Book Image

Blockchain for Decision Makers

By : Romain Tormen
Book Image

Blockchain for Decision Makers

By: Romain Tormen

Overview of this book

In addition to cryptocurrencies, blockchain-based apps are being developed in different industries such as banking, supply chain, and healthcare to achieve digital transformation and enhance user experience. Blockchain is not only about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, but also about different technologies such as peer-to-peer networks, consensus mechanisms, and cryptography. These technologies together help sustain trustless environments in which digital value can be transferred between individuals without intermediaries. This book will help you understand the basics of blockchain such as consensus protocols, decentralized applications, and tokenization. You'll focus on how blockchain is used today in different industries and the technological challenges faced while implementing a blockchain strategy. The book also enables you, as a decision maker, to understand blockchain from a technical perspective and evaluate its applicability in your business. Finally, you'll get to grips with blockchain frameworks such as Hyperledger and Quorum and their usability. By the end of this book, you'll have learned about the current use cases of blockchain and be able to implement a blockchain strategy on your own.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page

Private, semi-private, and public blockchains

Secondly, you must be aware that blockchains can take three different forms: public, private, or semi-private. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both public blockchains (also called permissionless blockchains), meaning that there is no restriction on who can become a node, who can use the service, and who can validate the transactions. They both benefit from a high degree of decentralization and do not require a supervisory body as the infrastructure, and their governance are self-organized. On the other hand, private and semi-private blockchains (also called permissioned blockchains) have a smaller degree of decentralization because only authenticated stakeholders can join the infrastructure. Therefore, they have a reduced number of nodes and miners compared to public blockchains. Their governance can be partially decentralized (we call such...