This really is an excellent book and follow up to Life After the State. In the first book Frisby argues so convincingly that bigger government and state meddling in the minutiae of our lives is not good. It wasn't always like this and pre welfare state the poor were taken care of thru friendly societies and other philanthropic groups. Now in Bitcoin he looks to the future. The Bitcoin protocols and blockchain technology is a work of genius permitting the secure transfer of funds over a completely peer to peer network with no trust in a third party and as yet has proved unhackable. Bitcoin may or may not survive [personally I hope it does as an investor and miner] but the concept of blockchain technology could give the entire world access to financial services completely independent of government and the bankers. Even more blockchain technology could provide the technology to build any peer to peer app without any need or trust in a third party and yet secure. Amazing read. Couldn't put it down.

Reviewed by Paul Burgess
October 16, 2014 19:19