Book Image

Advanced Blockchain Development

By : Imran Bashir, Narayan Prusty
Book Image

Advanced Blockchain Development

By: Imran Bashir, Narayan Prusty

Overview of this book

Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger with applications in industries such as finance, government, and media. This Learning Path is your guide to building blockchain networks using Ethereum, JavaScript, and Solidity. You will get started by understanding the technical foundations of blockchain technology, including distributed systems, cryptography and how this digital ledger keeps data secure. Further into the chapters, you’ll gain insights into developing applications using Ethereum and Hyperledger. As you build on your knowledge of Ether security, mining, smart contracts, and Solidity, you’ll learn how to create robust and secure applications that run exactly as programmed without being affected by fraud, censorship, or third-party interference. Toward the concluding chapters, you’ll explore how blockchain solutions can be implemented in applications such as IoT apps, in addition to its use in currencies. This Learning Path also highlights how you can increase blockchain scalability, and discusses the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll be equipped with the skills you need to tackle pain points encountered in the blockchain life cycle and confidently design and deploy decentralized applications.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
15
Blockchain - Outside of Currencies
16
Scalability and Other Challenges
Index

Chapter 8. Introducing Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first application of blockchain technology. In this chapter, you will be introduced to Bitcoin technology in detail.

Bitcoin has started a revolution with the introduction of the very first fully decentralized digital currency, and the one that has proven to be extremely secure and stable from a network and protocol point of view. As a currency bitcoin is quite unstable and highly volatile, albeit valuable. We will explain this later in the chapter. This has also sparked a great interest in academic and industrial research and introduced many new research areas.

Since its introduction in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin has gained massive popularity, and it is currently the most successful digital currency in the world with billions of dollars invested in it. The current market cap, at the time of writing, for this currency is $149, 984, 293, 122. Its popularity is also evident from the high number of users and investors, increasing bitcoin price...