Table of contents

Chapter guide and reading map

If you want a clean overview of the book before diving in, start here.

This page keeps the structure visible at a glance. The home page brings together the book, the editions, and the related essays.

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Overview

The structure of the book

The book moves from first principles into mechanism, then from mechanism into critique, economics, and real-world adoption. In other words: what money is, what Bitcoin is, how it works, where it struggles, and why it still matters.

Chapter 1

Introduction

A short entry point into the problem the book is trying to solve: how to discuss Bitcoin without skipping the foundations.

Chapter 2

What is Bitcoin?

The plain-language definition and the first framing for Bitcoin as scarce digital money.

Chapter 3

Money and currencies

Open topics
  • Definition and functions of money
    • The basic functions of money
    • The properties of money
    • Where does money come from?
  • The economic principles behind Bitcoin
    • The Business Cycle Theory
    • The Monetary Theory

Chapter 4

How does Bitcoin work?

Open topics
  • Storing Bitcoin
    • Asymmetric encryption
    • Addresses, wallets and clients
  • Transacting Bitcoin
    • Transactions
    • Blocks and the blockchain
  • Creating Bitcoin
    • Mining

Chapter 5

Technological aspects

Open topics
  • The problem of the Byzantine Generals
  • The double-spending problem with fast payments
  • Decentralization of computing capacity
  • Transparency and anonymity
  • Technological critique
    • Trust in hash functions
    • Dust
    • Power consumption
    • The incentive problem
    • Scaling and the size of the blockchain
  • Second-layer solutions
    • The Lightning Network

Chapter 6

Economic aspects

Open topics
  • Inflation and deflation
  • Bitcoin's planned deflation
    • Keynesianism and neoclassicism
    • The Austrian school of economic thought
    • Other considerations on deflation
  • Scarcity and stock-to-flow ratio
  • Liquidity and volatility
    • Liquidity
    • Volatility
  • Cryptocurrency exchanges
    • Distributed denial of service
    • Failure of payment by service providers
  • Further economic considerations related to Bitcoin
    • Mises' Regression Theorem
    • Consensus on the rules
    • Labour Theory of Value
    • No retraction of transactions

Chapter 7

Suitability as money

Open topics
  • Economic suitability as money
  • Technological suitability as money
  • Political suitability as money

Chapter 8

The development of the Bitcoin economy

Open topics
  • Key events and price development
    • 2008 - 2010
    • 2011 - 2012
    • 2013 - 2014
    • 2015 - 2016
    • 2017 - 2018
  • Adoption and use cases
    • Crisis currency
    • Industry sectors
    • Financial service providers
    • Donations
    • Alternative uses of a blockchain

Chapter 9

Closing words

Open topics
  • Acknowledgements
  • References

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