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

Development phases

The four phases in the development of Ethereum 2.0 are focused on various features of the blockchain.

The main work included in Phase 0 is around the management of validators and the staking mechanism. In addition, this phase also includes block proposer selection, consensus mechanism rules, and a reward/penalty mechanism.

Phase 1 includes the development of shard chains and blocks along with the cross-linking (anchoring) of shard blocks to the beacon chain (the core system chain).

Phase 1.5 also known as "the merge" is where ethereum mainnet will transit into Ethereum 2 most likely by becoming a shard chain of Ethereum 2.0.

The next stage, Phase 2, is focused on execution environment upgrades, and includes a VM upgrade to ewasm along with cross-shard communication and access to execution environments. Moreover, Phase 2 introduces the ability to run and interact with smart contracts. Currently, the specification is not final and might...