Summary
In this chapter, we learned about the various cryptocurrencies that existed before bitcoin and why they failed. We discussed how bitcoin was born and the founding principles it promotes, namely trust, decentralization, and transparency. Three altcoins were examined, out of the more than 1,000 that were created, with Litecoin being the only one that has consistently ranked in the top 10 of all cryptocurrencies.
The various definitions of a blockchain were compared, noting the challenge ahead for the ISO/TC 307 committee in attempting to define blockchains and DLT.
We looked at all the wonderful information people placed on the bitcoin blockchain, such as a picture of Mandela, and explained the concept of coloring bitcoins.
Smart contracts were explored and shown to exist in a simplistic form in bitcoin, but have been drastically improved with the invention of Ethereum, a global decentralized computing network. While the Ethereum platform didn't give birth to ICOs, it dramatically...