BLOCKCHAIN: THE NEXT EVERYTHING by Stephen P. Williams is an attempt to explain what blockchain is and how it works. He defines blockchain as software and "strings of code" or "a simple technology [that] serves as a permanent, unhackable ledger for almost any kind of information you would like to record" such as the bitcoin transactions for which it was originally developed. Subsequent sections of this text discuss various innovative and potential new applications, with some related to energy futures, climate change and environment, others to artistic endeavors. Despite labelling the science and technology of blockchain as "challenging," he writes that "it won't be long until using blockchain will be about as tough as watching a movie on Netflix." To me, Williams struggles to truly describe blockchain; at one point, he recommends turning to YouTube for better understanding. Obviously, this technology is still evolving and Williams himself writes, "blockchain will most likely be superseded in the future by something that works even better. ... distributed systems [with no central authority or control] ... promise to transform how we do business, communicate and govern."

I posted a quick note on Goodreads, but my review will appear in the September-October issue of Global Business and Organizational Excellence. Upon publication, I will probably post something on twitter and my personal book blog.

In a very uniquely structured book - mostly a series of topically arranged blurbs/talking points that read like pithy blog posts, WIlliams provides a non-tech person a good overview of blockchain. However, the organization may not be conducive to a novice to this field and the often times poetic and hyperbolic assertions make it sound like a Powerpoint from corporate meetings. Pithiness, simplified abstractions, and clear examples are what the author is attempting in this book; and it succeeds often enough to sustain a reader's patience and interest.
Depth of detail is inconsistent - for example, there are references to ant colonies and swarm theory that the target audience may not be able to relate to. Overall, kudos to the author to take a different approach in introducing the topic to tech novices.

When cyrptocurrency prices shot up in 2017, a flood of books on blockchain and related topics hit the shelves. Some were good, most were rushed and flawed, some were near worthless. This book is in the last category and 18 months too late.

One problem is the author does not understand, or at least never tries to explain, the technology. Of course there is room for books that explain implications of technology without discussing the underlying theory, but this book fails in that as well.

The one aspect the author is clear about is that the blockchain is a ledger. There is lots of material on the history of ledgers, and discussions of how ledgers are useful. For example, one of his major blockchain use cases is land registry in Honduras. There's no doubt that a land ownership ledger is useful. That's precisely the 1858 idea of Robert Torrens, whose system spread rapidly throughout the world. But Torrens Title is not a blockchain in any sense. It's a centralized, unencrypted ledger maintained by the government. All the problems in Honduras could be solved by Torrens.

Now there are reasons why a blockchain could be useful for Honduran land registry, but they are not discussed in the book. They cannot be, because the author has laid none of the groundwork. We might imagine that Hondurans distrustful of the government began their own public, decentralized, encrypted ledger--a blockchain--to record land ownership. They would need no permission, no one could stop them. If enough people used it voluntarily, buyers might start insisting on blockchain title, or at least examining the blockchain for possible title disputes. If so, sellers would have an incentive to obtain and defend blockchain title. If enough people did this for long enough, the blockchain could become the authoritative legal proof of land ownership.

The benefits of the blockchain, as opposed to the simple ledger, is it requires no trusted central authority and no coercion. Once in place, it has strong protections against corruption. These are the things a blockchain book should discuss, not the benefits of a ledger.

The author soon runs out of examples of useful ledgers, but instead of delving deeper into blockchain he starts discussing all kinds of things that are at best tangential. The cryptocurrency bitcoin uses a blockchain, so all digital currencies are topics for discussion, whether or not they use blockchains. Digital currencies are used to finance some distributed autonomous organizations, so those get chapters. Distributed autonomous organizations are pursuing some cool ideas--possibly visionary, possibly deluded--and those make fun topics.

The result of this topic drift is the book resembles a random assortment of feature articles on ideas on blockchain, digital currency, cryptography, game theory and related field that could have been written anytime in the last decade. There's little unifying theme, and the articles themselves are pretty superficial.

I recommend you either find a good book on blockchain that explains the technology and its possible applications, or a good book on implications of trustless pseudonymous value exchange for economics and society.

I can tell how much I like a nonfiction book by how many highlights I put in it.
Stephen Williams's "Blockchain: The Next Everything." only got two highlights.

I've gone down the blockchain/cryptocurrency rabbit hole so I already know a fair amount about the technology, which explains why I didn't learn that much from this book, which is a perfect introduction for those who know little about it.

What were the two things I highlighted?

1. I learned about Wala, a company that's focused on helping Africans send/receive money via their Dala token.

2. Hashgraph uses a consensus method called Gossip which allows thousands of transactions per second (vs. most blockchains which allow less than 20).

If you know little about blockchain and want to learn more, get this book.