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

Chapter 5. Symmetric Cryptography

In this chapter, you will be introduced to the concepts, theory, and practical aspects of symmetric cryptography. We will focus more on the elements that are specifically relevant in the context of blockchain technology. We will provide you with concepts that are required to understand the material covered in later chapters.

You will also be introduced to applications of cryptographic algorithms so that you can gain hands-on experience in the practical implementation of cryptographic functions. For this, we'll use the OpenSSL command-line tool. Before starting with the theoretical foundations, we'll look at the installation of OpenSSL in the following section, so that you can do some practical work as you read through the conceptual material.