Latest Read: Blockchain – Blueprint for a New Economy

When Melanie Swan’s book Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy written under the O’Reilly series was available I was eager to start reading. This is a thoughtful overview to the Blockchain. There is much to learn about the role of cryptocurrency and the blockchain but this is not the sole focus of her work.

Melanie, like Tapscott paints a wide brush across the Blockchain. Too similar to Tapscott perhaps? No. If the blockchain’s focus was just security then it would command a smaller, narrow focus on IT infrastructure. Yet Melanie provides a wider arena to learn how Blockchains especially in healthcare hold enormous possibilities.

My first book Don Tapscott’s The Blockchain Revolution was interesting. William Mougayar’s The Business Blockchain was better. My thirst for knowledge continues.This is possibly the best of the three at providing a deeper dive to the possibilities of a truly changing technology.

Melanie expertly addresses blockchain from a finance perspective. I learned many new elements of what is possible in the financial blockchain well beyond Bitcoin.

Published in 2015 it seems like forever in the blockchain world. I would certainly welcome a 2nd edition. I would welcome Melanie’s insights on Microsoft’s Blockchain-as-a-Service for v.1 and v.2 clouds. Melanie would also be able to share her view of the hard fork taken by Ethereum.

It appears to me that you cannot read a single blockchain book without Ethereum or Bitcoin in a dedicated chapter. But the blockchain technology infrastructure is proving much more significant.

Melanie provides a great overview (looking back from 2015) to address decentralized apps (DApps), decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs), decentralized autonomous corporations (DACs) and decentralized autonomous societies (DASs). There is such a deeper dive required to wrap your arms around decentralized autonomous blockchains.

Melanie’s overview includes Blockchain Attestation Services and how the blockchain can extend to Digital Identity Verification. She also addresses how Government Services can be streamlined and extended. Again using a wide brush.

My deep interest was the presentation of Blockchain Health and the coming role of the blockchain across EMRs. The ability of healthcare providers to adopt very advanced security around ePHI is most welcoming in the current era of ransomware attacks on hospitals.

All said this is a must read for anyone looking to wrap their arms around the blockchain in a global view. again a different take than Tapscott yet valuable nevertheless. Melanie clearly covers the Blockchain as the 5th disruptive computing paradigm.