Tokenomics: The Crypto Shift of Blockchains, ICOs, and Tokens, reviewed

By @SimonCocking review of Tokenomics: The Crypto Shift of Blockchains, ICOs, and Tokens by Sean Au (Author), Thomas Power, available here.

Tokenomics is the economy of this new world. This is a no-holds-barred, in-depth exploration of the way in which we can participate in the blockchain economy. The reader will learn the basics of bitcoin, blockchains, and tokenomics; what the very first ICO was; and how over a period of 5 years, various projects managed to raise the enormous sums of money they did. The book then provides insights from ICO experts and looks at what the future holds. By comparing the past, current, and future of this technology, the book will inform anyone, whatever motivates their interest.

The crypto shift of blockchains, ICOs, and tokens is much more than just buying bitcoins, creating tokens, or raising millions in a minute in an ICO. It is a new paradigm shift from centralized to decentralized, from closed to open, and from opaqueness to transparency. ICOs and the creation of tokens during the craze of 2017 needed a lot of preparation, an understanding of cryptocurrencies and of emerging legal frameworks, but this has spurred a new movement to tokenize the world.

This is a timely and comprehensive overview of these exciting new emerging blockchain based technologies. The authors have a deep knowledge and a clear enthusiasm to share this with the reader. The book is long, over 400 pages, but follows a logical and methodical approach to walk you through all of the key areas to understand and consider if you want to know more about ICOs, tokenomics, and how to build and launch one, or simply invest in one. The language remains clear and accessible throughout their careful explanations of what to look out for. There are useful sections detailing the range of high fund raising ICOs in 2017 particularly, with assessments of which ones which may or may not have a long term future.

Overall this is a useful book to read to get up to speed on the area if you are new to it. If you are already familiar with the crypto world, then the expert interviews with Nick Ayton, Jason Goldberg, Dinis Guarda, Jonathan Fry and others are all useful and well worth reading too. We enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it to others. One question that does come to mind, with the crypto market’s latest nose dive, is how will overall confidence be affected by the demise of so many ICO tokens. The authors Au and Power clearly articulate the transformational potential of blockchain and the emergence of tokenomics, the question may just be how soon will these green shoots emerge in the currently less than favourable climate? Either way this book is well worth reading and it will be interesting to see how soon the potential of the underlying technology can convince the naysayers. Power in particular has a long track record of being ahead of the curve, so this may be another example of his prescience in terms of reading future trends.

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