Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go From Here 3 Book 1: Cryptocurrency Basics 5 Chapter 1: What Is a Cryptocurrency? 7 Beginning with the Basics of Cryptocurrencies 8 The definition of money 8 Some cryptocurrency history 9 Key crypto benefits 9 Common crypto and blockchain myths 10 Risks 11 Gearing Up to Make Transactions 12 Wallets 12 Exchanges 12 Communities 13 Making a Plan Before You Jump In 14 Chapter 2: How Cryptocurrencies Work 15 Explaining Basic Terms in the Cryptocurrency Process 15 Cryptography 17 Nodes 18 Mining 18 Proof of work 19 Proof of stake 19 Proof of importance 20 Transactions: Putting it all together 20 Cruising through Other Important Crypto Concepts 21 Adaptive scaling 21 Decentralization 21 Harvesting 21 Open source 22 Public ledger 22 Smart contracts 22 Stick a Fork in It: Digging into Cryptocurrency Forks 23 What is a fork, and why do forks happen? 23 Hard forks and soft forks 24 Free money on forks 25 Chapter 3: Introducing Cryptocurrency Wallets 27 Defining Cryptocurrency Wallets 27 A few important terms 28 How a wallet works 29 Looking at Different Types of Wallets 30 Online wallet 31 Mobile wallet 32 Desktop wallet 33 Hardware wallet 34 Paper wallet 35 Choosing a Crypto Wallet 36 Based on security 37 Based on your crypto ownership 37 Based on transaction fees 38 Based on anonymity 38 Keeping Your Wallet Secure 39 Back up your wallet 39 Have multiple wallets 40 Add more security levels 40 Update your software 41 Remember where you hide it! 41 Chapter 4: Different Types of Cryptocurrencies 43 Celebrating Celebrity Cryptocurrencies by Market Cap 43 Bitcoin 45 Ethereum 46 Ripple 48 Cardano 50 Other top ten major cryptos 52 Top 100 major cryptos 53 Cryptocurrencies by Category 53 Payment cryptos 54 Privacy cryptos 55 Platform cryptos 55 Exchange-specific cryptos 56 Finance/fintech cryptos 57 Legal and property cryptos 57 Book 2: Blockchain Basics 59 Chapter 1: Introducing Blockchain 61 Beginning at the Beginning: What Blockchains Are 61 What blockchains do 62 Why blockchains matter 63 The Structure of Blockchains 64 Blockchain Applications 66 The Blockchain Life Cycle 66 Consensus: The Driving Force of Blockchains 68 Blockchains in Use 69 Current blockchain uses 70 Future blockchain applications 71 Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain 73 Where Blockchains Add Substance 73 Determining your needs 74 Defining your goal 75 Choosing a Solution 76 Drawing a blockchain decision tree 77 Making a plan 78 Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain 81 Diving into Blockchain Technology 82 Creating a secure environment 82 Buying your first Bitcoin 85 Building a Private Blockchain with Docker and Ethereum 86 Preparing your computer 87 Building your blockchain 89 Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain 91 Getting a Brief History of the Bitcoin Blockchain 92 The New Bitcoin: Bitcoin Cash 94 Debunking Some Common Bitcoin Misconceptions 96 Bitcoin: The New Wild West 97 Fake sites 97 No, you first! 98 Get-rich-quick schemes 98 Mining for Bitcoins 98 Making Your First Paper Wallet 99 Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain 101 Exploring the Brief History of Ethereum 102 Ethereum: The Open-Source World Wide Computer 103 Decentralized applications: Welcome to the future 104 The power of decentralized autonomous organizations 105 Hacking a Blockchain 108 Understanding smart contracts 108 Discovering the cryptocurrency Ether 109 Getting Up and Running on Ethereum 109 Mining for Ether 110 Building your first decentralized autonomous organization 110 Uncovering the Future of DAOs 112 Putting money in a DAO 112 Building smarter smart contracts 113 Finding bugs in the system 113 Creating Your Own ERC-20 Token 114 Chapter 6: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger 115 Getting to Know Hyperledger 116 Identifying Key Hyperledger Projects 117 Focusing on Fabric 117 Investigating the Iroha project 117 Diving into Sawtooth 119 Building Your System in Fabric 121 Building Asset Tracking with Hyperledger Composer 121 Working with Smart Contracts on Hyperledger 122 Chapter 7: Financial Technology 123 Hauling Out Your Crystal Ball: Future Banking Trends 123 Moving money faster: Across borders and more 125 Creating permanent history 126 Going International: Global Financial Products 127 Border-free payroll 129 Faster and better trade 129 Guaranteed payments 130 Micropayments: The new nature of transactions 130 Squeezing Out Fraud 131 Book 3: Bitcoin 133 Chapter 1: Bitcoin Tech Explained 135 Understanding That There Is No Bitcoin! 136 Discovering the Bitcoin Ledger 136 So where is this "Bitcoin ledger"? 137 Bitcoin uses a blockchain ledger 138 Looking at the Bitcoin Distributed, Peer-to-Peer Network 138 Using the Bitcoin Blockchain''s Blocks of Business 141 Hashing the blocks 141 The Bitcoin blockchain is "immutable" 142 Finding Out How the Ledger Functions 144 Your address: where your money is stored in the ledger 144 What''s the crypto in cryptocurrency? 145 Public key encryption magic 147 Messages to the blockchain 149 Signing messages with the private key 149 Sending a transaction message to the Bitcoin ledger 150 Unraveling the message 151 But you''ll need a wallet 152 Chapter 2: Buying, Using, and Selling Bitcoin 155 Finding the Price of Bitcoin 156 Your Options for Acquiring Bitcoin 157 Bitcoin ATMs 158 Retail Bitcoin 169 Person-to-person trading 170 Bitcoin exchanges 172 "Bitcoin Back" on Credit and Debit Cards 185 Earning Your Bitcoin 185 Mining Bitcoin 187 Finding Bitcoin Everywhere 187 Selling Your Bitcoin 187 Chapter 3: Taking Control of Your Wallet (and Hodling Your Bitcoin) 191 What Is a Wallet? 192 Wallets store private keys 192 Wallets create and store keys and addresses 193 Wallets communicate with the Bitcoin network 193 Wallets can be hot or cold 194 Exploring Wallet Hardware 194 Brain wallets 195 Paper wallets 195 Metal wallets 195 Hardware wallets 196 Web wallets 198 Dedicated full nodes 198 Software wallets 199 Finding a Wallet 199 Setting Up a Bitcoin Wallet 201 Creating and securing your first wallet 202 Creating a 24-word seed 205 Increasing security with a fake account 207 Receiving Bitcoin 207 Getting those notifications 209 Checking your addresses 210 Sending Bitcoin 211 Following the money 214 Backing up your wallet 214 Importing (or recovering) a wallet 216 Creating a watch-only wallet 217 Exploring multiple-signature wallets 219 Using the Lightning Network 225 Chapter 4: Keeping Your Bitcoin Safe 227 Understanding How You Can Lose Control of Your Bitcoin 227 Grasping the Goal: Private Key and Seed Protection 229 Making a Choice: Custodial or Private Wallet? 231 Devising Your Cryptocurrency Safety Plan 232 Producing powerful passwords 232 Protecting passwords with password programs 233 Protecting your computer 235 Watching out for sophisticated phishing 236 Employing two-factor authentication 239 Exploring More Ways to Protect Your Bitcoin (and Everything Else) 243 Knowing What Happens When You Kick the Bucket 245 Choosing the multi-sig solution 246 Scheduling future transactions 246 Using a digital inheritance feature 247 Book 4: Ethereum 249 Chapter 1: Getting to Know Ethereum 251 Exploring Ethereum''s Consensus, Mining, and Smart Contracts 252 Buying, Spending, and Trading Ether 254 Getting Started with DAO and ICO 256 Delving into Development Tools 258 Chapter 2: Exploring Use Cases for Ethereum 259 Diving into Ethereum Applications 260 Exploring Financial Services 261 Banking 262 Creating Ethereum escrow applications 264 Examining ICOs 264 Establishing Digital Identity Management 265 Managing individual and device identities 266 Reducing fraud and identity theft 267 Examining the ERC-725 standard and beyond 267 Examining Industry Applications 267 Healthcare 268 Energy 268 Supply chain 269 Enabling Effective Governance 270 Tax payment 270 Government spending 271 Voting 271 Policy development 271 Notary 272 Chapter 3: Ex.