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

Usability


Current blockchain systems are relatively difficult to use in comparison to other systems. For instance, the use of any Ethereum-based DApp requires either the installation of a special browser or the MetaMask plugin for Chrome, or the purchase and transfer of Ethereum on one of the public markets and then learning the interface of the desired application. Each action taken requires the expenditure of Ethereum, the exact amount not necessarily known in advance and varying depending on network load.

Once set up, sending a value via a blockchain-based system is relatively easy, but prone to mistakes in the addresses. It is not easy for a human to know whether they are sending the value to 0x36F9050bb22d0D0d1BE34df787D476577563C4fC or 0xF973EE1Bcc92d924Af3Fc4f2ce4616C73b58e5Cc. Indeed, ICOs have been hacked by attackers gaining access to the ICO main website and simply changing the destination address, thereby siphoning away millions.

Some blockchains, such as Bitshares and Stellar...