2 | Colophon
3 |
4 | The animal on the cover of Mastering Bitcoin is a leafcutter ant (Atta colombica). The leafcutter ant, a nongeneric name, are tropical, fungus-growing ants endemic to South and Central America, Mexico, and southern United States. Aside from humans, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal societies on the planet. They are named for the way they chew leaves, which serve as nutrition for their fungal garden.
5 |
6 | Winged ants, both male and female, take part in a mass exit of their nest known as the revoada, or a nuptial flight. Females mate with multiple males to collect the 300 million sperm necessary to set up a colony. Females also store bits of the parental fungus garden mycelium in the infrabuccal pocket located in their oral cavity; they will use this to start their own fungal gardens. Once grounded, the female loses its wings and sets up an underground lair for her colony. The success rate for new queens is low: 2.5% establish a long-lived colony.
7 |
8 | Once a colony has matured, ants are divided into castes based on size, with each caste performing various functions. There are usually four castes: minims, the smallest workers that tend to the young and fungus gardens; minors, slightly larger than minima, are the first line of defense for the colony and patrol the surrounding terrain and attack enemies; mediae, the general foragers that cut leaves and bring back leaf fragments to the nest; and majors, the largest worker ants that act as soldiers, defending the nest from intruders. Recent research has shown that majors also clear main foraging trails and carry bulky items back to the nest.
9 |
10 | Many of the animals on O'Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world. To learn more about how you can help, go to animals.oreilly.com.
11 |
12 | The cover image is from Insects Abroad. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag's Ubuntu Mono.
13 |
14 |
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/planned_toc.asciidoc:
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1 | = Planned Chapters
2 |
3 | = Chapter 4 - Wallets, Keys and Addresses
4 | == Introduction
5 | == Wallets & Keys
6 | === Public Key Cryptography
7 | === Elliptic Curves
8 | === Key Generation
9 | ==== Non-Deterministic (Random)
10 | ==== Deterministic (Seeded)
11 | ==== Seed Words (BIP0039)
12 | ==== Deterministic Chains (Electrum Key Chains)
13 | ==== Deterministic Trees (BIP0032)
14 | === Keys Formats and Addresses
15 | ==== Base58 and Base58Check Encoding
16 | ==== Compressed Keys
17 | ==== Encrypted Keys (BIP0038)
18 | ==== Addresses
19 | ==== Pay To Script Hash Addresses (P2SH)
20 | ==== Multi-Signature Addresses
21 | ==== Vanity Addresses
22 |
23 |
24 | = Chapter 5 - Transactions
25 | == Introduction
26 | == ScriptPubKey and ScriptSig
27 | == Transaction Script Language
28 | == Stack-Based Script Evaluation
29 | == Common Transaction Scripts
30 | == Complex Transaction Scripts
31 | == P2SH Scripts
32 | == Multi-Signature Scripts
33 | == Transaction Malleability
34 |
35 | = Chapter 6 - The Blockchain & Mining
36 | == Introduction
37 | == The Blockchain
38 | == Genesis Block
39 | == Proof-of-Work (Mining) and Consensus
40 | === Consensus Mechanism
41 | === Proof-of-Work Algorithm
42 | === Difficulty Target and Re-Targetting
43 | === Highest Difficulty Chain Selection
44 | === Competition and Coinbase
45 | === Mining Pools
46 | ==== Managed Pools
47 | ==== P2Pool
48 | === Mining Economics
49 | === Consensus Attacks
50 | ==== 51% Attack
51 | ==== Selfish Mining Attack
52 | == Chain Forking
53 | === Normal Forks
54 | === Soft Forks
55 | === Hard Forks
56 | === Unusual Forks
57 |
58 |
59 | = Chapter 7 - The Bitcoin Network
60 | == Introduction
61 | == Peer-to-Peer Network Architecture
62 | == Nodes and Roles
63 | == Network Discovery
64 | == Network Protocol Messages
65 | == Bitcoin Core Node
66 | == Alternative Node Implementations
67 |
68 |
69 | = Chapter 8 - Altcoins
70 | == Alternative Currency Chains (Alt-Coins)
71 | === Alternative Consensus Algorithms
72 | ==== Proof-of-Work
73 | ===== Scrypt
74 | ===== Dagger/Slasher
75 | ===== "Useful" Work (Prime, Protein etc)
76 | ==== Proof-of-Stake
77 | ==== Proof-of-Resource and Proof-of-Publishing
78 | == Alternative Chains Beyond Currency
79 | === Decentralized Naming (Namecoin)
80 | === Decentralized Contract Platform (Ethereum)
81 |
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/author_bio.html:
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1 |
2 | About the Author
3 | Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a noted technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and well-respected figures in bitcoin. As an engaging public speaker, teacher, and writer, Andreas makes complex subjects accessible and easy to understand. As an advisor, he helps startups recognize, evaluate, and navigate security and business risks.
4 |
5 | Andreas grew up with the Internet, starting his first company, an early BBS and proto-ISP, as a teenager in his home in Greece. He earned degrees in computer science, data communications, and distributed systems from University College London (UCL), recently ranked among the world’s top 10 universities. After moving to the US, Andreas co-founded and managed a successful technology research company, and in that role advised dozens of Fortune 500 company executives on networking, security, data centers, and cloud computing. More than 200 of his articles on security, cloud computing, and data centers have been published in print and syndicated worldwide. He holds two patents in networking and security.
6 |
7 | In 1990, Andreas started teaching various IT topics in private, professional, and academic environments. He honed his speaking skills in front of audiences ranging in size from five executives in a boardroom to thousands of people in large conferences. With more than 400 speaking engagements under his belt he is considered a world-class and charismatic public speaker and teacher. In 2014, he was appointed as a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, the first university in the world to offer a masters degree in digital currency. In this role, he helped develop the curriculum and co-taught the Introduction to Digital Currencies course, offered as a massive open online course (MOOC) through the university.
8 |
9 | As a bitcoin entrepreneur, Andreas has founded a number of bitcoin businesses and launched several community open source projects. He serves as an advisor to several bitcoin and cryptocurrency companies. He is a widely published author of articles and blog posts on bitcoin, a permanent host on the popular Let’s Talk Bitcoin podcast, and a frequent speaker at technology and security conferences worldwide.
10 |
11 |
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/selected BIPs/bip-0034.asciidoc:
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1 | --------------------------------------------------
2 | BIP: 34
3 | Title: Block v2, Height in Coinbase
4 | Author: Gavin Andresen 
3 | 
