Bitcoin became a buzzword overnight. A cyber-enigma with an enthusiastic
following, it pops up in headlines and fuels endless media debate. You
can apparently use it to buy anything from coffee to cars, yet few
people seem to truly understand what it is. This raises the question:
Why should anyone care about bitcoin?
In The Age of Cryptocurrency, Wall Street journalists Paul Vigna and
Michael J. Casey deliver the definitive answer to this question.
Cybermoney is poised to launch a revolution, one that could reinvent
traditional financial and social structures while bringing the world's
billions of unbanked individuals into a new global economy.
Cryptocurrency holds the promise of a financial system without a
middleman, one owned by the people who use it and one safeguarded from
the devastation of a 2008-type crash.
But bitcoin, the most famous of the cybermonies, carries a reputation
for instability, wild fluctuation, and illicit business; some fear it
has the power to eliminate jobs and to upend the concept of a
nation-state. It implies, above all, monumental and wide-reaching
change--for better and for worse. But it is here to stay, and you ignore
it at your peril.
Vigna and Casey demystify cryptocurrency--its origins, its function, and
what you need to know to navigate a cyber-economy. The digital currency
world will look very different from the paper currency world; The Age
of Cryptocurrency will teach you how to be ready.
