Catching Up to Crypto

Foreword xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii 1 The Great Devaluation 1 Central Banks 2 The Fed 4 2 Digital Money Tree 7 New Money 9 New Ways to Spend 11 3 First- Gen Giants 13 Cypherpunk 14 Disruptive Tech 17 4 Genesis Block 21 A Culture Is Born 25 Bitcoin for President 26 5 A Short Course in Blockchain 29 Blockchain 101 29 Blockchain 201 32 Blockchain 365 34 6 A Necessary Evil 35 Silk Road 37 The Streisand Effect 41 7 "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems" 43 BitInstant 45 Regulators Take Notice 47 8 What the Fork? 49 Shots Fired 52 ASICBoost 55 9 The Future Is Born 59 The Ethereum Team 61 Blast Off 62 The DAO 63 10 Digital Gold Transformation 67 Bitcoin Becomes Digital Gold 68 Halving 70 11 Crypto Turning Point 73 Buy Bitcoin 74 Moonboys and Lambos 77 12 New Layer to the Internet 79 DeFi 81 The Challengers 83 13 Brave New World 87 Stablecoins 87 Oracles 88 Memecoins 89 Community Coins 90 14 Investment Prep 91 Step One: Researching 92 Step Two: Choosing 94 Step Three: Deploying Capital 97 15 Tips of the Trade 99 Trading Tokens 100 Some Trading Caveats 102 Trader Training 103 Types of Trading 105 Risk Management 107 Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained 107 16 Non- Fungible Tokens (NFTs) 109 Historical NFTs 110 The Next Generation 111 The Next-Next Generation 114 17 Web3 and the Metaverse 117 The Metaverse 121 Not a New Idea 123 18 Crypto FUD 127 The Long Arm of the Law 128 19 Crypto Warnings 133 Hackers 133 Scammers 135 Contagion 140 20 The Future of Crypto 141 Crypto Grows Up 141 Stablecoins 142 Blockchain Equities 143 The Flippening 143 Regenerative Finance 144 Universal Basic Income 146 21 Where Do You Go from Here? 149 Community Is Key 149 Mainstream Takes Time 151 Embrace Change 151 Appendix: Essential Resources and Tools of the Trade 153 Notes 159 Index 195

BEN ARMSTRONG is a YouTuber, podcaster, Crypto enthusiast, and creator of BitBoyCrypto.com. He educates and informs the Crypto community of all things Crypto, including news updates, information about the different kinds of Cryptocurrencies, and trading and investment tips. His YouTube channel has grown to over 1 million subscribers.