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)

MultiChain blockchain platform

MultiChain is one of the many platforms that help enable enterprises to both build and deploy blockchain applications with ease. As we already know, Bitcoin has a resilient public blockchain that can scale its network and handle transactions, which are ideal for public blockchains. This was achieved when the MultiChain project was created by taking inspiration from Bitcoin and creating a private blockchain platform.

A public blockchain maintained in Bitcoin does introduce a few restrictions, such as limited asset distribution, a transaction cost, lower transaction rates, and transparent transactions. Although it is difficult to escape these restrictions in the public blockchain, not all the use cases need to bear these restrictions.

A use case that can be implemented in a private network shouldn't pay for each transaction, achieve a higher...