Fundamentals of Blockchain and Web3

This chapter will lay the foundation for the rest of this course. We will walk through some of the basic blockchain fundamentals required to understand the rest of the concepts and other chapters in this book. You will be introduced to blockchain and the basic anatomy of a blockchain, including nodes, blocks, consensus, and the elements of a blockchain transaction. You’ll be introduced to private, public, and hybrid blockchains and learn when to use private and public blockchains. By learning all of the required basics, you’ll be fully prepared to learn Web3.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• Getting started with blockchain
• Understanding the role of cryptography in blockchain
• The basic components of a blockchain
• Types of blockchain
• The anatomy of a blockchain transaction
• Getting started with Web3
• The fundamentals of Web3