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

Summary

In this chapter, we introduced the various challenges facing blockchain technology. A major challenge, blockchain's limited scalability, was discussed, along with several methods available to achieve greater scalability. We approached these methods using different models, which divide the blockchain into planes, or layers, that can be improved in different ways.

We also discussed privacy, which is one of the major limiting factors toward adopting public blockchains for various enterprise use cases. Next, we explored smart contract security and various tools to improve it, such as model checking. Formal verification is a deep and extensive subject, but a brief introduction to various aspects was given, which should serve as solid ground for further research in this area. We also saw examples of formal verification to have an idea of what tools are available.

Finally, we discussed some other challenges to consider for the future of blockchain, including the issue...