Everything you need to know about buying, selling and investing in Bitcoin (New Technology - New money) Paperback – October 15, 2013

First off, don't read this book to learn economic theory. It's basically a report on other writings concerning a narrow topic. Some rather silly statements about economics slip through the author's curating process. I'll assume these to originate with whoever wrote the various source articles. In other words, if you spend the time to search for articles on every sub-topic concerning digital currencies, you will still encounter these same misconceptions and will have wasted a lot of time.So why am I not concerned? To give an example, in a Q&A section, in answer to whether it would be deflationary when people lose their bitcoins, he said that, "no, it would be inflationary," (paraphrased) and then proceeded to show by hypothetical example exactly what would happen to remaining bitcoins' value when other bitcoins are lost. What happens is deflation, but he still called it "inflation." Apparently, the clear understanding of what happens to prices does not depend upon remembering the meanings of technical terms. So where was the harm? (For those still concerned, I think a better answer would have been, "Yes, it's a little bit deflationary. So what?") I could cite more examples, but they all come down to one thing. This book is a pretty good research paper on the workings of Bitcoin, but definitely not filtered through the eyes of an economist.Getting away from what this book is not, I found it to be everything I wanted it for. I learned that one article I had read had left me with a technical misconception about the "mining" of bitcoins. The book contains a pretty good sketch, which pointed me in the right direction. I still had to do more research to reconcile what I had read before with what I had newly learned, but the book at least gave me enough understanding to figure out where to look. In a case like this, sometimes, "less is more." "More," in the literal sense, is the great pile of stuff on the internet you would have to wade through without a book like this. "Less" is picking and choosing what the average reader might want and need to understand. And this book does a pretty good job of that.

Your Bitcoin book was a great progression from the beginning of Bitcoins - a brief history of an early start in the 1990's. Since I did not know much about how Bitcoins worked, you gave a great analysis about how you can actually buy Bitcoins or just accumulate them like a stock investment. The concept of buy low and sell high is a stock market advisory. I did not know that there was a cap on the number of Bitcoins in circulation or available for purchase. The concept seems to follow a route of trading goods for services - the term for bartering. Essentially, all exchanges of money for goods and services is really a high-end type of barter. Your insight into other digital coin markets and how others may take over Bitcoin's lead is really a progression of how others perceive that they can take a process and do it better. You are correct about currency in the US that used to be backed first by gold, then silver and progressed into being a "Federal Reserve Note." Now our currency is backed by the faith in the US government that our money really has a value. Thank you for your eye-opening book about Bitcoins and the education that it gave me about our future monetary systems.

Poorly written, a grammatical disaster, a spelling misadventure and nonsensical in most of its content. I kept reading because it was like watching a bad movie where you couldn't turn if off because you wanted to see if it was possible to maintain such a low standard all the way to the end.The better "chapters" say little if anything. The bad ones are actually humorous. A couple of examples . . . our U.S. currency is very unstable because bankers control it, yet Bitcoins are extremely stable because "no one" controls them. Our U.S. currency is backed only by a "promise to pay" rather than gold, but bitcoins are backed by ???My absolute favorite comes with the definition of "Single, Double, And Triple Accounting". The explanation is so ridiculously insane, it's almost worth buying the book just for the chuckle.I can only speculate as to who wrote this masterpiece and what his educational background might be. I doubt you'll find him employed at the Fed very soon, but I've got to give him credit - it took more balls to publish this silly term paper than I've ever had. I should probably give it an extra star just for having guts.Egad!

I've been thinking about Bitcoin for a while. I mean, who wouldn't - considering the way the value has skyrocketed over the past few years. I didn't know much and this book covers everything a potential investor would want to know. I enjoyed this book and feel much more knowledgeable about the currency now. My only gripe is that the book doesn't have a glossary for some of the more technical terms - something a technology layman such as myself requires. Nonetheless, highly recommended!

This book is pretty much some copied and pasted FAQs and discussions of bitcoin from forums/reddit/elsewhere. The original content is superficial and not particularly informative. The book was also exceptionally short, which partially explains the lack of depth on important subjects. Could have used some better editing as well. Personal opinions expressed by the author in the text were not backed up with supporting arguments and by and large the book is simply not worth the money. You would find the same information after about an hour of idle browsing bitcointalk or /r/bitcoin . Give it a pass.

Bitcoin is some sort of digital currency this knowledge is just appear to me recently. This book will give the idea on what the bitcoin is and how important of them and other important subject since it’s a digital currency you may wonder that is it safe? This book is also easy to ready, the writer separate it in to many short chapter so you will not overwhelm by it. So if you want to know more about bitcoin you shouldn’t miss this book.

The book discusses bit coins but it's not something I would personally be interested in. Seems kind of hokey. 3 stars

I have seen several articles in the London Evening Standard, CityAm and other publications about Bitcoin.I had a vague idea about what it was but this book simplifies and clarifies what it's really about. This could very well be the currency of the future. The Author did a good job researching and presenting the facts about bitcoin in a way that will not bore you to sleep but rather inform and intrigue you.This book will make a worthy addition to your library.

If you know anything about Bitcoin then you don't need this book. If you don't know about Bitcoin, this book covers some of the basics but suddenly jumps to advanced, leaving out the middle. There's enough to fill in some of the gaps, but other voids are gaping and really begging for more explanation. Written by someone who admits to not being a Bitcoin miner or owner, although he'd like to be.

It's pretty much what it says on the cover, but be aware these things change fast and often, so ensure that whatever book you buy, it's recent. That said, this book is a good background to BitCoins.

I bought this during the November 2013 boom looking for more info on bitcoin. I checked out the pages and reviews and came away happy. I had already read many blog posts and this is exactly what I needed to get a bit more knowledge, thought it cost effective getting it in time where I could read it on the tube compared to dipping in and out of blog posts.Also found the list of other alt coins also useful and the predictions fun.

good read and info,but I need to know if I should be spending more time studying . is the banking world taking any notice?