1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910746080503321

Autore

Gans Joshua <1968->

Titolo

The Economics of Blockchain Consensus : Exploring the Key Tradeoffs in Blockchain Design / / by Joshua Gans

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2023

ISBN

3-031-33083-8

Edizione

[1st ed. 2023.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (128 pages)

Disciplina

296

005.74

Soggetti

Technological innovations

Economic development

Financial engineering

Computer science

Economics of Innovation

Economic Development, Innovation and Growth

Financial Technology and Innovation

Computer Science

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2: The Value of Blockchain Consensus -- Chapter 3: Security versus timeliness -- Chapter 4: Permissioned versus permissionless -- Chapter 5: Proof of work versus proof of stake -- Chapter 6: Cryptography versus incentives -- Chapter 7: Rules versus mechanisms.

Sommario/riassunto

“The author provides the reader with an innovative study of blockchain from an economics perspective. The author’s personal experience and credentials adds substantially to the body of literature that aids in our understanding of the blockchain phenomenon. It differs from other comparable studies with his perspective of examining the methodology of constructing mechanisms to accomplish blockchain consensus.” — Rosario Girasa, Distinguished Professor, Pace University, Pleasantville, New York, USA "Joshua Gans makes blockchain and consensus accessible to economists by applying his signature approach -- delving



into a topic so deeply that he can extract its economic essence." - W. Scott Stornetta, Yugen Partners, Co-inventor of the Blockchain Blockchain technologies have been rapidly adopted for the creation of cryptocurrencies and have been explored for a myriad of applications. While this is of important economic interest, the computer science behind how blockchains operate to provide security and provenance has been largely inaccessible to economists. This book is a bridge between the computer science and the economics of blockchains. The focus is on the value and the achievement of blockchain consensus; that is, how distributed and independent nodes are able to reach an agreement on what the current state of digital ledgers, that are the product of blockchains, are. The book shows that the goals of computer scientists in designing blockchains place very high weight on security beyond what an economist trained in game theory and mechanism design would require. It shows how blockchains can be redesigned to account for key economic trade-offs, and will be of interest to researchers and students of economics, financial technology and computer science, alongside policymakers. Joshua Gans is a Professor of Strategic Management and holder of the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is also chief economist of its Creative Destruction Lab and oversees its blockchain program for startups.