In the first part of this book, we introduced bitcoin as the first embodiment of blockchain technology and the world's most popular cryptocurrency. Throughout the previous chapters, we tried to illuminate from a developmental angle, what a blockchain is, by building applications using bitcoin. In this second part of the book, we'll introduce the most well-established and mature smart-contract-driven blockchain: Ethereum.
As we discussed in Chapter 1, Say Hello to Blockchain, the primary aim of bitcoin is to establish itself as a payment alternative to regular money, whereas Ethereum focuses more on enabling developers to build and run distributed applications, decentralized apps (DApps), by providing them with built-in tools and currency vehicles.
Faithful to our approach of learning by example, we will start our exploration by building...