Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Fourth Edition

By : Imran Bashir
5 (3)
Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Fourth Edition

5 (3)
By: Imran Bashir

Overview of this book

Blockchain is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, it has had a massive impact in many sectors, including finance, supply chains, healthcare, government, and media. It’s also being used for cutting edge technologies such as AI and IoT. This new edition is thoroughly revised to offer a practical approach to using Ethereum, Hyperledger, Fabric, and Corda with step-by-step tutorials and real-world use-cases to help you understand everything you need to know about blockchain development and implementation. With new chapters on Decentralized Finance and solving privacy, identity, and security issues, as well as bonus online content exploring alternative blockchains, this is an unmissable read for everyone who wants to gain a deep understanding of blockchain. The book doesn’t shy away from advanced topics and practical expertise, such as decentralized application (DApp) development using smart contracts and oracles, and emerging trends in the blockchain space. Throughout the book, you’ll explore blockchain solutions beyond cryptocurrencies, such as the IoT with blockchain, enterprise blockchains, and tokenization, and gain insight into the future scope of this fascinating and disruptive technology. By the end of this blockchain book, you will have gained a thorough comprehension of the various facets of blockchain and understand the potential of this technology in diverse real-world scenarios.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
23
Index

The Bitcoin Network

The Bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network where nodes perform transactions. They verify and propagate transactions and blocks. Nodes called miners also produce blocks. There are different types of nodes on the network. The two main types of nodes are full nodes and simple payment verification (SPV) nodes. Full nodes, as the name implies, are implementations of Bitcoin Core clients performing the wallet, miner, full blockchain storage, and network routing functions. However, it is not necessary for all nodes in a Bitcoin network to perform all these functions. SPV nodes or lightweight clients perform only wallet and network routing functionality.

Versioning information is coded in the Bitcoin client in the version.h file, which is available here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0cda5573405d75d695aba417e8f22f1301ded001/src/version.h#L9.

Some nodes are full blockchain nodes with a complete blockchain as they are more secure and play a vital role in...