Bitcoin is a revolutionary digital currency that is arousing great interest within the financial industry. Presenting a modern approach to the secure transfer of value using cryptography, this currency also challenges the basic assumptions on which the current global financial system rests.

Understanding Bitcoin gives financial professionals a comprehensive resource and technical guide to the cryptography, engineering and economic development of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Written by Pedro Franco, this accessible text explores the supporting economic realities and technological advances of the currency, and presents positive and negative arguments from various economic schools regarding its viability.

The author includes a step-by-step description of how Bitcoin works, starting with public key cryptography. He goes on to explain how transactions are processed, exploring the blockchain and reviewing how the wallet and mining technologies are structured. This vital resource reviews Bitcoin from the broader perspective of digital currencies and explores historical attempts at cryptographic currencies, all the way through to innovative applications such as decentralized exchanges or autonomous agents.

Understanding Bitcoin explores the ongoing tension between those who want to break Bitcoin's privacy by using data mining techniques and those dedicated to creating technologies that will increase its effectiveness.

This technical and accessible guide offers a clear understanding of Bitcoin as a monetary phenomenon with dramatic implications for monetary policy.