Like DNA is for genetic reproduction of living organisms, blockchain technology is, on a different scale, a tool for the cyclic transfer of information and recording the history of successive transfers. In this last case, we refer to a social transfer of economic-financial information and values, on an egalitarian basis, via information and communications technology (ICT).

The author tackles in his work three main topics, matching three important domains of our global society that strongly influence each other: the economy, finance, and ICT with emphasis on the blockchain alternative.

Dedicated to the finance field, the first two chapters address subjects such as the mechanism of debt-based currency generation, money centralization, and the financialization of the economic sector, which finally led to the direct transfer of profit from the real economy to finance and the inverse transfer of the risk. The impacts on financial trading of big data, digital identity, social media, and artificial intelligence in using technologies able to provide payments, lending, investments, insurance, or smart contract applications are also shown.

The aim of chapter 3 is to underline some innovative technological methods applicable to decentralized financial markets such as blockchain technology, which uses all of the network nodes to validate the transactions, and the more hierarchical distributed ledger technology. Blockchain technology, which today underlines the functionality of Bitcoin cryptocurrency, could give birth tomorrow to a global infrastructure based on fair rules for information and value exchanges, thereby ensuring a cashless and maybe bankless economy, a reduction of chronic sovereign and private debts, or the implementation of a universal basic income policy.

The last chapter focuses on the theory of real economy seen as a dynamic, nonlinear, and emergent system, built up by complex interactions between a big number of households, firms, and regulatory institutions. In this context, some agent-based computational models used to simulate and investigate different economic-financial activities, on the basis of specific agent behavior rules within predefined environmental constraints, are described.

The book is based on a clear understanding of systemic links established behind today’s economic scene, an unsophisticated approach to blockchain technology, and diverse multidisciplinary documentation. A small part of the bibliographical material is presented in the text as large extracts from academic papers or official documents and policymaker or business representative statements. As a result, the work is easy to understand by a large audience and also a must-read for those who study or work in the financial sector.

We cannot predict whether the blockchain alternative will provide a better version of capitalism, as Kariappa Bheemaiah presumes, because this innovative core technology does not act directly upon the basic principles of real economic processes; however, it can certainly be a great step forward on the path to a more equitable monetary system.

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