Book Image

Ethereum Smart Contract Development

By : Mayukh Mukhopadhyay
Book Image

Ethereum Smart Contract Development

By: Mayukh Mukhopadhyay

Overview of this book

Ethereum is a public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality. This book is your one-stop guide to blockchain and Ethereum smart contract development. We start by introducing you to the basics of blockchain. You'll learn about hash functions, Merkle trees, forking, mining, and much more. Then you'll learn about Ethereum and smart contracts, and we'll cover Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) in detail. Next, you'll get acquainted with DApps and DAOs and see how they work. We'll also delve into the mechanisms of advanced smart contracts, taking a practical approach. You'll also learn how to develop your own cryptocurrency from scratch in order to understand the business behind ICO. Further on, you'll get to know the key concepts of the Solidity programming language, enabling you to build decentralized blockchain-based applications. We'll also look at enterprise use cases, where you'll build a decentralized microblogging site. At the end of this book, we discuss blockchain-as-a-service, the dark web marketplace, and various advanced topics so you can get well versed with the blockchain principles and ecosystem.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

The ICO story


A video log exists on YouTube at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMf4xZg_4U&feature=youtu.be&t=4m19s

At the time of writing, it has gathered only 285 views. This is a clip from the Bitcoin 2013 conference in San Jose. At 4:19 in the clip, a panelist posed an idea he about developing a new protocol on top of the bitcoin blockchain protocol with some new X, Y, and Z features, using a group of trustworthy software developers. He also emphasized that he wanted to create this start-up without going to any venture capital firms. Rather, he would release a few tokens that the mass crowd could buy as an investment, which will act as the kick-starter fund. The value of these tokens will increase as the start-up grows, which in turn will reward the early adopters of such tokens.

"I'll take them," someone shouts, and the video ends.

This person in the video is J.R. Willet and the idea he pioneered in this video is the concept of initial coin offering (ICO). Sadly...