Book Image

Mastering Blockchain

Book Image

Mastering Blockchain

Overview of this book

Blockchain is a distributed database that enables permanent, transparent, and secure storage of data. The blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrency – in fact, it’s the shared public ledger upon which the entire Bitcoin network relies – and it’s gaining popularity with people who work in finance, government, and the arts. Blockhchain technology uses cryptography to keep data secure. This book gives a detailed description of this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. This book begins with the technical foundations of blockchain, teaching you the fundamentals of 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 explore different blockchain solutions and get an exclusive preview into Hyperledger, an upcoming blockchain solution from IBM and the Linux Foundation. You will also be shown how to implement blockchain beyond currencies, scability with blockchain, and the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Mastering Blockchain
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Ether


Ether is minted by miners as a currency reward for the computational effort they spend in order to secure the network by verifying and with validation transactions and blocks. Ether is used within the Ethereum blockchain to pay for the execution of contracts on the EVM. Ether is used to purchase gas as crypto fuel, which is required in order to perform computation on the Ethereum blockchain.

The denomination table is shown as follows:

Fees are charged for each computation performed by the EVM on the blockchain. A detailed fee schedule is shown in the upcoming section.

Gas

Gas is required to be paid for every operation performed on the ethereum blockchain. This is a mechanism that ensures that infinite loops cannot cause the whole blockchain to stall due to the Turing-complete nature of the EVM. A transaction fee is charged as some amount of Ether and is taken from the account balance of the transaction originator. A fee is paid for transactions to be included by miners for mining. If...