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Mastering Blockchain

You're reading from   Mastering Blockchain Deeper insights into decentralization, cryptography, Bitcoin, and popular Blockchain frameworks

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Product type Paperback
Published in Mar 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787125445
Length 540 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Imran Bashir Imran Bashir
Author Profile Icon Imran Bashir
Imran Bashir
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Table of Contents (14) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Blockchain 101 FREE CHAPTER 2. Decentralization 3. Cryptography and Technical Foundations 4. Bitcoin 5. Alternative Coins 6. Smart Contracts 7. Ethereum 101 8. Ethereum Development 9. Hyperledger 10. Alternative Blockchains 11. Blockchain-Outside of Currencies 12. Scalability and Other Challenges 13. Current Landscape and Whats Next

Bitcoin


In 2008, a paper on bitcoin, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was written by Satoshi Nakamoto. The first key idea introduced in the paper was that purely peer-to-peer electronic cash that does need an intermediary bank to transfer payments between peers.

Bitcoin is built on decades of cryptographic research such as the research in Merkle trees, hash functions, public key cryptography, and digital signatures. Moreover, ideas such as BitGold, b-money, hashcash, and cryptographic time stamping provided the foundations for bitcoin invention. All these technologies are cleverly combined in bitcoin to create the world's first decentralized currency. The key issue that has been addressed in bitcoin is an elegant solution to the Byzantine Generals problem along with a practical solution of the double-spend problem.

The value of bitcoin has increased significantly since 2011, as shown in the following graph:

Bitcoin price and volume since 2012 (on logarithmic scale)

The regulation...

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