Book Image

Foundations of Blockchain

By : Koshik Raj
Book Image

Foundations of Blockchain

By: Koshik Raj

Overview of this book

Blockchain technology is a combination of three popular concepts: cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and game theory. This book is for anyone who wants to dive into blockchain from first principles and learn how decentralized applications and cryptocurrencies really work. This book begins with an overview of blockchain technology, including key definitions, its purposes and characteristics, so you can assess the full potential of blockchain. All essential aspects of cryptography are then presented, as the backbone of blockchain. For readers who want to study the underlying algorithms of blockchain, you’ll see Python implementations throughout. You’ll then learn how blockchain architecture can create decentralized applications. You’ll see how blockchain achieves decentralization through peer-to-peer networking, and how a simple blockchain can be built in a P2P network. You’ll learn how these elements can implement a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, and the wider applications of blockchain work through smart contracts. Blockchain optimization techniques, and blockchain security strategies are then presented. To complete this foundation, we consider blockchain applications in the financial and non-financial sectors, and also analyze the future of blockchain. A study of blockchain use cases includes supply chains, payment systems, crowdfunding, and DAOs, which rounds out your foundation in blockchain technology.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

When Shouldn't We Use Blockchain?

So far in this book, we've learned about a number of blockchain concepts in order to understand blockchain's basic functionalities. We've also, throughout the previous chapters, dived deep into the technology in order to get familiar with decentralized applications. However, as we are looking at the foundations of blockchain technology that can help us build applications in a decentralized network, it's important for us to ask ourselves the question, why blockchain? It's only useful to use blockchain in a use case if that case requires the characteristics of a blockchain.

In this chapter, we'll explore the characteristics of blockchain and analyze how they influence the implementation of a blockchain use case. We'll also be looking into some of the frameworks you can use to analyze a blockchain use case...