Join the technological revolution that's taking the financial world by storm. Mastering Bitcoin is your guide through the seemingly complex world of Bitcoin, providing the knowledge you need to participate in the internet of money. Whether you're building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this revised and expanded third edition provides essential detail to get you started.

Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, has already spawned a multibillion-dollar global economy open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides the knowledge. You supply the passion.

The third edition includes:

A broad introduction to Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain—ideal for nontechnical users, investors, and business executives

An explanation of Bitcoin's technical foundation and cryptographic currency for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects

Details of the Bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles

New developments such as Taproot, Tapscript, Schnorr signatures, and the Lightning Network

A deep dive into Bitcoin applications, including how to combine the building blocks offered by this platform into powerful new tools

User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. How Bitcoin Works

Chapter 3. Bitcoin Core: The Reference Implementation

Chapter 4. Keys and Addresses

Chapter 5. Wallet Recovery

Chapter 6. Transactions

Chapter 7. Authorization and Authentication

Chapter 8. Digital Signatures

Chapter 9. Transaction Fees

Chapter 10. The Bitcoin Network

Chapter 11. The Blockchain

Chapter 12. Mining and Consensus

Chapter 13. Bitcoin Security

Chapter 14. Second-Layer Applications

Appendix A. The Bitcoin Whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto

Appendix B. Errata to the Bitcoin Whitepaper

Appendix C. Bitcoin Improvement Proposals

About the Author

Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a best-selling author, speaker, educator, and highly sought-after expert in Bitcoin and open blockchain technologies. He is known for making complex subjects easy to understand and highlight both the positive and negative impacts these technologies can have on our global societies. As an educator, his mission is to educate as many people as possible, in as many places as possible, in as many languages as possible, about the historical, technological, and socio-economic impacts of Bitcoin and open blockchain technologies.

Andreas has served as a teaching fellow for the free Introduction to Digital Currencies course offered to the public at the University of Nicosia. Along with co-authoring the course curriculum, Andreas has also written two best-selling technical books for programmers, Mastering Bitcoin, and Mastering Ethereum. He has published The Internet of Money series of books, which focus on the social, political, and economic importance and implications of these technologies. In addition to these books, he has authored hundreds of syndicated articles on security, cloud computing, and data centers; and is a frequent speaker at technology and security conferences worldwide. His live talks are always unique, unscripted, and combine economics, psychology, technology, and game theory with current events, personal anecdotes, and historical precedent.

Andreas has been interviewed by ABC, BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, NBC, and Financial Times for his industry expertise. He has been a repeat guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and London Real. He has been featured in numerous documentary films, and is a permanent host on the Speaking of Bitcoin podcast with more than 400 episodes recorded to date. He also released his own podcast called Unscrypted which was taken from his most popular talks. He has appeared as an expert witness in legal cases and regulatory hearings around the world, including the Australian Senate Banking Committee and the Canadian Senate Commerce, Banking and Finance Committee.

Currently, Andreas is working on his sixth book and third technical work, Mastering the Lightning Network.

David A. Harding is a technical writer focused on creating documentation for open source software. Co-author of the Bitcoin Optech weekly newsletter (2018-23), 21.co Bitcoin Computer tutorials (2015-17), and Bitcoin.org developer documentation (2014-15). Brink.dev grant committee member (2022-23) and former board member (2020-22). Previously worked freelance (2007-15).