Book Image

Advanced Blockchain Development

By : Imran Bashir, Narayan Prusty
Book Image

Advanced Blockchain Development

By: Imran Bashir, Narayan Prusty

Overview of this book

Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger with applications in industries such as finance, government, and media. This Learning Path is your guide to building blockchain networks using Ethereum, JavaScript, and Solidity. You will get started by understanding the technical foundations of blockchain technology, including distributed systems, cryptography and how this digital ledger keeps data secure. Further into the chapters, you’ll gain insights into developing applications using Ethereum and Hyperledger. As you build on your knowledge of Ether security, mining, smart contracts, and Solidity, you’ll learn how to create robust and secure applications that run exactly as programmed without being affected by fraud, censorship, or third-party interference. Toward the concluding chapters, you’ll explore how blockchain solutions can be implemented in applications such as IoT apps, in addition to its use in currencies. This Learning Path also highlights how you can increase blockchain scalability, and discusses the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll be equipped with the skills you need to tackle pain points encountered in the blockchain life cycle and confidently design and deploy decentralized applications.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
15
Blockchain - Outside of Currencies
16
Scalability and Other Challenges
Index

Overview of Ethereum


Ethereum is a decentralized platform, which allows us to deploy DApps on top of it. Smart contracts are written using the solidity programming language. DApps are created using one or more smart contracts. Smart contracts are programs that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud, or third party interface. In Ethereum, smart contracts can be written in several programming languages, including Solidity, LLL, and Serpent. Solidity is the most popular of those languages.

 

Ethereum has an internal currency called ether. To deploy smart contracts or to call their methods, we need ether. There can be multiple instances of a smart contract just like any other DApp, and each instance is identified by its unique address. Both user accounts and smart contracts can hold ether.

Ethereum uses blockchain data structure and proof-of-work consensus protocol. A method of a smart contract can be invoked via a transaction or via another method. There...