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Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains Spiral-Bound | September 27, 2022
Vitalik Buterin, Nathan Schneider (Edited by)
★★★☆☆+ from 101 to 500 ratings
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Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains
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The ideas behind Ethereum in the words of its founder, describing a radical vision for more than a digital currency—reinventing organizations, economics, and democracy itself in the age of the internet.
After Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin dropped out of college and launched Bitcoin Magazine, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source system that would take what Bitcoin did for money and do it for everything else: contracts, social networks, and sharing economies. Now, less than a decade later, his idea is the second largest cryptocurrency valued at about half a trillion dollars, and it is the foundation for the weird new world of NFT artworks, virtual real estate, and decentralized autonomous organizations.
Understanding and engaging with Buterin’s ideas will be of growing importance as the consequences of his invention continue to unfold and inspire debate worldwide. These writings, collected from his essays before and during the rise of Ethereum, reveal Buterin to be a vivid and imaginative writer. This edition includes an introduction and annotations from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider. While many around him were focused on seeing the value of their tokens rise, Buterin was working through the problems and possibilities of crafting an Internet-native world.
After Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin dropped out of college and launched Bitcoin Magazine, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source system that would take what Bitcoin did for money and do it for everything else: contracts, social networks, and sharing economies. Now, less than a decade later, his idea is the second largest cryptocurrency valued at about half a trillion dollars, and it is the foundation for the weird new world of NFT artworks, virtual real estate, and decentralized autonomous organizations.
Understanding and engaging with Buterin’s ideas will be of growing importance as the consequences of his invention continue to unfold and inspire debate worldwide. These writings, collected from his essays before and during the rise of Ethereum, reveal Buterin to be a vivid and imaginative writer. This edition includes an introduction and annotations from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider. While many around him were focused on seeing the value of their tokens rise, Buterin was working through the problems and possibilities of crafting an Internet-native world.
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 164421248X
Item Weight: 0.86 lbs
Dimensions: 5.0 x 1.07 x 8.0 inches
Customer Reviews: 3 out of 5 stars 101 to 500 ratings
"With this book, Vitalik Buterin establishes himself as the full-stack philosopher of our age — with enormous insight in political philosophy, economics, game theory, organizational design and, oh yes, technology. If you believe, as I do, that web 3 has the potential to deliver enormous justice and good, this is an essential text. If you don’t understand what that potential could even mean, then this is an essential text. To find such wisdom in this critical field is a relief — and joy."
—Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons co-founder, Harvard Law School professor, and author of The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons In a Connected World
"Vitalik Buterin is unique in his robust, technical, and perspicacious approach to good intentions. He is one of the principal 'good guys' in the epochal, if uncertain, emergence of a world-to-come in which digital networks become as useful as they ought to be. This book is nerdy on the surface, but read with an open mind it is dramatic. It’s about the quest to figure out how the world can be better. There is no greater game and nothing more suspenseful or more filled with love."
—Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and author of You Are Not a Gadget
"Over the last decade, Buterin has become arguably the core public intellectual on the nonfinancial side of crypto. His new book, “Proof of Stake,” is a collection of long, thoughtful essays that taken together lay out a vision of crypto as a truly transformative technology — one with the potential to revolutionize everything from city governance to voting systems to online identity."
—Ezra Klein, New York Times podcast "Ezra Klein Show"
"Vitalik Buterin is one of the most influential creators of our generation primarily thanks to Ethereum, of course, but also because of his written work, which until now, has come in the form of white papers, blog posts, and tweets. But here we have the privilege of reading Vitalik's first book! Like most of his work, it is sure to become a must-read in the cryptocurrency space, as it dives into the heart of Ethereum—its consensus mechanism—which will be key to understanding the heart of the internet itself as web3 grows."
—Camila Russo, author of The Infinite Machine, founder of The Defiant
"Vitalik Buterin is one of the most important thinkers in crypto. His creation, Ethereum, has been the platform that launched nearly all of the big crypto trends of the last several years. He is also one of the field’s clearest communicators, which is why this compendium of his writing is a crucial contribution to development of a new technology that will impact all of our lives."
—Laura Shin, host of the Unchained podcast and author of The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
“Vitalik Buterin is not only a great innovator, he is also a great and important thinker. The essays collected in this book prove that, and so many of them have more real substance than entire books by many other people.”
—Tyler Cowen, Professor of economics, George Mason University
"I’ve never been more excited about the potential of the Internet, and that’s largely thanks to Vitalik Buterin."
—Alexis Ohanian(co-founder, Reddit), TIME
"[Vitalik] Buterin is an extremely thorough and complex thinker: He’s trying to solve both problems that exist today and those that might exist in 20 years, with regards to privacy, housing, city planning, voting systems, and much more. And he’s still only 28, and growing into his role as a public figure. To me, it seems highly likely that this story only marks the start—as opposed to the peak—of his influence on the world."
—Andrew R. Chow on his March 2022 TIME cover profile of Vitalik Buterin
"Vitalik Buterin, creator of the fast-growing new cryptocurrency network Ethereum, wants to use his technology to disrupt, well, everything."
—Fortune
"[Vitalik Buterin's] vision has become a rallying cry. . . a technological crusade for increased access, transparency, and accountability. . . . A new economy in which anyone can participate on their own terms." —Wired
“I saw him on the commuter train and he was wearing mismatched Hello Kitty socks. . . . And this is the person building the infrastructure that is challenging the power structures of the most important financial institutions out there.” —Wired
"An indispensable voice of authority with a great talent for untangling and explaining the technicalities of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies." —Wired
—Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons co-founder, Harvard Law School professor, and author of The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons In a Connected World
"Vitalik Buterin is unique in his robust, technical, and perspicacious approach to good intentions. He is one of the principal 'good guys' in the epochal, if uncertain, emergence of a world-to-come in which digital networks become as useful as they ought to be. This book is nerdy on the surface, but read with an open mind it is dramatic. It’s about the quest to figure out how the world can be better. There is no greater game and nothing more suspenseful or more filled with love."
—Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and author of You Are Not a Gadget
"Over the last decade, Buterin has become arguably the core public intellectual on the nonfinancial side of crypto. His new book, “Proof of Stake,” is a collection of long, thoughtful essays that taken together lay out a vision of crypto as a truly transformative technology — one with the potential to revolutionize everything from city governance to voting systems to online identity."
—Ezra Klein, New York Times podcast "Ezra Klein Show"
"Vitalik Buterin is one of the most influential creators of our generation primarily thanks to Ethereum, of course, but also because of his written work, which until now, has come in the form of white papers, blog posts, and tweets. But here we have the privilege of reading Vitalik's first book! Like most of his work, it is sure to become a must-read in the cryptocurrency space, as it dives into the heart of Ethereum—its consensus mechanism—which will be key to understanding the heart of the internet itself as web3 grows."
—Camila Russo, author of The Infinite Machine, founder of The Defiant
"Vitalik Buterin is one of the most important thinkers in crypto. His creation, Ethereum, has been the platform that launched nearly all of the big crypto trends of the last several years. He is also one of the field’s clearest communicators, which is why this compendium of his writing is a crucial contribution to development of a new technology that will impact all of our lives."
—Laura Shin, host of the Unchained podcast and author of The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
“Vitalik Buterin is not only a great innovator, he is also a great and important thinker. The essays collected in this book prove that, and so many of them have more real substance than entire books by many other people.”
—Tyler Cowen, Professor of economics, George Mason University
"I’ve never been more excited about the potential of the Internet, and that’s largely thanks to Vitalik Buterin."
—Alexis Ohanian(co-founder, Reddit), TIME
"[Vitalik] Buterin is an extremely thorough and complex thinker: He’s trying to solve both problems that exist today and those that might exist in 20 years, with regards to privacy, housing, city planning, voting systems, and much more. And he’s still only 28, and growing into his role as a public figure. To me, it seems highly likely that this story only marks the start—as opposed to the peak—of his influence on the world."
—Andrew R. Chow on his March 2022 TIME cover profile of Vitalik Buterin
"Vitalik Buterin, creator of the fast-growing new cryptocurrency network Ethereum, wants to use his technology to disrupt, well, everything."
—Fortune
"[Vitalik Buterin's] vision has become a rallying cry. . . a technological crusade for increased access, transparency, and accountability. . . . A new economy in which anyone can participate on their own terms." —Wired
“I saw him on the commuter train and he was wearing mismatched Hello Kitty socks. . . . And this is the person building the infrastructure that is challenging the power structures of the most important financial institutions out there.” —Wired
"An indispensable voice of authority with a great talent for untangling and explaining the technicalities of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies." —Wired
VITALIK BUTERIN is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer who co-founded Bitcoin Magazine in 2011 and launched Ethereum in 2014. In 2021, he was named as one of TIME magazine’s most influential people. NATHAN SCHNEIDER is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He first interviewed Vitalik Buterin in 2014 and studies merging models of ownership and governance in the online economy. His most recent book is Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Harper’s The New Republic, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Author Residence: Digital nomad (Vitalik) / Boulder, Colorado (Nathan)
Author Residence: Digital nomad (Vitalik) / Boulder, Colorado (Nathan)