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

Components of the Ethereum ecosystem

The Ethereum blockchain stack consists of various components. At the core, there is the Ethereum blockchain running on the peer-to-peer Ethereum network. Secondly, there's an Ethereum client (usually Geth) that runs on the nodes and connects to the peer-to-peer Ethereum network from where blockchain is downloaded and stored locally. It provides various functions, such as mining and account management. The local copy of the blockchain is synchronized regularly with the network. Another component is the web3.js library that allows interaction with the geth client via the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface.

The overall Ethereum ecosystem architecture is visualized in the following diagram:

Figure 11.6: Ethereum high-level ecosystem

A list of elements present in the Ethereum blockchain is presented here:

  • Keys and addresses
  • Accounts
  • Transactions and messages
  • Ether cryptocurrency/tokens
  • The...