Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

By : Imran Bashir
Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

By: Imran Bashir

Overview of this book

Publisher's Note: This edition from 2018 is outdated and does not cover the latest insights on consensus algorithms, Ethereum 2.0, tokenization, and enterprise blockchains. A new and updated edition of this book that includes all the newest developments and improvements in Blockchain including the above topics is now available. A blockchain is a distributed ledger that is replicated across multiple nodes and enables immutable, transparent and cryptographically secure record-keeping of transactions. The blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, and it has applications in finance, government, media and almost all other industries. Mastering Blockchain, Second Edition has been thoroughly updated and revised to provide a detailed description of this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. This book begins with the technical foundations of blockchain technology, teaching you the fundamentals of distributed systems, 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 also explore different other blockchain solutions and get an introduction to business blockchain frameworks under Hyperledger, a collaborative effort for the advancement of blockchain technologies hosted by the Linux Foundation. You will also be shown how to implement blockchain solutions beyond currencies, Internet of Things with blockchain, blockchain scalability, and the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
14
Introducing Web3
17
Blockchain – Outside of Currencies
18
Scalability and Other Challenges

Mining

Mining is a process by which new blocks are added to the blockchain. Blocks contain transactions that are validated via the mining process by mining nodes on the Bitcoin network. Blocks, once mined and verified are added to the blockchain which keeps the blockchain growing. This process is resource-intensive due to the requirements of PoW where miners compete in order to find a number which is less than the difficulty target of the network. This difficulty in finding the correct value (also called sometimes the mathematical puzzle) is there to ensure that the required resources have been spent by miners before a new proposed block can be accepted. New coins are minted by the miners by solving the PoW problem, also known as partial hash inversion problem. This process consumes a high amount of resources including computing power and electricity. This process also secures...