Book Image

Blockchain for Decision Makers

By : Romain Tormen
Book Image

Blockchain for Decision Makers

By: Romain Tormen

Overview of this book

In addition to cryptocurrencies, blockchain-based apps are being developed in different industries such as banking, supply chain, and healthcare to achieve digital transformation and enhance user experience. Blockchain is not only about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, but also about different technologies such as peer-to-peer networks, consensus mechanisms, and cryptography. These technologies together help sustain trustless environments in which digital value can be transferred between individuals without intermediaries. This book will help you understand the basics of blockchain such as consensus protocols, decentralized applications, and tokenization. You'll focus on how blockchain is used today in different industries and the technological challenges faced while implementing a blockchain strategy. The book also enables you, as a decision maker, to understand blockchain from a technical perspective and evaluate its applicability in your business. Finally, you'll get to grips with blockchain frameworks such as Hyperledger and Quorum and their usability. By the end of this book, you'll have learned about the current use cases of blockchain and be able to implement a blockchain strategy on your own.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page

Understanding the consensus protocol mechanism

As stated before, for the miners to validate a block and, hence, the transactions, they have to solve a mathematical problem. To solve it, there is a need for a specific resource. In Bitcoin, the resource is computing power. The more computing power a miner has, the faster he/she can solve the mathematical problem, therefore the faster he/she completes a block and the more likely he/she will receive Bitcoins as a reward. This mining process is called proof-of-work and is inherent to Bitcoin. It is a protocol that all of the miners of the Bitcoin blockchain should follow to demonstrate that they have done an appropriate work for validating the transactions. This ensures a selection process in which every miner uses computational power to find the correct nonce that will return a hash starting with a predefined number of zeros....