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

Introducing Altcoins


There are more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies in circulation; each one of them provides an improvement or a modification over Bitcoins. There are various online exchanges where cryptocurrencies can be exchanged amongst one another or for fiat currencies (such as USD, EUR, GBP, and so on) too, similar to a currency exchange or a stock-exchange portal. Here is a list of some popular Altcoins:

  • Litecoins
  • Ethereum
  • Zcash
  • Dash
  • Ripple
  • Monero
  • EOS
  • IOTA
  • TRON
  • Tether
  • Ethereum Classic
  • Bitcoin Cash
  • Stellar
  • NEO
  • NEM
  • Cardano

There are two broad categories of Altcoin on the basis of their blockchain, since the blockchain defines features, security, and other aspects of the coin.

It is certain that having so many cryptocurrencies in the market, along with currency exchanges, means that, now, a lot of key financial and market metrics are required to differentiate among the coins. The following are some of the key factors to consider when discussing an Altcoin:

  • The total market of the coin
  • The unity price of the...