Book Image

Blockchain Developer's Guide

By : Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt, Narayan Prusty
Book Image

Blockchain Developer's Guide

By: Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt, Narayan Prusty

Overview of this book

Blockchain applications provide a single-shared ledger to eliminate trust issues involving multiple stakeholders. It is the main technical innovation of Bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for Bitcoin transactions. Blockchain Developer's Guide takes you through the electrifying world of blockchain technology. It begins with the basic design of a blockchain and elaborates concepts, such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), tokens, smart contracts, and other related terminologies. You will then explore the components of Ethereum, such as Ether tokens, transactions, and smart contracts that you need to build simple DApps. Blockchain Developer's Guide also explains why you must specifically use Solidity for Ethereum-based projects and lets you explore different blockchains with easy-to-follow examples. You will learn a wide range of concepts - beginning with cryptography in cryptocurrencies and including ether security, mining, and smart contracts. You will learn how to use web sockets and various API services for Ethereum. By the end of this Learning Path, you will be able to build efficient decentralized applications. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Blockchain Quick Reference by Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt • Building Blockchain Projects by Narayan Prusty
Table of Contents (37 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 12. Ethereum 101

In the previous chapters, we have studied in detail blockchain, Bitcoin, alternative cryptocurrencies, and crypto wallets. We discussed blockchain usage and benefits in not only currency-based applications, but other similar areas. We also discussed how Bitcoin has changed the landscape of blockchain usage for monetary benefits and how it has shaped the global economy.

In this chapter, we will be studying Ethereum blockchain in depth. It is currently the largest community-backed blockchain project, second to Bitcoin, with supporters and various projects and tokens running on top of it. In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:

  • Ethereum accounts
  • Ethereum network
  • Ethereum clients, such as Geth
  • Execution environment for Ethereum blockchain projects
  • Ethereum block
  • Ethereum virtual machine
  • Using gas in an Ethereum transaction
  • Ether and Ether procurement methods