algorithms are operating quietly in the background, reshaping the economy, transforming the fundamental terms of our politics and even redefining what it means to be human.
Having successfully colonized everyday life, these radical technologies are now conditioning the choices available to us in the years to come. How do they work? What challenges do they present to us, as individuals and societies? Who benefits from their adoption? In answering these questions, Greenfield's timely guide clarifies the scale and nature of the crisis we now confront --and offers ways to reclaim our stake in the future. less Kevin WerbachThis book discusses the politics embedded in these technologies. He talks about blockchain as a two-sided technology: on the one hand, it’s a decentralizing technology; it’s largely open source systems that have the potential to break down all these points of central control. But it can also be used as a technology of control. (Source)
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This fictional book is a series of easy to read vignettes that illustrate modern uses of Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The characters and situations accurately portray who really uses Bitcoin around the world and for what purposes. These stories expose how criminals exploit cryptocurrency and also how Bitcoin has improved the lives of many people in the modern world.
P. Carl Mullan is a digital currency professional with more than 16-year of hands-on experience working in the industry. Most of these interconnected short stories are based on real events, personal experiences, and actual... more This fictional book is a series of easy to read vignettes that illustrate modern uses of Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The characters and situations accurately portray who really uses Bitcoin around the world and for what purposes. These stories expose how criminals exploit cryptocurrency and also how Bitcoin has improved the lives of many people in the modern world.
P. Carl Mullan is a digital currency professional with more than 16-year of hands-on experience working in the industry. Most of these interconnected short stories are based on real events, personal experiences, and actual people. less Kevin WerbachThis is the best book I’ve found that doesn’t shrink from talking about the technology and getting into some of the detail, but does it in a very clear and structured way, so that someone without any kind of background can understand it. (Source)
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5
"Views differ on bitcoin, but few doubt the transformative potential of Blockchain technology. The Truth Machine is the best book so far on what has happened and what may come along. It demands the attention of anyone concerned with our economic future." --Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard, Former Treasury Secretary
From Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, the authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet's Next Big Thing: The Blockchain.
more "Views differ on bitcoin, but few doubt the transformative potential of Blockchain technology. The Truth Machine is the best book so far on what has happened and what may come along. It demands the attention of anyone concerned with our economic future." --Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard, Former Treasury Secretary
From Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, the authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet's Next Big Thing: The Blockchain.
Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the "legacy systems" once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this--a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain.
In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society's faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping.
Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we've relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes--moving humanity forward, not backward. less Kevin WerbachThey’re journalists who are good at telling a story. They explain the possibilities of blockchain and hone in on the broader potential—this idea of a truth machine. It’s the idea that what’s going on here is more than just the specific applications of blockchain—that this might be a fundamentally new mechanism of achieving agreement and consensus about the state of the world, in a decentralized... (Source)
Tyler WinklevossAwesome chat last night with @paulvigna and @mikejcasey, two of the greatest minds in cryptocurrency. Check out their new book #TheTruthMachine https://t.co/ciTEhpXnes https://t.co/B8PuEdFqoj (Source)
Jeremy GardnerI’ll never pump a coin, but I’ll always promote good writers.
It was great catching up with @mikejcasey and hearing about “The Truth Machine,” his new book with @paulvigna. It’s sure to be full of insights on the most revolutionary technology since the internet! https://t.co/CYok1K747N (Source)
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