Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott —

“The Tapscotts have written the book, literally, on how to survive and thrive in this next wave of technology-driven disruption. Likely to become one of the iconic books of our time.”

—Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma

According to Don Tapscott, bestselling author of Wikinomics, and blockchain expert Alex Tapscott, there is one form of technology that will have a greater impact on the world economy than self-driving cars, solar energy, or even artificial intelligence. It’s called the blockchain. Blockchain technology is a simple protocol that bypasses intermediaries and allows for anonymous and secure transactions that are permanently recorded on a public ledger.

So why should you care about this? Blockchain is not only the technology that powers bitcoin, but is a protocol that holds the power to reshape the world of business and transform the old order of human affairs for the better.

In BLOCKCHAIN REVOLUTION: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World (On-sale May 10, 2016; Portfolio/Penguin Random House), the Tapscotts outline dozens of stories about blockchain initiatives that are creating a more prosperous world, and provide a preview of how this groundbreaking technology will dramatically shape our world far into the future. You’ll discover how blockchain technology can:

• Rewire the Financial System: Blockchain technology can radically reduce costs for banks, providing a boost to productivity and making it easier to offer products and services to a global clientele, and can also radically lower barriers for new entrants to create alternatives to the conventional banking industry.
• Encourage entrepreneurship: Blockchains can automate, streamline, and otherwise dramatically improve the three components of business building: formation, fund-raising, and sales.
• Help artists and musicians to be fairly compensated: Blockchain removes the need for intermediaries such as record labels, agents and other third parties. In the music industry, for example, songwriters can take back control of how their music is played, remixed, and licensed, and choose how they are compensated.
• Protect Privacy: On the blockchain, participants can choose to maintain a degree of personal anonymity, controlling their data and identity and revealing only what is necessary to receive a service.
• Provide a real solution to economic inequality: Rather than focusing on the redistribution of wealth to help the global poor, we can “pre-distribute” wealth by democratizing the way it’s created in the first place. The use of the blockchain means that anyone with a flip phone can participate in the economy. Landowners’ rights can be protected and service aggregators like UBER can be replaced by distributed blockchain applications and a true sharing economy.

BLOCKCHAIN REVOLUTION is a brilliantly researched, highly readable, and utterly foundational book about the future of the modern economy. For more information, visit: www.blockchain-revolution.com

About the Authors

DON TAPSCOTT is the CEO of the Tapscott Group and the bestselling author of Wikinomics, The Digital Economy, and a dozen other acclaimed books about tech­nology, business, and society. He is currently listed as the fourth most influential management thinker in the world, according to Thinkers 50. He is an adjunct professor at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and the Chancellor of Trent University.

ALEX TAPSCOTT is the CEO and founder of Northwest Passage Ventures, an advisory firm building blockchain companies. In 2014 he wrote the seminal report on governing digital curren­cies for the Global Solutions Network program at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Prior to founding Northwest Passage Ventures, he worked for seven years in investment banking in New York and Toronto. Alex is a graduate of Amherst College, and a CFA Charter holder.

Early Praise for

BLOCKCHAIN REVOLUTION

“The blockchain is one of the most fundamental inventions in the history of computer science. Read Blockchain Revolution to understand its profound implications.”

—Marc Andreessen, co-founder, Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz

“Everywhere thoughtful people are trying to understand this revolutionary technology and how it might change the world. Team Tapscott has stepped up and written the book we’ve been waiting for.”

—Dan Schulman, CEO, Paypal

“Occasionally a book comes along that changes the global discourse. This is likely to be one of those books. Blockchains are at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Tapscotts lucidly explain why and how to capture the opportunity and avoid the dangers.”

—Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

“A carefully researched and beautifully written book. Blockchain Revolution argues that the ‘internet of value’ will transform our lives. A must-read book for our disruptive times.”

—Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company

“Don and Alex brilliantly illuminate the technology that could profoundly impact the way we manage issues of trust, security and privacy for years to come.”

—Indra Nooyi, Chairman & CEO, PepsiCo

“What a spectacular book. Mind-blowing in its expansiveness and profundity. It makes me think we’re at one of those times in technology, economic and social history where the sky is the limit.”

—Steve Wozniak, co-founder, Apple Computer and Chief Scientist, Prime Data

“A fascinating—and reassuring—insight into a technology with the power to remake the global economy.

What a prize. What a book!”

—Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever

Blockchain Revolution on Amazon...