Blockchain For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Tiana Laurence, reviewed

By @SimonCocking review of Blockchain For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Tiana Laurence, published by Wiley, available here.

Unravel the mysteries of blockchains

Blockchain technologies are disrupting some of the world’s biggest industries. Blockchain For Dummies provides a fast way to catch up with the essentials of this quickly evolving tech. Written by an author involved in founding and analyzing blockchain solutions, this book serves to help those who need to understand what a blockchain can do (and can’t do).

This revised edition walks you through how a blockchainsecurely records data across independent networks. It offers a tour of some of the world’s best-known blockchains, including those that power Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It also provides a glance at how blockchain solutions are affecting the worlds of finance, supply chain management, insurance, and governments.

Get a clear picture of what a blockchain can do
Learn how blockchains rule cryptocurrency and smart contracts
Discover current blockchain…

Blockchain For Dummies, 2nd Edition, reviewed

It’s almost two years since we reviewed the first edition of this book, way back in August 2017. Before bitcoin went on it’s rapid rise to those all time highs of €20,000, and the world went crazy trying to raise money through ICOs. So much has happened since then that it makes sense to run a second edition of this book.

Two years on too, as the dust settles on that BTC rush to its ATH (all time high) and ether too, after a long period of prices way down, it has helped to enable people to perhaps have a more dispassionate and potentially realistic view on blockchain. There seems to be less hype and more focus on where blockchain can help, which aspects of it might work best, and how it can leverage the value of IoT, AI and the benefits of other technologies emerging in parallel too.

As with the first book, this edition is well written, follows a clear structure, and aims to give you a solid and sound grounding introduction into the world of blockchain. Laurence does a good job of embracing potentially difficult concepts, and comes from the high end first, to allow different readers, looking for different things, to extract the knowledge that they are looking for. There are sections where it goes code heavy, but this is clearly flagged, and is very much on a need to know, or not know basis.

As so much has moved on in the last two years it makes sense to read this book rather than it’s predecessor and we would tag it as a great starting point for those looking to dip their toe and more into this new and exciting space.

See our interview with the author here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tiana Laurence is a blockchain pioneer, an investor, and a serial entrepreneur. She co-founded Factom, Inc., a software company that builds technology within the blockchain space. She is currently a columnist for TechTarget with writings focusing on blockchain and IoT and managing partner of Laurence Ventures, a firm investing in technology initiatives.

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