By day, I work in a segment unrelated to the ever-growing cryptocurrency industry.  I was fortunate that several dozen people took the time to simplify these ideas to me and after roughly seven weeks of research, writing and distillation I have published a guide on trustless asset management.

• Adam B. Levine (host of LTB) is not only a deep thinker on these issues but also a very thoughtful writer, providing me with a great foreword and — fortunately for him — at least most people will read the foreword before quitting on the rest of the book!
• I’m especially grateful to Alan Safahi (ZipZapInc) who not only let me visit him at his office but also provided written feedback.
• Similarly Ryan Orr not only provided numerous quotes but also constructive feedback on the qualitative measurements (matrices).
• Taariq Lewis spent several hours both in-person and over Skype explaining how several different protocols worked including Counterparty and Mastercoin which are essentially new to everyone.
• Pierre Rochard, Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein (the Mises Circle trio) all exchanged lively feedback via email involving this space and appreciate their wit and insights.
• Derek Au provided insights on venture trends and showed my gf and I around Fisherman’s Wharf a couple months ago.
• Steve Bennet met with me, Ryan Orr, Jack Wang and Rui Ma for coffee and it was a delightful conversation.
• I really enjoyed the 500 Startups group of Rui and Sean Percival, very open, witty and inviting.  Celso was very articulate as well.
• Ethereum team (Vitalik, Charles, Joel, Stephan Tual) was very open and definitely want to change the world (like everyone else)
• Ron Gross spoke to me into the wee hours of the morning (or was it evening) out in Israel.  Not only is he spearheading Mastercoin development, but leading a noble cause with Bit-cause.
• If you’re looking for info on Asia (which is what I’m primarily focused on) be sure to chat with Zennon Kapron, Eddy Travia, Rui Ma and Jack Wang.  Probably have the best perspective of what is going on there.
• Speaking of which, Jack Wang is a rising star, be sure to keep your eye out for him.
• The Ripple Team was very helpful in providing constructive data.  I had a chance to meet with Stefan and he’s a brilliant guy.  Monica also provided some useful feedback as well.
• Matthew Wilson is an old college friend who provided lots of good soundboarding (mainly because he is a bear on cryptoledgers)
• Andrew White is well-informed and very friendly.  Has helped introduce me to numerous people and provided lots of good feedback in many areas of the guide (especially related to Ripple.
• The NXT team of Graviton and Uniqueorn were also very friendly and accessible; it’s curious that their proof-of-stake network isn’t reported on more.
• Counterparty.co guys (PhantomPhreak and cityglut) are super busy, they ship tons of code right now and have to if they want not only their ecosystem to grow but the underlying token.
• Colored Coins (Alex, Amos, Meni) were the first outside dev team I spoke with and they were very helpful at providing feedback and corrections.  Chromawallet looks pretty neat, wait another month or two to hear more about Amos’ latest project.
• Preston Byrne, hire him asap.  This lawyer not only understands cryptocurrencies but also how legal frameworks intersect with smart contracts.  He not only provided knowledge but lots of well-written prose.
• Petri Kajander probably read more of the manuscript and provided more feedback than anyone besides Preston and my gf.  He is well-versed in both economics and technology and very giving of his time.
• Daniel Larimer was also giving of his written feedback, providing lots of good corrections for what I had previously written
• David Veksler and Scott Freeman are friends I have back in Shanghai that helped bridge the cryptoscene there with the industries I had previously worked in.
• The Argentine team of Wences, Sebastian and Diego Zaldivar were quite informative, I didn’t know how bad of economic conditions Argentina was 10 years ago.
• Nikos Bentenitis (Coinsimple) and Hakim Mamoni (Seedcoin) were colorful and very passionate guys who have their finger on the pulse of the industry.
• Robert McMillan (Wired) actually ended up helping me indirectly becoming introduced to Rui Ma which led to getting to meet Jack Wang who I had previously read articles from.  Robert has been following this segment for awhile.
• Jared Mimms (Peercover) is probably the most passionate person I spoke to on the phone, very articulate too.
• Justin Simcock and Raffael Danielli both provided lots of encouragement and a couple of good anecdotes/references that I managed to interject in the manuscript.  Hire these guys, super gurus.
• Zachary Caceres has a very interesting project going on with SCI and had lots of good written feedback for me.
• Mark DeWeaver (who wrote the foreword to my previous book) did a good job playing the devil’s advocate about policies in China.  He provided realism among the hype.
• Stephan Kinsella and Sean Zoltek legal experts extraordinaire.  I’ve known both for over a decade and always enjoy listening to their comments.
• Chris Odom (OT) and Stephan Pair (BitPay) are both quite busy but provided me with really good information to work with.
• Jesse Powell has had one of the most colorful experiences within this community (see his post from a few days ago) and Salvatore is very accessible (his artcoin idea is also intriguing).
• Alex Tabarrok provided me with some excellent material for the assurance contract section, I screwed up and forgot to add him to the acknowledgements (did the same thing with Tuur Demeester and Robert Sams too).
• Nick Szabo is brilliant, if you have just 5 minutes read through his paper Formalizing and Securing Relationships on Public Networks
• Mike Reid provided editing and the cover art with his firm: Invisible Order (with Natalie and Matt Thomas).
• Kyle Torpey is actually one of the guys who inspired me to write this in the first place.  He wrote a very interesting overview of several of these projects 2 months ago.  We have spoken several times since then and his vision of decentralized applications is quite unique.
• I met Tom Mornini at a Ripple demo day event a couple weeks ago and his service (Subledger) sounded pretty unique.  We kept in touch and his written correction on my manuscript were quite helpful as well.
• Jeremy Kandah was an enjoyable and even funny guy to speak with, all the BitAngel’s guys were very enthusiastic and supportive with their feedback.
• Many thanks to Mike Youssefmir, Koen Swinkels, Ben Davenport and Vijay Boyapati for their comments, criticism and feedback which I hope to build and grow from.
• Dan Roseman has one of the first pay-by-crypto job sites (Coinality) and was very accessible in corresponding with.
• Jeremy Liew was kind enough to respond to me even while on vacation.
• Jon Holmquist squeezed me in between his commute between SF and LA, is working on multiple projects and was quite diplomatic about other projects in this space.
• Scott Robinson was the manager at the SF bay accelerator in chapter 6, he was really sick and I didn’t hear back from him about using his specific quotes until after it was published, but he was quite helpful (gave me the analogy about the cruiselines/airlines too).
• And Mike Hearn was likewise giving of his time, despite being under the weather and busy with several other projects.

Altogether this project took just under seven weeks and it could not have been done without the help of everyone I spoke with.  In fact, I’m sure if you took away all of their quotes and insights, the rest of the book would just be footnotes!

While I will likely continue working outside of the industry in the short-run, I plan to continue paying attention to this exciting space.  And despite a few bumps in the road, this community is very innovative, resilient and here for the long-run.  Nerds for the win.