Blockchains are the new fad in the word of cryptocurrency; we have witnessed the remarkably growing popularity of Bitcoins. Ethereum uses a technology similar to Bitcoin, and the coin that it trades in is known as ether. There is not much difference between the two except for smart contracts that are nothing but the codes that are written using the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which automates as well as executes agreements in an immutable ledger. We will get to know more about this later. To dive in further, first we are going to go over some use cases—they're very interesting. Next we will provide an overview of the Ethereum blockchain and blockchain in general. We will look at some of the benefits and limitations of blockchain. Then, we are going to get into setting up an efficient workflow so that we can get into further chapters without anything holding us back.
Topics that we'll be covering in this chapter are as follows:
- Ethereum-based projects
- An overview of blockchain and Ethereum
- Benefits and limitations
- Setting up an efficient workflow