bitcoins

Table of Contents

Some Definitions

Physical and Digital Money

How Do We Define Money?

A Brief History of Money—Dispelling the Myths

Money Through the Ages

Fiat Currency and Intrinsic Value

Quantitative Easing

How Are Interbank Payments Made?

Different Banks

Correspondent Bank Accounts

Central Bank Accounts

International Payments

E-Money Wallets

Encryption and Decryption

Digital Signatures

Why Alice and Bob?

CRYPTOCURRENCIES

What Are Bitcoins?

What Is the Point of Bitcoin?

How Does Bitcoin Work?

Bitcoin’s Ecosystem

Bitcoin in Practice

Bitcoin’s Predecessors

Bitcoin’s Early History

Bitcoin’s Price

Storing Bitcoins

Software Wallets

Hardware Wallets

Buying and Selling Bitcoins

Over the Counter (OTC) Brokers

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

What is Ethereum?

How Is Ethereum Similar to Bitcoin?

Smart Contracts

Ethereum’s History

Actors in the Ethereum Ecosystem

A Fork of a Codebase

A Fork of a Live Blockchain: Chainsplits

What’s the Result of a Deliberate, Successful Fork?

How Does a Deliberate Chainsplit Work?

Media Descriptions

Hard Forks vs Soft Forks

Case Study 1: Bitcoin Cash

Case Study 2: Ethereum Classic

What Are Digital Tokens?

Native Blockchain Tokens

Asset Backed Tokens

Depository Receipt Tokens

How Do Asset Backed Digital Tokens Work?

Contract Tokens

Tracking of Physical Objects

Notable Cryptocurrencies and Tokens

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

What Is Blockchain Technology?

What Is Common to Blockchain Technologies?

What Are Blockchains Good For?

Public Blockchains

Darknet Markets

Cross Border Payments

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)

Private Blockchains

Notable Private Blockchains

Blockchain Experiments

Questions to Ask

INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS

How Do ICOs work?

ICO Funding Stages

Exchange Listing

When Is a Token a Security?

Who Controls the Price of Utility Tokens?

Risks and Mitigations

Regulatory Risks

Acknowledgments

About the Author