Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Third Edition

By : Imran Bashir
Book Image

Mastering Blockchain - Third Edition

By: Imran Bashir

Overview of this book

Blockchain is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, with applications in finance, government, media, and other industries. With a legacy of providing technologists with executable insights, this new edition of Mastering Blockchain is thoroughly revised and updated to the latest blockchain research with four new chapters on consensus algorithms, Serenity (the update that will introduce Ethereum 2.0), tokenization, and enterprise blockchains. This book covers the basics, including blockchain’s technical underpinnings, cryptography and consensus protocols. It also provides you with expert knowledge on decentralization, decentralized application development on Ethereum, Bitcoin, alternative coins, smart contracts, alternative blockchains, and Hyperledger. Further, you will explore blockchain solutions beyond cryptocurrencies such as the Internet of Things with blockchain, enterprise blockchains, tokenization using blockchain, and consider the future scope of this fascinating and disruptive technology. By the end of this book, you will have gained a thorough comprehension of the various facets of blockchain and understand their potential in diverse real-world scenarios.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
23
Index

Ricardian contracts

Ricardian contracts were initially proposed in the paper, Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers, by Ian Grigg, in the late 1990s.

This paper is available at https://iang.org/papers/fc7.html.

Ricardian contracts were initially used in a bond trading and payment system called Ricardo. The fundamental idea behind this contract is to write a document that is understood and accepted by both a court of law and computer software. Ricardian contracts address the challenge of the issuance of value over the internet. A Ricardian contract identifies the issuer and captures all the terms and clauses of the contract in a document to make it acceptable as a legally binding contract.

A Ricardian contract is a document that has several of the following properties:

  • It is a contract offered by an issuer to holders
  • It is a valuable right held by holders and managed by the issuer
  • It can be easily read by people (like a contract on paper)
  • ...