Blockchain Basics

Daniel Drescher is an experienced banking professional who has held positions in electronic security trading in a range of banks. His recent activities have focused on automation, machine learning and big data in the context of security trading. Amongst others, Daniel holds a Doctorate in Econometrics from the Technical University of Berlin and an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Oxford.

“The book is really what is says to be – it introduces the “Blockchain Basics” without formulas or programming. And still, does it in a serious way, which allows you to “take home” the knowledge after reading it.” (vitoshacademy.com , May, 2018)“The book could be used as a textbook or simply to help structure a presentation on blockchain. … I think that the book achieves its objectives: to explain to a nontechnical audience what the blockchain is, how it works, and where it can be applied. It should also allow the reader to understand a lot of the hype that surrounds blockchain and to differentiate the ways in which the term is used.” (Computing Reviews, October, 2017)“This book presents a very intuitive and comprehensive introduction to the blockchain technology. It is useful to understand the concept and to find analogies to explain blockchain to people that are not familiar with it. The book is concisely written and well structured, so that the reader can easily follow and understand the presented concepts.” (Nicolas Kube, Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Vol. 32, 2018)

• Stage 1: Terminology and Technical Foundations.- Step 1: Thinking in Layers and Aspects.- Step 2: Seeing the Big Picture.- Step 3: Recognizing the Potential.- Stage 2: Why the Blockchain Is Needed.- Step 4: Discovering the Core Problem.- Step 5: Disambiguating the Term.- Step 6: Understanding the Nature of Ownership.- Step 7: Spending Money Twice.- Stage 3: How the Blockchain Works.- Step 8: Planning the Blockchain.- Step 9: Documenting Ownership.- Step 10: Hashing Data.- Step 11: Hashing in the Real World.- Step 12: Identifying and Protecting User Accounts.- Step 13: Authorizing Transactions.- Step 14: Storing Transaction Data.- Step 15: Using the Data Store.- Step 16: Protecting the Data Store.- Step 17: Distributing the Data Store Among Peers.- Step 18: Verifying and Adding Transactions.- Step 19: Choosing a Transaction History.- Step 20: Paying for Integrity.- Step 21: Bringing the Pieces Together.- Stage 4: Limitations and Their Solutions.- Step 22: Seeing the Limitations.- Step 23: Reinventing the Blockchain.- Stage 5: Using the Blockchain, Summary, and Outlook.- Step 24: Using the Blockchain.- Step 25: Summarizing and Going Further.- Bibliography.-