Book Image

Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain

By : Kirankalyan Kulkarni
Book Image

Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain

By: Kirankalyan Kulkarni

Overview of this book

Blockchain is a distributed database that enables permanent, transparent, and secure storage of data. Blockchain technology uses cryptography to keep data secure. Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain is the perfect entry point to the world of decentralized databases. This book will take you on a journey through the blockchain database, followed by advanced implementations of the blockchain concept. You will learn about Bitcoin basics and their technical operations. As you make your way through the book, you will gain insight into this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. You will also cover the technical foundation of blockchain and understand the fundamentals of cryptography and how they keep data secure. In the concluding chapters, you’ll get to grips with the mechanisms behind cryptocurrencies. By the end of this book, you will have learned about decentralized digital money, advanced blockchain concepts, and Bitcoin and blockchain security.
Table of Contents (6 chapters)

Introduction to Blockchain and Bitcoin

In this chapter, we will take a step-by-step approach to understanding the principles of "Bitcoin" and "blockchain", and their various features and characteristics. The buzzwords Bitcoin and blockchain relate to emerging technologies that have taken the world by storm. As we progress through the chapter, we will cover the fundamentals of these unique technologies in a detailed manner. The chapter will also take you through the essence of cryptography and how cryptocurrencies are using this innovation as a foundation. We will also look into the history of Bitcoin, the alternate cryptocurrencies available, and the various Bitcoin wallets, and we will get an understanding of the structuring of the Bitcoin block header. When it comes to blockchain, we will go through the different types of blockchain, blockchain structure, its various workings and features, the challenges faced, the various platforms available for blockchain, and more.

In this chapter, we will look into the following topics:

  • Cryptography and cryptocurrency
  • History and introduction to Bitcoin
  • An introduction to blockchain
  • Comparing private, public, and consortium blockchains