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

Token offerings

Token offerings are mechanisms to raise funds and profit. There are a few different types of token offerings. We will introduce each of these separately now. One main common attribute of each of these mechanisms is that they are hosted on a blockchain and make use of tokens to facilitate different financial activities. These financial activities can include crowdfunding and trading securities.

Initial coin offerings

Initial coin offering or initial currency offering (ICO) is a mechanism to raise funds using cryptocurrencies. ICOs have been a very successful but somewhat controversial mechanism for raising capital for new cryptocurrency or token projects. ICOs are somewhat controversial sometimes due to bad design or poor governance, but at times some of the ICOs have turned out to be outright scams. A list of fraudulent schemes is available at https://cryptochainuni.com/scam-list/. These types of incidents have contributed toward the bad reputation and controversy...