"Blinkist" is a fabulous app, whereby the Blinkist team summarizes books to make it easier and quicker to get the info. "The Age of Cryptocurrency gives an overview of the history and nature of Bitcoin. It explores the definition of “money” and explains the dramatic impacts that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will have on our economy and the world at large."
A brief summary: Mining bitcoin keeps the blockchain growing. Just as banks keep a careful record of account balances, there’s a Bitcoin record of all owners’ balances and transactions to ensure people can’t spend the same Bitcoin twice. This record is called the blockchain, and it’s public; everyone has access to it.
To enable more transactions to take place on the blockchain, computers mine bitcoins by solving highly complex mathematical problems that require lots of computational power.
When a problem is solved, a new block is created, validated and added to the chain, which makes it possible for more transactions to be processed. Meanwhile, a bitcoin reward is given to the miner and a new problem is issued.
Instead of a bank account, every Bitcoin owner has an address – a unique and encrypted number assigned to them in the Bitcoin network. If you want to purchase something – say, a cappuccino at a restaurant that accepts bitcoin – you will need to send some fraction of a bitcoin from your address to the restaurant’s.
To access the book via Blinkist click here, you can access their 14 day free trial.