Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

By : Imran Bashir
Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

By: Imran Bashir

Overview of this book

Publisher's Note: This edition from 2018 is outdated and does not cover the latest insights on consensus algorithms, Ethereum 2.0, tokenization, and enterprise blockchains. A new and updated edition of this book that includes all the newest developments and improvements in Blockchain including the above topics is now available. A blockchain is a distributed ledger that is replicated across multiple nodes and enables immutable, transparent and cryptographically secure record-keeping of transactions. The blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, and it has applications in finance, government, media and almost all other industries. Mastering Blockchain, Second Edition has been thoroughly updated and revised to provide a detailed description of this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. This book begins with the technical foundations of blockchain technology, teaching you the fundamentals of distributed systems, cryptography and how it keeps data secure. You will learn about the mechanisms behind cryptocurrencies and how to develop applications using Ethereum, a decentralized virtual machine. You will also explore different other blockchain solutions and get an introduction to business blockchain frameworks under Hyperledger, a collaborative effort for the advancement of blockchain technologies hosted by the Linux Foundation. You will also be shown how to implement blockchain solutions beyond currencies, Internet of Things with blockchain, blockchain scalability, and the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
14
Introducing Web3
17
Blockchain – Outside of Currencies
18
Scalability and Other Challenges

Litecoin

Litecoin is a fork of the bitcoin source code released in 2011. It uses Scrypt as PoW, originally introduced in the Tenebrix coin. Litecoin allows for faster transactions as compared to bitcoin due to its faster block generation time of 2.5 minutes. Also, difficulty readjustment is achieved every 3.5 days roughly due to faster block generation time. The total coin supply is 84 million.

Scrypt is a sequentially memory hard function that is the first alternative to the SHA-256-based PoW algorithm. It was originally proposed as a Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF). The key idea is that if the function requires a significant amount of memory to run then custom hardware such as ASICs will require more VLSI area, which would be infeasible to build. The Scrypt algorithm requires a large array of pseudorandom bits to be held in memory and a key is derived from this...