Don Tapscott at TEDSummit 2016

Alex Tapscott at Tedx San Francisco

Blockchain Revolution

by Don Tapscott & Alex Tapscott

Over 30 years, no theorist of the digital age has better explained the next big thing than Don Tapscott. For example, in Wikinomics Tapscott was the first to show how the Internet provides the first global platform for mass collaboration. Now, he writes about a profound technological shift that will change how the world does business—and everything else—using blockchain technology, which powers the digital currency Bitcoin.

The Internet as we know it is great for collaboration and communication, but is deeply flawed when it comes to commerce and privacy. The new blockchain technology facilitates peer-to-peer transactions without any intermediary such as a bank or governing body. Keeping the user’s information anonymous, the blockchain validates and keeps a permanent public record of all transactions.

That means that your personal information is private and secure, while all activity is transparent and incorruptible—reconciled by mass collaboration and stored in code on a digital ledger. With its advent, we will not need to trust each other in the traditional sense, because trust is built into the system itself.

Although many opportunities for the blockchain require a digital currency, Bitcoin is only one application of this great innovation in computer science. The blockchain can hold any legal document, from deeds and marriage licenses to educational degrees and birth certificates. Call it the World Wide Ledger. It enables smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations, decentralized government services, and transactions among things. The Internet of Everything needs a Ledger of Everything: the blockchain is a truly open, distributed, global platform that fundamentally changes what we can do online, how we do it, and who can participate.

Photo of Alex and Don Tapscott
Tapscott, writing with his son Alex, a financial analyst and technologist, argues that the blockchain will shape the next era of prosperity—in finance, business, healthcare, education, governance, and beyond.
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Featured In

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Financial Times Review

Financial Times Review

The Financial Times' John Gapper has reviewed Blockchain Revolution in the May 18th edition. The review examines the Tapscotts' predictions for future areas of...

The Impact of the Blockchain Goes Beyond Financial Services

The Impact of the Blockchain Goes Beyond Financial Services

Don and Alex Tapscott have published an article on Harvard Business Review about how the impact of the blockchain will not be limited to just banking, value transfer, and other financial services. They write: Much of the hype around blockchains has focused on their...

What They’re Saying

“The Tapscotts have written the book, literally, on how to survive and thrive in this next wave of technology-driven disruption. Likely to become one of the iconic books of our time.”
—Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma

“What a spectacular book. Mind-blowing in its expansiveness and profundity. It makes me think we’re at one of those times in technology, economic and social history where the sky is the limit.”
—Steve Wozniak, co-founder, Apple Computer and Chief Scientist, Prime Data

“Occasionally a book comes along that changes the global discourse. This is likely to be one of those books. Blockchains are at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Tapscotts lucidly explain why and how to capture the opportunity and avoid the dangers.”
—Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

“A carefully researched and beautifully written book. Blockchain Revolution argues that the ‘internet of value’ will transform our lives. A must-read book for our disruptive times.”
—Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company”

“Don and Alex brilliantly illuminate the technology that could profoundly impact the way we manage issues of trust, security and privacy for years to come.”
—Indra Nooyi, Chairman & CEO, PepsiCo

“A fascinating—and reassuring—insight into a technology with the power to remake the global economy. What a prize. What a book!”
—Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever

“A masterpiece. Gracefully dissects the potential of blockchain technology to take on today’s most pressing global challenges.”
—Hernando De Soto, President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, Peru

“The great missing element in the Internet has been a ‘trust protocol,” a way of knowing that a transaction is verified and authentic. Blockchain technology could provide a foun­dation for that. It’s a revolutionary idea, and this lucid book explains why.”
—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

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Book Reviews

Fintech Innovation and Disruption. Blockchain Insights with Don and Alex Tapscott

By @SimonCocking. Having recently reviewed their new book on Blockchain we thought it would be interesting to find out a little more about the dynamic Tapscott duo behind the book. Here is our exclusive interview with them. Read the full interview on Irish Tech...

Blockchain Revolution review – Satoshi Nakamoto’s world-changing innovation

Blockchain, the increasingly celebrated peer-to-peer data technology, is the basis of bitcoin and has huge potential – will it be as big as the web? Proposed in 2008 and launched the following year, bitcoin – a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” – was initially...

Bitcoin Is Just The Beginning

One of the great mysteries of modern life is the time it still takes for a check to clear. Every other financial transaction is being reduced to the tap of a phone or the press of a key. But checks take days to rumble their way from payee to the originating bank, days...

Trust and Verify: The Coming Blockchain Revolution

Blockchain today might be like the internet in 1993: a decade from now, you’ll wonder how society ever functioned without it, even though most of us barely know what it is today. Some fascinating blockchain sprouts are poking through these days, such as one company...

Financial Times Review

The Financial Times' John Gapper has reviewed Blockchain Revolution in the May 18th edition. The review examines the Tapscotts' predictions for future areas of...

Tech Savvy: How Blockchains Could Transform Management

Business journalist Theodore Kinni has published an article on MIT Sloan Management Review about what's happening between management and technology this week, with some focus on how blockchains can transform management. "The bigger issue is blockchains", he writes,...

800 CEO Read: Editor’s Choice

800 CEO Read's Dylan Schleicher has given Blockchain Revolution a coveted Editor's Choice designation, calling it a "must-read book on a new revolution". The Tapscotts offer a clear-eyed critique of the Internet’s effect on society and business. Although some...