Book Image

Mastering Blockchain

Book Image

Mastering Blockchain

Overview of this book

Blockchain is a distributed database that enables permanent, transparent, and secure storage of data. The blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrency – in fact, it’s the shared public ledger upon which the entire Bitcoin network relies – and it’s gaining popularity with people who work in finance, government, and the arts. Blockhchain technology uses cryptography to keep data secure. This book gives a detailed description of this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. This book begins with the technical foundations of blockchain, teaching you the fundamentals of 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 explore different blockchain solutions and get an exclusive preview into Hyperledger, an upcoming blockchain solution from IBM and the Linux Foundation. You will also be shown how to implement blockchain beyond currencies, scability with blockchain, and the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Mastering Blockchain
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Scalability


This problem has been a focus of intense debate, rigorous research, and media attention for the last few years. This is the single most important problem that could mean the difference between wider adaptability of blockchains or limited private use only by consortiums. As a result of substantial research in this area, many solutions have been proposed, which are discussed in the following section.

From a theoretical perspective, the general approach toward tackling the scalability issue generally revolves around protocol-level enhancements. For example, a commonly mentioned solution to bitcoin scalability is to increase its block size. Other proposals include off-chain solutions that offload certain processing to off-chain networks, for example, off-chain state networks. Based on the solutions mentioned above, generally, the proposals can be divided into two categories: on-chain solutions that are based on the idea of changing fundamental protocols on which the blockchain operates...