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

Deploying smart contracts

Smart contracts may or may not be deployed on a blockchain, but it makes sense to do so on a blockchain due to the security and decentralized consensus mechanism provided by the blockchain. Ethereum is an example of a blockchain platform that natively supports the development and deployment of smart contracts. We will cover Ethereum in more detail later in this book, in Chapter 11, Ethereum 101. Smart contracts on an Ethereum blockchain are typically part of a broader DApp.

In comparison, in a Bitcoin blockchain, the transaction timelocks, such as the nLocktime field, the CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY (CLTV), and the CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY script operator in the Bitcoin transaction, can be seen as an enabler of a simple version of a smart contract. These timelocks enable a transaction to be locked until a specified time or until a number of blocks, thus enforcing a basic contract that a certain transaction can only be unlocked if certain conditions (elapsed time...