This textbook focuses on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and its potential impact on society at large. It aims to offer a detailed and self-contained introduction to the founding principles behind DLT accessible to a well-educated but not necessarily mathematically oriented audience. DLT allows solving many complicated problems arising in economics, banking, and finance, industry, trade, and other fields. However, to reap the ultimate benefits, one has to overcome some of its inherent limitations and use it judiciously. Not surprisingly, amid increasing applications of DLT, misconceptions are formed over its use. The book thoroughly dispels these misconceptions via an impartial assessment of the arguments rooted in scientific reasoning.Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers: Mathematics, Technology, and Economics offers a detailed and self-contained introduction to DLT, blockchains, and cryptocurrencies and seeks to equip the reader with an ability to participate in the crypto economy meaningfully.

Alexander Lipton is Co-Founder and Chief Information Officer of Sila, Partner at Numeraire, Visiting Professor and Dean's Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Connection Science Fellow at MIT. Alex is a board member of Sila and an advisory board member of several fintech companies worldwide. In 2006–2016, Alex was Co-Head of the Global Quantitative Group and Quantitative Solutions Executive at Bank of America. Earlier, he was a senior manager at Citadel, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Bankers Trust. At the same time, Alex held visiting professorships at EPFL, NYU, Oxford University, Imperial College, and the University of Illinois. Before becoming a banker, Alex was a Full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois and a Consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2000 Alex was awarded the Inaugural Quant of the Year Award and in 2021 the Buy-side Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine. Alex authored/edited 10 other books and more than a hundred scientific papers. Alex is an Associate Editor of several journals, including Finance and Stochastics, Journal of FinTech, International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, and Quantitative Finance. He is a frequent keynote speaker at Quantitative Finance and FinTech conferences and forums worldwide.Founder and CEO of METACO, a leading provider of security infrastructure for digital assets, Adrien Treccani is a software engineer specialized in high performance computing and financial engineering. He has been an active member of the fintech community since 2012 and advised numerous banks and financial institutions globally on distributed ledger technology, cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance. Adrien lectures at University of Lausanne and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and has published in top peer-reviewed journals including Management Science and the Journal of Financial Econometrics.Adrien holds a Bachelor degree in computer science and a Master degree in financial engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. He obtained a PhD in mathematical finance at the Swiss Finance Institute and completed a post doctorate in high performance computing at University of Zürich. He worked in the hedge fund industry as a quantitative analyst before founding METACO in 2015.