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

Limiting factors

We discussed several benefits of blockchain technology in general in Chapter 1, Blockchain 101. While all those benefits are attainable using public blockchains, several features are lacking in public blockchains, which makes them unsuitable for use in enterprise use cases. The interest in enterprise blockchain arises from these limitations in public blockchains, along with specific requirements in any business.

We'll describe some of the most common concerns next.

Slow performance

Public blockchains are slow and can process only a few transactions per second. Bitcoin processes 3-4 transactions per seconds, while Ethereum processes around 14. This low transaction rate is not suitable for businesses that usually require high transaction speed. For example, card payment businesses typically need to process thousands of transactions per second.

Lack of access governance

Public blockchains are available for anyone to join, which makes it...