Blockchain quick reference : a guide to exploring decentralized blockchain application development / Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra and Paul Valencourt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hill, Brenn, author.

Chopra, Samanyu, author.

Valencourt, Paul, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Banks and banking--Technological innovations.

Banks and banking.

Financial institutions--Technological innovations.

Financial institutions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (337 pages)

Edition:

1st edition

Place of Publication:

Birmingham : Packt Publishing Ltd, [2018]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Understand the Blockchain revolution and get to grips with Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, and Corda. Key Features Resolve common challenges and problems faced in the Blockchain domain Study architecture, concepts, terminologies, and Dapps Make smart choices using Blockchain for personal and business investments Book Description Blockchain Quick Reference takes you through the electrifying world of blockchain technology and is designed for those who want to polish their existing knowledge regarding the various pillars of the blockchain ecosystem. This book is your go-to guide, teaching you how to apply principles and ideas for making your life and business better. You will cover the architecture, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), tokens, smart contracts, and terminologies of the blockchain technology, before studying how they work. All you need is a curious mind to get started with blockchain technology. Once you have grasped the basics, you will explore components of Ethereum, such as ether tokens, transactions, and smart contracts, in order to build simple Dapps. You will then move on to learning why Solidity is used specifically for Ethereum-based projects, followed by exploring different types of blockchain with easy-to-follow examples. All this will help you tackle challenges and problems. By the end of this book, you will not only have solved current and future problems relating to blockchain technology but will also be able to build efficient decentralized applications. What you will learn Understand how blockchain architecture components work Acquaint yourself with cryptography and the mechanics behind blockchain Apply consensus protocol to determine the business sustainability Understand what ICOs and crypto-mining are and how they work Create cryptocurrency wallets and coins for transaction mechanisms Understand the use of Ethereum for smart contract and DApp development Who this book is for Blockchain Quick Reference is for you if you are a developer who wants to get well-versed with blockchain and its associated concepts and terminologies. You will explore the working mechanism of a decentralized application with the help of examples. Business leaders and blockchain enthusiasts will also find this book useful, as it will help you effectively address challenges and make better personal and business investments. Downloading the example code for this book You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from y...

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Packt Upsell

Foreword

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Blockchain 101

Processing a financial transaction

Ledger

Concept of a trustless system

Introducing blockchain

General elements of blockchain

Peer-to-peer network

Block

Block header

Addresses

Wallets

Transaction

Nodes

What does blockchain solve?

Types of blockchains

Public blockchain

Semi-private blockchain

Private blockchain

Consortium blockchain

Byzantine generals problem

Consensus

Blockchain in a nutshell

Benefits

Banking records

Medical records

Government records

Creative and copyright records

University degree records

Challenges

Complexity

Network scalability

Speed and cost

Double spending

Summary

Chapter 2: Components and Structure of Blockchain

Blocks

The chain between blocks

Hashing and signatures

Digital signatures

What are digital keys?

Example block data

Example Ethereum block

Bitcoin block

Global state

Block time and block size

Blockchain miners

Blockchain validators

Smart contracts

Blockchain speed

How to calculate blockchain throughput

Comparisons with traditional networks

Chapter 3: Decentralization Versus Distributed Systems

Distributed systems

Resiliency

Fault tolerance and failure isolation

Consensus and coordination

Backups

Consistency

Peer-to-peer systems

Decentralized systems

Principles of decentralized systems

Open access

Non-hierarchical

Ecosystem diversity

Transparency

Downsides

Speed

Censorship resistance

Chaos and non-determinism

Chapter 4: Cryptography and Mechanics Behind Blockchain

Principles of security

Historical perspective - classical cryptography.

Types of cryptography

Symmetric cryptography

Asymmetric (public-key) cryptography

Signatures

Hashing

The avalanche effect

Collisions

Hashing a block

Hashing outside PoW

Chapter 5: Bitcoin

The history of Bitcoin

Why Bitcoin is volatile

Keys and addresses

Currency units

Vanity addresses

Base58 check encoding

Transactions

Types

Pay-to-Public-Key Hash

Pay-to-Script Hash

Genesis block

Bitcoin network

Types of nodes

Full node

Lightweight nodes

Other nodes

Network discovery

Finding peers

DNS seeds

Static IPs

Deterministic wallet

Deterministic wallets

HD wallets

Non-deterministic wallet

Chapter 6: Altcoins

Introducing Altcoins

Tokens

Ethereum

Omni Layer

NEO

Waves

Counterparty

Alternative currency

Monetary alternatives

Consensus alternatives

Litecoin

Ether

Ripple

Bitcoin Cash

Acquiring cryptocurrency

Mining of cryptocurrency

Bitcoin mining

Mining difficulty

Mining pools

Altcoin mining

Cryptocurrency exchanges

Cryptocurrency wallets

Chapter 7: Achieving Consensus

Practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm

Byzantine faults

How PBFT works

Proof of Work

How the PoW problem works in Bitcoin

Proof of Stake

The nothing-at-stake attack

Variations

Delegated Proof of Stake

Tendermint consensus

Proof of Authority

Establishing authority

Proof of Elapsed time

References

Chapter 8: Advanced Blockchain Concepts

Blockchain and banks

Unbanked - going pure crypto

Fixing pegs

Buying options

Why regulated exchanges?

Unbanked and unincorporated?

The DAO

Decentralizing an organization

Putting a corporation on a blockchain

Cutting out the middle man.

Providing capital

Social purpose - blockchain as leveler

Banking the unbanked

Silk road LLC - privacy and ethics

Tracking all the things

Defeating some privacy issues with zero-knowledge proofs

Unwrapping the concept of zero-knowledge proofs

Chapter 9: Cryptocurrency Wallets

Introduction to cryptocurrency wallets

Transactions in cryptocurrency wallets

Types of cryptocurrency wallets

Currency support

Tenancy

Software wallets

Hardware wallets

Paper wallets

Brain wallet

Usage frequency

Key derivation

Hierarchical deterministic wallets

Mnemonic codes

Key generation process in HD wallets

Child key derivation

Private key generation

Extended keys

Chapter 10: Alternate Blockchains

Various uses of blockchain

Government

Healthcare

Medical research

Supply chain

Copyright

Fine art

Shipping

Energy

Computation and data storage

Identification and social security

Enterprise

Stellar

Tendermint

Monax

Chapter 11: Hyperledger and Enterprise Blockchains

History of Hyperledger

Hyperledger projects

Hyperledger Burrow

Hyperledger Sawtooth

Sawtooth architecture

Transaction families

Transactions and batches

The key pieces

Hyperledger Fabric

Architecture choices and features

Organizational focus

Private channels

Assets

Advantages of Fabric

Hyperledger Iroha

Hyperledger Indy

Tools in Hyperledger

Hyperledger Caliper

Hyperledger Composer

Hyperledger Cello

Hyperledger Explorer

Hyperledger Quilt

Relationships between the tools

Which Hyperledger project should you use?

Using Hyperledger

Chapter 12: Ethereum 101

Introducing Ethereum.

Components of Ethereum

Ethereum accounts

Ethereum network

Ethereum public MainNet

Ethereum clients

Geth

Installing Geth

Managing accounts

Ethereum gas

Ethereum virtual machine

Execution environment

Ethereum block

Ommers or uncles

Messages

Ethash

Procuring ether

Trading

Chapter 13: Solidity 101

Basics of Solidity

The basics of working on Solidity

Using the compiler

Programming in Solidity

Laying out a Solidity file

Importing files

Commenting

Tags

Structure of a contract

State variables

Functions

Function modifiers

Events

Value types

Boolean

Integers

Address

Array value type

Literal

Enums

Function

Function Modifiers

Reference types

Structs

Data location

Mapping

Units and global variables

Chapter 14: Smart Contracts

Why smart contracts?

Automating processes and resolutions between parties

Real-world example

Increased transparency

Ending centralized data

Increased fairness

Smart contract approaches

Example Ethereum smart contracts

The promises

Security considerations

Dealing with threats in smart contracts

Limitations of smart contracts

Data quality and mistakes

Legal validity

Stability of meaning

Chapter 15: Ethereum Development

Introduction

Preparing for smart contract development

Remix

Geth and Mist

Token standard

Methods in ERC20

Web3

Truffle framework

Ganache

Working on a smart contract

Chapter 16: Ethereum Accounts and Ether Tokens

Introducing Ethereum accounts

Ethereum state transition function

Transaction receipts

Elements

Post-transaction state

Gas used

Set of logs

The bloom filter

Structure.

Transaction sub state

Suicide set

Log series

Refund balance

Calls

Ethereum block validation

Uncles validation

Block difficulty

Block finalization

Disadvantages of Ethereum-based tokens

Chapter 17: Decentralized Applications

What makes an application decentralized

Defining a decentralized application

Decentralized apps and blockchain

Using blockchain does not make an application decentralized

Major decentralized blockchain applications

IPFS

Typical web communications

Peer-to-peer file transfer

Value to blockchain projects

Aragon

district0x

What is a district?

Ethereum name service

Civic/uPort

Gnosis

Steemit

CryptoKitties

Chapter 18: Mining

Cryptocurrency mining

The mining process

Algorithms

Mining hardware

CPU-based mining

GPU-based mining

FPGA-based mining

ASIC-based mining

Miner types

Cloud mining

Hardware mining

Mining rigs

Pay-per-share - PPS

Proportional - PROP

Pay-per-last-N-shares - PPLNS

The double geometric method - DGM

Shared maximum pay per share - SMPPS

Equalized shared maximum pay per share - ESMPPS

Recent shared maximum pay per share - RSMPPS

Capped pay per share with recent backpay - CPPSRB

Bitcoin pooled mining - BPM

Pay on target - POT

SCORE

Popular pools

Mining software

Chapter 19: ICO 101

The current state of the ICO market

Increasing volume of ICOs

Typical aspects of an ICO campaign

Whitepaper

Private placement

Pre-sale

Good pre-sale practices

Public sale

Capped sale

Uncapped sale

Dutch auction

Influencer marketing

PR campaigns

Content marketing

ICO reviewers

Smart contract and prototype development

Code audits

Bounty campaigns

Airdrops.

Road shows.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781788994255

1788994256

OCLC:

1051771014