Book Image

Foundations of Blockchain

By : Koshik Raj
Book Image

Foundations of Blockchain

By: Koshik Raj

Overview of this book

Blockchain technology is a combination of three popular concepts: cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and game theory. This book is for anyone who wants to dive into blockchain from first principles and learn how decentralized applications and cryptocurrencies really work. This book begins with an overview of blockchain technology, including key definitions, its purposes and characteristics, so you can assess the full potential of blockchain. All essential aspects of cryptography are then presented, as the backbone of blockchain. For readers who want to study the underlying algorithms of blockchain, you’ll see Python implementations throughout. You’ll then learn how blockchain architecture can create decentralized applications. You’ll see how blockchain achieves decentralization through peer-to-peer networking, and how a simple blockchain can be built in a P2P network. You’ll learn how these elements can implement a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, and the wider applications of blockchain work through smart contracts. Blockchain optimization techniques, and blockchain security strategies are then presented. To complete this foundation, we consider blockchain applications in the financial and non-financial sectors, and also analyze the future of blockchain. A study of blockchain use cases includes supply chains, payment systems, crowdfunding, and DAOs, which rounds out your foundation in blockchain technology.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Summary

We've attempted to cover most blockchain applications in both the financial and non-financial sectors. This chapter has given deep insight into the growing blockchain industry and the possible future trajectory of applications in the blockchain ecosystem.

In this chapter, we initially listed out several projects under the blockchain technology by classifying them into financial and non-financial sectors. We then covered each of the projects by diving into its architecture, implementation, use cases, and much more. We made sure to understand the role of blockchain in each of the implementation covered.

Now that we know a few blockchain use cases, along with their benefits and drawbacks, we can think about optimizing the existing blockchain architecture. In the next chapter, we will cover some optimizations that we can implement when designing DApps using blockchain...