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The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything

Big banks have grown bigger and more entrenched. Privacy exists only until the next hack. Credit card fraud is a fact of life. Many of the “legacy systems” once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task. Yet there is a way past all this—a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionize vast swaths of our economy: the blockchain.

In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society’s faith in itself. They reveal the disruption it promises for industries including finance, tech, legal, and shipping.

Casey and Vigna expose the challenge of replacing trusted (and not-so-trusted) institutions on which we’ve relied for centuries with a radical model that bypasses them. The Truth Machine reveals the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With the same balanced perspective they brought to The Age of Cryptocurrency, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes—moving humanity forward, not backward.

The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
Paul Vigna

The Authors

Paul Vigna

Paul Vigna is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and has been a journalist for more than 25 years, as a reporter, editor, and photographer. He currently covers the cryptocurrency sector, including bitcoin, other digital currencies, and blockchain-related technologies. He formerly was an equities reporter on the MoneyBeat blog, writing about markets, economics, and finance. He was host of both the MoneyBeat show, a daily live webcast, and the MoneyBeat podcast. He also writes about television and arts, with a weekly recap column for "The Walking Dead." He is co-author, along with Michael J. Casey, of "The Age of Cryptocurrency" (2015, St. Martin's Press) and "The Truth Machine" (Feb. 27, 2018, St. Martin's Press). He is also author of "Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead," (October 2017, Dey Street Books). Vigna is a native of New Jersey and a 1990 graduate of Fairfield University in Connecticut.

Michael Casey

Michael Casey

A native of Perth, Western Australia, Michael Casey is a journalist, media executive, podcaster, educator and author of six books. He was formerly Chief Content Officer at CoinDesk, the leading media platform covering cryptocurrencies, blockchain and the transformation of the financial system that those technologies are driving. He has remained as an advisor to the company and is the Chair of Consensus, CoinDesk's marquee annual conference. Casey is currently working on a new media venture that will leverage Web3 tools to empower the funding and distribution of quality documentaries on platform that drives community engagement. Prior to joining CoinDesk, Casey was a lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and an on-staff advisor to the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative, where he retains an unpaid advisory role. His MIT post came after an 18-year stint as a journalist at Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, which culminated with a senior columnist position covering global economics and finance. Casey is a frequent speaker and media commentator addressing issues of technology, economy and society.

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