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

Bitcoin programming

Bitcoin programming is a very rich field. The Bitcoin Core client exposes various JSON-RPC commands that can be used to construct raw transactions and perform other functions via custom scripts or programs. Also, the command-line tool bitcoin-cli is available, which makes use of the JSON-RPC interface and provides a rich toolset to work with Bitcoin.

These APIs are also available via many online service providers in the form of Bitcoin APIs, and they provide a simple HTTP REST interface. Bitcoin APIs, such as blockchain.info (https://blockchain.info/api), BitPay (https://bitpay.com/api), block.io (https://www.block.io), and many others, offer a myriad of options to develop Bitcoin-based solutions.

Various libraries are available for Bitcoin programming. A list is shown as follows. Those of you who are interested can explore the libraries further: