"A broad introduction to bitcoin--ideal for non-tech users, investors, and business executives; technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects; details of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles; offshoots of the bitcoin and blockchain inventions, including alternative chains, currencies, and applications; user stories, elegant analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts"--Page [4] of cover