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Catching Up to Crypto. Your Guide to Bitcoin and the New Digital Economy. Edition No. 1

  • Book

  • 224 Pages
  • January 2023
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5839083
A fun and authoritative guide to bitcoin and the future of money

In Catching Up to Crypto: Your Guide to Bitcoin and the New Digital Economy, celebrated crypto and Bitcoin expert Ben Armstrong delivers an exciting and fresh new exploration of Bitcoin and digital currencies. He explains what Bitcoin is, how it works, and how and why we’re all transitioning to a digital economy as we speak. He discusses the deficiencies of traditional fiat currency, how it’s commonly manipulated, and how we can all benefit from the adoption of new, digital assets.

In the book, you’ll discover how Bitcoin operates in the real-world and how the underlying technology - known as the blockchain - operates. You’ll also learn about: - The importance of decentralization, trust-less commerce and cryptographic consensus. - The humble origins of Bitcoin, as well as how it nearly died out, and how it went on to take over the world - How monetary and financial policy is being revolutionized by the introduction of Bitcoin and other crypto-assets.

An essential and engaging review of Bitcoin, digital assets, and the new digital economy, Catching Up to Crypto is the hands-on and comprehensive introduction to crypto that investors, enthusiasts, the crypto-curious, and finance professionals have been waiting for.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii

1 The Great Devaluation 1

Central Banks 2

The Fed 4

2 Digital Money Tree 7

New Money 9

New Ways to Spend 11

3 First- Gen Giants 13

Cypherpunk 14

Disruptive Tech 17

4 Genesis Block 21

A Culture Is Born 25

Bitcoin for President 26

5 A Short Course in Blockchain 29

Blockchain 101 29

Blockchain 201 32

Blockchain 365 34

6 A Necessary Evil 35

Silk Road 37

The Streisand Effect 41

7 “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” 43

BitInstant 45

Regulators Take Notice 47

8 What the Fork? 49

Shots Fired 52

ASICBoost 55

9 The Future Is Born 59

The Ethereum Team 61

Blast Off 62

The DAO 63

10 Digital Gold Transformation 67

Bitcoin Becomes Digital Gold 68

Halving 70

11 Crypto Turning Point 73

Buy Bitcoin 74

Moonboys and Lambos 77

12 New Layer to the Internet 79

DeFi 81

The Challengers 83

13 Brave New World 87

Stablecoins 87

Oracles 88

Memecoins 89

Community Coins 90

14 Investment Prep 91

Step One: Researching 92

Step Two: Choosing 94

Step Three: Deploying Capital 97

15 Tips of the Trade 99

Trading Tokens 100

Some Trading Caveats 102

Trader Training 103

Types of Trading 105

Risk Management 107

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained 107

16 Non- Fungible Tokens (NFTs) 109

Historical NFTs 110

The Next Generation 111

The Next-Next Generation 114

17 Web3 and the Metaverse 117

The Metaverse 121

Not a New Idea 123

18 Crypto FUD 127

The Long Arm of the Law 128

19 Crypto Warnings 133

Hackers 133

Scammers 135

Contagion 140

20 The Future of Crypto 141

Crypto Grows Up 141

Stablecoins 142

Blockchain Equities 143

The Flippening 143

Regenerative Finance 144

Universal Basic Income 146

21 Where Do You Go from Here? 149

Community Is Key 149

Mainstream Takes Time 151

Embrace Change 151

Appendix: Essential Resources and Tools of the Trade 153

Notes 159

Index 195

Authors

Ben Armstrong BitBoyCrypto.com.