Book Image

Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain

By : Kirankalyan Kulkarni
Book Image

Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain

By: Kirankalyan Kulkarni

Overview of this book

Blockchain is a distributed database that enables permanent, transparent, and secure storage of data. Blockchain technology uses cryptography to keep data secure. Learn Bitcoin and Blockchain is the perfect entry point to the world of decentralized databases. This book will take you on a journey through the blockchain database, followed by advanced implementations of the blockchain concept. You will learn about Bitcoin basics and their technical operations. As you make your way through the book, you will gain insight into this leading technology and its implementation in the real world. You will also cover the technical foundation of blockchain and understand the fundamentals of cryptography and how they keep data secure. In the concluding chapters, you’ll get to grips with the mechanisms behind cryptocurrencies. By the end of this book, you will have learned about decentralized digital money, advanced blockchain concepts, and Bitcoin and blockchain security.
Table of Contents (6 chapters)

Introduction to consensus protocols

A consensus algorithm is a process implemented in distributed processes or systems to achieve agreement on some particular data. The blockchain consensus algorithm keeps the ledger transactions synchronized across the network to ensure that ledgers are only updated when the appropriate participating board approves transactions and, when ledgers are updated, they are updated with the same transactions in the same order. This process is called a consensus, and the protocol program that keeps this running is the consensus algorithm. That is why a consensus is considered to be the running engine or heart of blockchain.

So, consensus primarily establishes a strong technology infrastructure layer for the blockchain, which makes it the most critical part. It ensures that every next block that gets added to the blockchain is the one and only true version...