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

The Ethereum network

The Ethereum network is a peer-to-peer network where nodes participate in order to maintain the blockchain and contribute to the consensus mechanism. Networks can be divided into three types, based on the requirements and usage. These types are described in the following subsections.

The mainnet

The mainnet is the current live network of Ethereum. Its network ID is 1 and its chain ID is also 1. The network and chain IDs are used to identify the network. A block explorer that shows detailed information about blocks and other relevant metrics is available at https://etherscan.io. This can be used to explore the Ethereum blockchain.

Testnets

There is a number of testnets available for Ethereum testing. The aim of these test blockchains is to provide a testing environment for smart contracts and DApps before being deployed to the production live blockchain. Moreover, being test networks, they also allow experimentation and research. The main...