Mike Prendergast

I read a lot but never review books. I just had to post a note on this one, however. This a really, really good book but it's not what most buyers might expect. It is part philosophy, part futurism, part technology, part economics and part politics. The book is not too easy but not too difficult either, and it is obvious that the author has thought very deeply about the topics he discusses. I found it fascinating how he indicated how all of these threads might be tied together in his futurism forecasts. He realistically lays out the nirvana that blockchain enthusiasts want and compares it with the challenges they face in getting there, including the centralization tendencies of the FAAMG goliaths in technology. He also illuminates how today's tech industry titans accumulate and keep power and why it will be very difficult to break them up, even if there is a will to do so... and how these titans stand in the way of "true" (vs. "private") blockchain adoption. The author acknowledges that the future in this space is hard to predict, but he makes a good effort at describing some of the most likely alternatives.