Book Image

Blockchain Quick Reference

By : Mariko Amekodommo, Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt

Book Image

Blockchain Quick Reference

By: Mariko Amekodommo, Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt

Overview of this book

Blockchain Quick Reference takes you through the electrifying world of blockchain technology and is designed for those who want to polish their existing knowledge regarding the various pillars of the blockchain ecosystem. This book is your go-to guide, teaching you how to apply principles and ideas for making your life and business better. You will cover the architecture, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), tokens, smart contracts, and terminologies of the blockchain technology, before studying how they work. All you need is a curious mind to get started with blockchain technology. Once you have grasped the basics, you will explore components of Ethereum, such as ether tokens, transactions, and smart contracts, in order to build simple Dapps. You will then move on to learning why Solidity is used specifically for Ethereum-based projects, followed by exploring different types of blockchain with easy-to-follow examples. All this will help you tackle challenges and problems. By the end of this book, you will not only have solved current and future problems relating to blockchain technology but will also be able to build efficient decentralized applications.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Blockchain 101

Processing a financial transaction

Concept of a trustless system

Introducing blockchain

Components and Structure of Blockchain

Components and Structure of Blockchain

The chain between blocks

Hashing and signatures

Digital signatures

Example block data

Blockchain miners

Blockchain validators

Smart contracts

Blockchain speed

Decentralization Versus Distributed Systems

Decentralization Versus Distributed Systems

Distributed systems

Consensus and coordination

Cryptography and Mechanics Behind Blockchain

Cryptography and Mechanics Behind Blockchain

Principles of security

Historical perspective – classical cryptography

Types of cryptography

Bitcoin

The history of Bitcoin

Why Bitcoin is volatile

Keys and addresses

Bitcoin network

Altcoins

Introducing Altcoins

Alternative currency

Acquiring cryptocurrency

Achieving Consensus

Achieving Consensus

Practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm

Proof of Authority

Proof of Elapsed time

Advanced Blockchain Concepts

Advanced Blockchain Concepts

Blockchain and banks

Cryptocurrency Wallets

Cryptocurrency Wallets

Introduction to cryptocurrency wallets

Alternate Blockchains

Alternate Blockchains

Various uses of blockchain

Hyperledger and Enterprise Blockchains

Hyperledger and Enterprise Blockchains

History of Hyperledger

Hyperledger projects

Tools in Hyperledger

Ethereum 101

Introducing Ethereum

Components of Ethereum

Solidity 101

Basics of Solidity

Programming in Solidity

Smart Contracts

Smart Contracts

Why smart contracts?

Smart contract approaches

Limitations of smart contracts

Ethereum Development

Ethereum Development

Preparing for smart contract development

Working on a smart contract

Ethereum Accounts and Ether Tokens

Ethereum Accounts and Ether Tokens

Introducing Ethereum accounts

Ethereum block validation

Disadvantages of Ethereum-based tokens

Decentralized Applications

Decentralized Applications

What makes an application decentralized

Major decentralized blockchain applications

Mining

Cryptocurrency mining

Mining hardware

Mining software

ICO 101

The current state of the ICO market

Typical aspects of an ICO campaign

Issues with ICOs and blockchain projects

Creating Your Own Currency

Creating Your Own Currency

Understanding types of cryptocurrency

Creating one's own cryptocurrency

Scalability and Other Challenges

Scalability and Other Challenges

Scalability and decentralization

Blockchains in business

Catastrophic bugs

Lack of interoperability

Low availability of blockchain skills

Energy consumption

Future of Blockchain

Future of Blockchain

Ongoing fragmentation and specialization

Legal and regulatory evolution

Technological stabilization

Intersecting with AI and IoT

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Disadvantages of Ethereum-based tokens

We have discussed the advantages and uses of Ethereum and Ethereum blockchain-based currencies throughout the previous chapters; let's now discuss some disadvantages of Ethereum-based tokens:

Unstable: The Ethereum blockchain is still undergoing lot of changes; this also includes moving the consensus method from the PoW to the PoS system.
Dependability: The ERC20 tokens or any other tokens are based and built on top of Ethereum. This poses a threat, since Ethereum is itself undergoing frequent changes at most times.
Hard forks: Being dependent on another blockchain means, due to hard forks, unforeseen issues can occur.
Sovereignty: Since the tokens are based on Ethereum blockchain, there is no say in future development of these tokens. The decision of whether to choose ERC20 should be based on the application and use case.
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