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

Keys and addresses

Keys and addresses are used in the Ethereum blockchain to represent ownership and transfer ether. The keys used are made up of pairs of private and public parts. The private key is generated randomly and is kept secret, whereas the public key is derived from the private key. Addresses are derived from public keys and are 20-byte codes used to identify accounts.

The process of key generation and address derivation is as follows:

  1. First, a private key is randomly chosen (a 256-bit positive integer) under the rules defined by the elliptic curve secp256k1 specification (in the range [1, secp256k1n − 1]).
  2. The public key is then derived from this private key using the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) recovery function. We will discuss this in the Transactions and messages section, in the context of digital signatures.
  3. An address is derived from the public key, specifically, from the rightmost 160 bits of the Keccak hash...