An introductory book by Antony Lewis, published by Mango, placing Bitcoin within a broader discussion of money, cryptocurrencies, tokens and blockchain technologies. Here we assess its documented outline and purpose, rather than the full main text.
The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains was written by Antony Lewis. The public sample gives copyright 2018 and Mango Publishing Group; the ebook catalogue lists Mango Media Inc. and August 2018. This overview uses those documented details rather than assuming that all later print or electronic versions have identical pagination. [3] [4]
On his own page, Lewis addresses business practitioners, students and people interested in the technology. He assumes no prior knowledge of banking, finance or cryptography and describes how successive parts build on one another. This is his educational intention, not our guarantee that every chapter will be equally clear to every reader. [1]
The published contents place money and digital money before cryptocurrencies. They list forms of money, currency pegs, and interbank and international payments. This gives readers an outline for comparing familiar monetary systems with Bitcoin, but the contents alone do not show the precise arguments of individual chapters. [3]
The next part of the contents includes encryption, hashing and digital signatures. Bitcoin follows, covering its operation, history, custody and trading, followed also by Ethereum and forks. This range shows that the book is not exclusively a Bitcoin manual. Topic headings do not allow us to claim verification of the technical details throughout the text. [3]
The author’s page explicitly includes tokens, ICOs and business blockchains. In his announcement, Lewis describes the book’s origins in a request from publisher Mango and several months spent explaining the field accessibly. Its breadth may help readers navigate different projects, but does not mean those projects share Bitcoin’s properties or assumptions. [1] [2]
The publisher’s description mentions risks, scams, exchanges, wallets and regulation. Readers can therefore use the book as a map of questions for further investigation. However, that description states the book’s focus; it does not prove a particular service is safe, an investment decision is correct, or legal information is up to date. [4]
The author’s announcement dates from July 2018 and records the book’s creation and his expectations at the time. When reading it today, general concepts should be distinguished from historical products, prices and trading practices. We do not adopt recommendations on sales pages as our own assessment of the entire book or as advice to buy assets. [2] [4]
We read the author’s page, the full announcement and the publisher’s ebook description. In the public PDF we read the title and copyright details and the complete contents; we also visually inspected those six pages. The file is labelled a draft of the contents. We did not read the main chapters or the entire book, or test its procedures in practice. [1] [2] [3] [4]
For the clearest picture, read this entry together with Bitcoin, Fiat money, Wallet, Full Node.
01Is the book only about Bitcoin?+
No. The author’s materials and contents also include Ethereum, digital tokens, ICOs and business blockchains. This overview describes that breadth without attributing identical properties to every system.
02Did you verify the explanations in every chapter?+
No. We read the author’s and publisher’s materials and the public draft contents. The latter documents the structure and topics but does not replace the main text. We do not claim a complete reading or practical verification of the procedures.