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

User identity in DApps


One of the major advantages of DApps is that it generally guarantees user anonymity. But many applications require the process of verifying user identity to use the app. As there is no central authority in a DApp, it become a challenge to verify the user identity.

In centralized applications, humans verify user identity by requesting the user to submit certain scanned documents, OTP verification, and so on. This process is called know your customer (KYC). But as there is no human to verify user identity in DApps, the DApp has to verify the user identity itself. Obviously, DApps cannot understand and verify scanned documents, nor can they send SMSes; therefore, we need to feed them with digital identities that they can understand and verify. The major problem is that hardly any DApps have digital identities and only a few people know how to get a digital identity.

There are various forms of digital identities. Currently, the most recommended and popular form is a digital...