Good writing indeed. And for a technical audience, I also like to use the following (if oversimplified) description of Ethereum (quoting from [1]):
"... In a way, Ethereum is like a cloud infrastructure that is extremely open. You can run any code you like in this cloud, as long as you follow some rules. Firstly, the code you run in Ethereum has to be essentially open source: you can only run your code if you publish it, unmodified. Secondly, even your database contents are public. (Privacy is still possible with client-side encryption, though client-side encryption will not work if the server also needs to read the data. In that case, preserving full privacy is still possible, though it may require sophisticated cryptography). The openness goes further: the underlying cloud infrastructure has no single owner. Rather, Ethereum is a fully distributed system, enabled by the block chain technology.
Why would anybody need this much openness? There are certain applications that truly require this level of trust and auditability. The Bitcoin currency is one example. Bitcoin already uses the same underlying block chain technology as Ethereum (in fact, Bitcoin pioneered it). It is unlikely that Bitcoin could have succeeded otherwise. Indeed, who would trust a startup that essentially prints and sells their own money, and whose founders are not known?"
What I like about this book is that it teaches you the new C++ way right from the beginning. Rather than walking you through the history of C, it gets you to the modern practices immediately.
Disclaimer: I have only read the first 10% of the book myself, but so far I like it.
"... In a way, Ethereum is like a cloud infrastructure that is extremely open. You can run any code you like in this cloud, as long as you follow some rules. Firstly, the code you run in Ethereum has to be essentially open source: you can only run your code if you publish it, unmodified. Secondly, even your database contents are public. (Privacy is still possible with client-side encryption, though client-side encryption will not work if the server also needs to read the data. In that case, preserving full privacy is still possible, though it may require sophisticated cryptography). The openness goes further: the underlying cloud infrastructure has no single owner. Rather, Ethereum is a fully distributed system, enabled by the block chain technology.
Why would anybody need this much openness? There are certain applications that truly require this level of trust and auditability. The Bitcoin currency is one example. Bitcoin already uses the same underlying block chain technology as Ethereum (in fact, Bitcoin pioneered it). It is unlikely that Bitcoin could have succeeded otherwise. Indeed, who would trust a startup that essentially prints and sells their own money, and whose founders are not known?"
[1] https://ristoalas.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/what-is-ethereum/