Blockchain For Dummies
Published on 20. June 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-119-36559-4 (ISBN)
Description
Find out what Blockchain is, how it works, and what it can do for you
Blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin, the revolutionary 'virtual currency' that's changing the way people do business. While Bitcoin has enjoyed some well-deserved hype, Blockchain may be Bitcoin's most vital legacy. Blockchain For Dummies is the ideal starting place for business pros looking to gain a better understanding of what Blockchain is, how it can improve the integrity of their data, and how it can work to fundamentally change their business and enhance their data security.
Blockchain For Dummies covers the essential things you need to know about this exciting technology's promise of revolutionizing financial transactions, data security, and information integrity. The book covers the technologies behind Blockchain, introduces a variety of existing Blockchain solutions, and even walks you through creating a small but working Blockchain-based application.
Blockchain holds the promise to revolutionize a wide variety of businesses. Get in the know about Blockchain now with Blockchain For Dummies and be ready to make the changes to business that your colleagues and competitors will later wish they'd done. Discover ten ways Blockchain can change business
* Find out how to apply a Blockchain solution
* See how to make data more secure
* Learn how to work with vendors
Filled with vital information and tips on how this paradigm-changing technology can transform your business for the better, this book will not only show you Blockchain's full potential, but your own as well!
Blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin, the revolutionary 'virtual currency' that's changing the way people do business. While Bitcoin has enjoyed some well-deserved hype, Blockchain may be Bitcoin's most vital legacy. Blockchain For Dummies is the ideal starting place for business pros looking to gain a better understanding of what Blockchain is, how it can improve the integrity of their data, and how it can work to fundamentally change their business and enhance their data security.
Blockchain For Dummies covers the essential things you need to know about this exciting technology's promise of revolutionizing financial transactions, data security, and information integrity. The book covers the technologies behind Blockchain, introduces a variety of existing Blockchain solutions, and even walks you through creating a small but working Blockchain-based application.
Blockchain holds the promise to revolutionize a wide variety of businesses. Get in the know about Blockchain now with Blockchain For Dummies and be ready to make the changes to business that your colleagues and competitors will later wish they'd done. Discover ten ways Blockchain can change business
* Find out how to apply a Blockchain solution
* See how to make data more secure
* Learn how to work with vendors
Filled with vital information and tips on how this paradigm-changing technology can transform your business for the better, this book will not only show you Blockchain's full potential, but your own as well!
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Tiana Laurence
Blockchain For Dummies
Book
04/2019
2nd Edition
Wiley
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Tiana Laurence is a co-founder of Factom, a company that provides blockchain-based solutions for many business uses, including enhanced security for IoT. Factom has been named one of the 20 most influential blockchain companies.
Content
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Getting Started with Blockchain 5
Chapter 1: Introducing Blockchain 7
Beginning at the Beginning: What Blockchains Are 7
What blockchains do 8
Why blockchains matter 9
The Structure of Blockchains 10
Blockchain Applications 11
The Blockchain Life Cycle 11
Consensus: The Driving Force of Blockchains 12
Blockchains in Use 14
Current blockchain uses 14
Future blockchain applications 15
Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain 17
Where Blockchains Add Substance 17
Determining your needs 18
Defining your goal 19
Choosing a Solution 19
Drawing a blockchain decision tree 21
Making a plan 22
Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain 25
Diving into the Bitcoin Blockchain 25
Creating your first Bitcoin wallet 26
Creating a second Bitcoin wallet 27
Generating a Bitcoin vanity address 27
Transferring your vanity address 28
Making an entry into the Bitcoin blockchain 29
Reading a blockchain entry in Bitcoin 29
Using Smart Contracts with Bitcoin 30
Building your first smart bond 31
Checking the status of your contract 33
Building a Private Blockchain with Docker and Ethereum 34
Preparing your computer 34
Building your blockchain 36
Part 2: Developing Your Knowledge 39
Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain 41
Getting a Brief History of the Bitcoin Blockchain 42
Debunking Some Common Bitcoin Misconceptions 45
Bitcoin: The New Wild West 47
Fake sites 47
No, you first! 47
Get-rich-quick schemes 48
Mining for Bitcoins 48
Making Your First Paper Wallet 49
Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain 51
Exploring the Brief History of Ethereum 52
Ethereum: The Open-Source World Wide Computer 53
Decentralized applications: Welcome to the future 54
The power of decentralized autonomous organizations 54
Hacking a Blockchain 57
Understanding smart contracts 58
Discovering the cryptocurrency Ether 58
Getting Up and Running on Ethereum 59
Mining for ether 59
Setting up your Ethereum wallet 60
Building Your First Decentralized Autonomous Organization 60
Test net and congress 61
Governance and voting 62
Uncovering the Future of DAOs 63
Putting money in a DAO 63
Building smarter smart contracts 64
Finding bugs in the system 64
Chapter 6: Regarding the Ripple Blockchain 65
Getting a Brief History of the Ripple Blockchain 66
Ripple: It's All About Trust 67
Seeing How Ripple Differs from Other Blockchains 68
Unleashing the Full Power of Ripple 71
Exercising Caution with Ripple 72
Chapter 7: Finding the Factom Blockchain 75
A Matter of Trust 76
The purpose of the Factom blockchain: Publishing anything 77
Incentives of federation 78
Building on Factom 81
Authenticating documents and building identities using APIs 81
Getting to know the Factoid: Not a normal token 81
Anchoring your application 82
Publishing on Factom 82
Building transparency in the mortgage industry 84
Verifying physical documents: dLoc with Factom 86
Chapter 8: Digging into DigiByte 89
Getting Familiar with DigiByte: The Fast Blockchain 90
Mining on DigiByte 91
Signing Documents on DigiByte's DiguSign 94
Earning DigiBytes While Gaming 95
Part 3: Powerful Blockchain Platforms 97
Chapter 9: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger 99
Getting to Know Hyperledger: Dreams of a Hyper Future 100
Focusing on Fabric 101
Building your system in Fabric 102
Diving into chaincode development 102
Investigating the Iroha Project 104
Introducing Sumeragi: The new consensus algorithm 104
Developing mobile apps 105
Diving into Sawtooth Lake 106
Exploring the consensus algorithm: Proof of Elapsed Time 107
Deploying Sawtooth 107
Chapter 10: Applying Microsoft Azure 109
Bletchley: The Modular Blockchain Fabric 109
Cryptlets for encrypting and authenticating 111
Utility and Contract Cryptlets and CrytoDelegates 112
Building in the Azure Ecosystem 113
Getting Started with Chain on Azure 114
Installing Chain's distributed ledger 115
Creating your own private network 115
Using financial services on Azure's Chain 116
Deploying Blockchain Tools on Azure 116
Exploring Ethereum on Azure 116
Cortana: Your analytics machine learning tool 117
Visualizing your data with Power BI 117
Managing your access on Azure's Active Directory 118
Chapter 11: Getting Busy on IBM Bluemix 119
Business Blockchain on Bluemix 119
Your isolated environment 120
Bluemix use cases 121
Watson's Smart Blockchain 122
Building Your Starter Network on Big Blue 124
Part 4: Industry Impacts 129
Chapter 12: Financial Technology 131
Hauling Out Your Crystal Ball: Future Banking Trends 131
Moving money faster: Across borders and more 133
Creating permanent history 134
Going International: Global Financial Products 135
Border-free payroll 136
Faster and better trade 137
Guaranteed payments 138
Micropayments: The new nature of transactions 138
Squeezing Out Fraud 139
Chapter 13: Real Estate 141
Eliminating Title Insurance 141
Protected industries 142
Consumers and Fannie Mae 144
Mortgages in the Blockchain World 144
Reducing your origination costs 145
Knowing your last-known document 145
Forecasting Regional Trends 146
The United States and Europe: Infrastructure congestion 147
China: First out of the gate 148
The developing world: Roadblocks to blockchain 148
Chapter 14: Insurance 151
Precisely Tailoring Coverage 151
Insuring the individual 152
The new world of micro insurance 153
Witnessing for You: The Internet of Things 154
IoT projects in insurance 155
Implications of actionable big data 155
Taking Out the Third Party in Insurance 156
Decentralized security 156
Crowdfunded coverage 156
The implications of DAO insurance 157
Chapter 15: Government 159
The Smart Cities of Asia 159
Singapore satellite cities in India 161
China's big data problem 162
The Battle for the Financial Capital of the World 163
London's early foresight 163
The regulatory sandbox of Singapore 164
The Dubai 2020 initiative 165
Bitlicense regulatory framework: New York City 167
Securing the World's Borders 168
The Department of Homeland Security and the identity of things 168
Passports of the future 169
The new feeder document 169
Chapter 16: Other Industries 171
Lean Governments 171
Singapore's Smart Nation project 172
Estonia's e-Residency 173
Better notarization in China 174
The Trust Layer for the Internet 174
Spam-free email 175
Owning your identity 176
Oracle of the Blockchain 176
Trusted authorship 177
Intellectual property rights 177
Part 5: The Part of Tens 179
Chapter 17: Ten Free Blockchain Resources 181
Factom University 181
Ethereum 101 182
Build on Ripple 182
Programmable Money by Ripple 182
DigiKnow 183
Blockchain University 183
Bitcoin Core 183
Blockchain Alliance 183
Multichain Blog 184
HiveMind 184
Chapter 18: The Ten Rules to Never Break on the Blockchain 185
Don't Use Cryptocurrency or Blockchains to Skirt the Law 185
Keep Your Contracts as Simple as Possible 186
Publish with Great Caution 187
Back Up, Back Up, Back Up Your Private Keys 187
Triple-Check the Address Before Sending Currency 189
Take Care When Using Exchanges 189
Beware Wi-Fi 190
Identify Your Blockchain Dev 190
Don't Get Suckered 190
Don't Trade Tokens Unless You Know What You're Doing 191
Chapter 19: Ten Top Blockchain Projects 193
The R3 Consortium 193
T ZERO: Overstocking the Stock Market 194
Blockstream's Distributed Systems 195
OpenBazaar's Blockchain 196
Code Valley: Find Your Coder 196
Bitfury's Digital Assets 197
Any Coin Can ShapeShift 198
Machine-Payable Apps on 21 198
Anonymous Transactions on Dash 199
ConsenSys: Decentralized Applications 200
Index 201
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Getting Started with Blockchain 5
Chapter 1: Introducing Blockchain 7
Beginning at the Beginning: What Blockchains Are 7
What blockchains do 8
Why blockchains matter 9
The Structure of Blockchains 10
Blockchain Applications 11
The Blockchain Life Cycle 11
Consensus: The Driving Force of Blockchains 12
Blockchains in Use 14
Current blockchain uses 14
Future blockchain applications 15
Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain 17
Where Blockchains Add Substance 17
Determining your needs 18
Defining your goal 19
Choosing a Solution 19
Drawing a blockchain decision tree 21
Making a plan 22
Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain 25
Diving into the Bitcoin Blockchain 25
Creating your first Bitcoin wallet 26
Creating a second Bitcoin wallet 27
Generating a Bitcoin vanity address 27
Transferring your vanity address 28
Making an entry into the Bitcoin blockchain 29
Reading a blockchain entry in Bitcoin 29
Using Smart Contracts with Bitcoin 30
Building your first smart bond 31
Checking the status of your contract 33
Building a Private Blockchain with Docker and Ethereum 34
Preparing your computer 34
Building your blockchain 36
Part 2: Developing Your Knowledge 39
Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain 41
Getting a Brief History of the Bitcoin Blockchain 42
Debunking Some Common Bitcoin Misconceptions 45
Bitcoin: The New Wild West 47
Fake sites 47
No, you first! 47
Get-rich-quick schemes 48
Mining for Bitcoins 48
Making Your First Paper Wallet 49
Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain 51
Exploring the Brief History of Ethereum 52
Ethereum: The Open-Source World Wide Computer 53
Decentralized applications: Welcome to the future 54
The power of decentralized autonomous organizations 54
Hacking a Blockchain 57
Understanding smart contracts 58
Discovering the cryptocurrency Ether 58
Getting Up and Running on Ethereum 59
Mining for ether 59
Setting up your Ethereum wallet 60
Building Your First Decentralized Autonomous Organization 60
Test net and congress 61
Governance and voting 62
Uncovering the Future of DAOs 63
Putting money in a DAO 63
Building smarter smart contracts 64
Finding bugs in the system 64
Chapter 6: Regarding the Ripple Blockchain 65
Getting a Brief History of the Ripple Blockchain 66
Ripple: It's All About Trust 67
Seeing How Ripple Differs from Other Blockchains 68
Unleashing the Full Power of Ripple 71
Exercising Caution with Ripple 72
Chapter 7: Finding the Factom Blockchain 75
A Matter of Trust 76
The purpose of the Factom blockchain: Publishing anything 77
Incentives of federation 78
Building on Factom 81
Authenticating documents and building identities using APIs 81
Getting to know the Factoid: Not a normal token 81
Anchoring your application 82
Publishing on Factom 82
Building transparency in the mortgage industry 84
Verifying physical documents: dLoc with Factom 86
Chapter 8: Digging into DigiByte 89
Getting Familiar with DigiByte: The Fast Blockchain 90
Mining on DigiByte 91
Signing Documents on DigiByte's DiguSign 94
Earning DigiBytes While Gaming 95
Part 3: Powerful Blockchain Platforms 97
Chapter 9: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger 99
Getting to Know Hyperledger: Dreams of a Hyper Future 100
Focusing on Fabric 101
Building your system in Fabric 102
Diving into chaincode development 102
Investigating the Iroha Project 104
Introducing Sumeragi: The new consensus algorithm 104
Developing mobile apps 105
Diving into Sawtooth Lake 106
Exploring the consensus algorithm: Proof of Elapsed Time 107
Deploying Sawtooth 107
Chapter 10: Applying Microsoft Azure 109
Bletchley: The Modular Blockchain Fabric 109
Cryptlets for encrypting and authenticating 111
Utility and Contract Cryptlets and CrytoDelegates 112
Building in the Azure Ecosystem 113
Getting Started with Chain on Azure 114
Installing Chain's distributed ledger 115
Creating your own private network 115
Using financial services on Azure's Chain 116
Deploying Blockchain Tools on Azure 116
Exploring Ethereum on Azure 116
Cortana: Your analytics machine learning tool 117
Visualizing your data with Power BI 117
Managing your access on Azure's Active Directory 118
Chapter 11: Getting Busy on IBM Bluemix 119
Business Blockchain on Bluemix 119
Your isolated environment 120
Bluemix use cases 121
Watson's Smart Blockchain 122
Building Your Starter Network on Big Blue 124
Part 4: Industry Impacts 129
Chapter 12: Financial Technology 131
Hauling Out Your Crystal Ball: Future Banking Trends 131
Moving money faster: Across borders and more 133
Creating permanent history 134
Going International: Global Financial Products 135
Border-free payroll 136
Faster and better trade 137
Guaranteed payments 138
Micropayments: The new nature of transactions 138
Squeezing Out Fraud 139
Chapter 13: Real Estate 141
Eliminating Title Insurance 141
Protected industries 142
Consumers and Fannie Mae 144
Mortgages in the Blockchain World 144
Reducing your origination costs 145
Knowing your last-known document 145
Forecasting Regional Trends 146
The United States and Europe: Infrastructure congestion 147
China: First out of the gate 148
The developing world: Roadblocks to blockchain 148
Chapter 14: Insurance 151
Precisely Tailoring Coverage 151
Insuring the individual 152
The new world of micro insurance 153
Witnessing for You: The Internet of Things 154
IoT projects in insurance 155
Implications of actionable big data 155
Taking Out the Third Party in Insurance 156
Decentralized security 156
Crowdfunded coverage 156
The implications of DAO insurance 157
Chapter 15: Government 159
The Smart Cities of Asia 159
Singapore satellite cities in India 161
China's big data problem 162
The Battle for the Financial Capital of the World 163
London's early foresight 163
The regulatory sandbox of Singapore 164
The Dubai 2020 initiative 165
Bitlicense regulatory framework: New York City 167
Securing the World's Borders 168
The Department of Homeland Security and the identity of things 168
Passports of the future 169
The new feeder document 169
Chapter 16: Other Industries 171
Lean Governments 171
Singapore's Smart Nation project 172
Estonia's e-Residency 173
Better notarization in China 174
The Trust Layer for the Internet 174
Spam-free email 175
Owning your identity 176
Oracle of the Blockchain 176
Trusted authorship 177
Intellectual property rights 177
Part 5: The Part of Tens 179
Chapter 17: Ten Free Blockchain Resources 181
Factom University 181
Ethereum 101 182
Build on Ripple 182
Programmable Money by Ripple 182
DigiKnow 183
Blockchain University 183
Bitcoin Core 183
Blockchain Alliance 183
Multichain Blog 184
HiveMind 184
Chapter 18: The Ten Rules to Never Break on the Blockchain 185
Don't Use Cryptocurrency or Blockchains to Skirt the Law 185
Keep Your Contracts as Simple as Possible 186
Publish with Great Caution 187
Back Up, Back Up, Back Up Your Private Keys 187
Triple-Check the Address Before Sending Currency 189
Take Care When Using Exchanges 189
Beware Wi-Fi 190
Identify Your Blockchain Dev 190
Don't Get Suckered 190
Don't Trade Tokens Unless You Know What You're Doing 191
Chapter 19: Ten Top Blockchain Projects 193
The R3 Consortium 193
T ZERO: Overstocking the Stock Market 194
Blockstream's Distributed Systems 195
OpenBazaar's Blockchain 196
Code Valley: Find Your Coder 196
Bitfury's Digital Assets 197
Any Coin Can ShapeShift 198
Machine-Payable Apps on 21 198
Anonymous Transactions on Dash 199
ConsenSys: Decentralized Applications 200
Index 201