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Publisher's Note: This edition from 2018 is outdated and does not cover the latest insights on consensus algorithms, Ethereum 2.0, tokenization, and enterprise blockchains.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

Innovation in Bitcoin

Bitcoin has undergone many changes and still evolving into a more and more robust and better system by addressing various weaknesses in the system. Especially, performance has been a topic of hot debate among Bitcoin experts and enthusiasts for many years. As such, various proposals have been made in the last few years to improve Bitcoin performance resulting in greater transaction speed, increased security, payment standardization and overall performance improvement at the protocol level.

These improvement proposals are usually made in the form of BIPs or fundamentally new versions of Bitcoin protocols resulting in a new network altogether. Some of the changes proposed are implementable via a soft fork but few need a hard fork and as a result, give birth to a new currency.

In the following sections, we will see what are the various BIPs that can be proposed...