Mastering Bitcoin

Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a passionate technologist, who is well-versed in many technical subjects. He is a serial tech-entrepreneur, having launched businesses in London, New York, and California. He has earned degrees in Computer Science and Data Communications and Distributed Systems from UCL. With experience ranging from hardware and electronics to high level business and financial systems technology consulting and years as CTO/CIO/CSO in many companies — he combines authority and deep knowledge with an ability to make complex subjects easy to understand. More than 200 of his articles on security, cloud computing and data centers have been published in print and syndicated worldwide. His expertise includes Bitcoin, crypto-currencies, Information Security, Cryptography, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Linux, Open Source and robotics software development. He also has been CISSP certified for 12 years. As a bitcoin entrepreneur, Andreas has founded three bitcoin businesses and launched several community open-source projects. He often writes articles and blog posts on bitcoin, is a permanent host on Let’s Talk Bitcoin and prolific public speaker at technology events. Andreas serves on the advisory boards of several bitcoin startups and serves as the Chief Security Officer of Blockchain.

Chapter 1Introduction
What Is Bitcoin?
History of Bitcoin
Bitcoin Uses, Users, and Their Stories
Getting Started
Chapter 2How Bitcoin Works
Transactions, Blocks, Mining, and the Blockchain
Bitcoin Transactions
Constructing a Transaction
Bitcoin Mining
Mining Transactions in Blocks
Spending the Transaction
Chapter 3The Bitcoin Client
Bitcoin Core: The Reference Implementation
Using Bitcoin Core’s JSON-RPC API from the Command Line
Alternative Clients, Libraries, and Toolkits
Chapter 4Keys, Addresses, Wallets
Introduction
Bitcoin Addresses
Implementing Keys and Addresses in Python
Wallets
Advanced Keys and Addresses
Chapter 5Transactions
Introduction
Transaction Lifecycle
Transaction Structure
Transaction Outputs and Inputs
Transaction Chaining and Orphan Transactions
Transaction Scripts and Script Language
Standard Transactions
Chapter 6The Bitcoin Network
Peer-to-Peer Network Architecture
Nodes Types and Roles
The Extended Bitcoin Network
Network Discovery
Full Nodes
Exchanging “Inventory”
Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) Nodes
Bloom Filters
Bloom Filters and Inventory Updates
Transaction Pools
Alert Messages
Chapter 7The Blockchain
Introduction
Structure of a Block
Block Header
Block Identifiers: Block Header Hash and Block Height
The Genesis Block
Linking Blocks in the Blockchain
Merkle Trees
Merkle Trees and Simplified Payment Verification (SPV)
Chapter 8Mining and Consensus
Introduction
Decentralized Consensus
Independent Verification of Transactions
Mining Nodes
Aggregating Transactions into Blocks
Constructing the Block Header
Mining the Block
Successfully Mining the Block
Validating a New Block
Assembling and Selecting Chains of Blocks
Mining and the Hashing Race
Consensus Attacks
Chapter 9Alternative Chains, Currencies, and Applications
A Taxonomy of Alternative Currencies and Chains
Meta Coin Platforms
Alt Coins
Noncurrency Alt Chains
Future of Currencies
Chapter 10Bitcoin Security
Security Principles
User Security Best Practices
Conclusion
Appendix Transaction Script Language Operators, Constants, and Symbols
Appendix Bitcoin Improvement Proposals
Appendix pycoin, ku, and tx
Appendix Available Commands with sx Tools