Blockchain For Dummies, 2ed

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions  

Icons Used in This Book  

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1: Getting Started with Blockchain

Chapter 1: Introducing Blockchain

• Beginning at the Beginning: What Blockchains are  
• What blockchains do
• Why blockchains matter
• The Structure of Blockchains
• Blockchain Applications
• The Blockchain Life Cycle
• Consensus: The Driving Force of Blockchains
• Blockchains in Use
• Current blockchain uses
• Future blockchain applications

Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain

• Where Blockchains Add Substance
• Determining your needs
• Defining your goal
• Choosing a Solution  
• Drawing a blockchain decision tree
• Making a plan

Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain

• Diving into Blockchain Technology
• Creating a secure environment  
• Buying your first Bitcoin
• Securing and Exchanging Your Cryptocurrency
• Downloading Jaxx
• Securing your Jaxx wallet
• Transferring Bitcoin to Jaxx
• Trading Bitcoin for Ether
• Loading up your MetaMask account
• Setting up a CryptoKitties account
• Building a Private Blockchain with Docker and Ethereum
• Preparing your computer
• Building your blockchain

Part 2: Developing Your Knowledge

Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain

• Getting a Brief History of the Bitcoin Blockchain
• The New Bitcoin: Bitcoin Cash
• Debunking Some Common Bitcoin Misconceptions
• Bitcoin: The New Wild West
• Fake sites  
• No, you first!
• Get-rich-quick schemes
• Mining for Bitcoins
• Making Your First Paper Wallet

Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain

• Exploring the Brief History of Ethereum
• Ethereum: The Open-Source World Wide Computer
• Decentralized applications: Welcome to the future
• The power of decentralized autonomous organizations
• Hacking a Blockchain
• Understanding smart contracts
• Discovering the cryptocurrency Ether
• Getting Up and Running on Ethereum
• Mining for ether
• Setting up your Ethereum wallet
• Building Your First Decentralized Autonomous Organization
• Test net and congress
• Governance and voting
• Uncovering the Future of DAOs
• Putting money in a DAO
• Building smarter smart contracts
• Finding bugs in the system
• Creating Your Own ERC20 Tokens
• Seeing up your GitHub account
• Requesting KETH on the Gitter Faucet
• Creating your tokens

Chapter 6: Riding the Waves Blockchain

• Seeing How the Waves Blockchain Differs from Other Blockchains
• Unleashing the Full Power of Waves
• Setting up your Waves wallet
• Backing up your wallet
• Uncovering Your Wallet's Features
• Transferring crypto assets
• Using a decentralized exchange
• Creating and Leasing Out Your Own Cryptocurrency

Chapter 7: Finding the Factom Blockchain

• A Matter of Trust
• The purpose of the Factom blockchain: Publishing anything
• Incentives of federation
• Building on Factom
• Authenticating documents and building identities using APIs
• Getting to know the Factoid: Not a normal cryptocurrency
• Anchoring your application
• Publishing on Factom
• Building transparency in the mortgage industry
• Verifying physical documents: dLoc with Factom

Chapter 8: Examining the EOS Blockchain

• Getting Familiar with EOS
• New mining versus old mining
• The 21 block producers
• Setting Up EOS Voting for Block Producers  
• Setting up the Greymass voting tool
• Voting for a block producer
• Introducing the EOS Decentralized Application Collection
• Everipedia: The next-generation encyclopedia
• Decentralized EOS games

Part 3: Powerful Blockchain Platforms

Chapter 9: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger

• Getting to Know Hyperledger
• Identifying Key Hyperledger Projects
• Focusing on Fabric
• Investigating the Iroha project
• Diving into Sawtooth Lake
• Building Your System in Fabric
• Building asset tracking with Hyperledger Composer
• Working with Smart Contracts on Hyperledger
• Step 1: Setting up an auction network
• Step 2: Setting up auction windows
• Step 3: Creating an auctioneer
• Step 4: Creating two participants
• Step 5: Creating a new asset
• Step 6: Creating a new listing
• Step 7: Auctioning off the car
• Step 8: Closing your auction

Chapter 10: Applying Microsoft Azure

• Bletchley: The Modular Blockchain Fabric
• Cryptlets for encrypting and authenticating
• Utility and Contract Cryptlets and CrytoDelegates
• Building in the Azure Ecosystem
• Getting Started with Chain on Azure
• Installing Chain's distributed ledger
• Creating your own private network
• Using financial services on Azure's Chain
• Deploying Blockchain Tools on Azure
• Exploring Ethereum on Azure
• Cortana: Your analytics machine learning tool
• Visualizing your data with Power BI
• Managing your access on Azure's Active Directory

Chapter 11: Getting Busy on IBM Bluemix

• Business Blockchain on Bluemix
• Your isolated environment
• Bluemix use cases
• Watson's Smart Blockchain
• Building Your Starter Network on Big Blue

Part 4: Industry Impacts

Chapter 12: Financial Technology

• Hauling Out Your Crystal Ball: Future Banking Trends
• Moving money faster: Across borders and more
• Creating permanent history
• Going International: Global Financial Products
• Border-free payroll
• Faster and better trade
• Guaranteed payments
• Micropayments: The new nature of transactions
• Squeezing Out Fraud

Chapter 13: Real Estate

• Eliminating Title Insurance
• Protected industries
• Consumers and Fannie Mae
• Mortgages in the Blockchain World
• Reducing your origination costs
• Knowing your last-known document
• Forecasting Regional Trends
• The United States and Europe: Infrastructure congestion
• China: First out of the gate
• The developing world: Roadblocks to blockchain

Chapter 14: Insurance

• Precisely Tailoring Coverage
• Insuring the individual
• The new world of micro insurance
• Witnessing for You: The Internet of Things
• IoT projects in insurance
• Implications of actionable big data
• Taking Out the Third Party in Insurance
• Decentralized security
• Crowdfunded coverage
• The implications of DAO insurance

Chapter 15: Government

• The Smart Cities of Asia
• Singapore satellite cities in India
• China's big data problem
• The Battle for the Financial Capital of the World
• London's early foresight
• The regulatory sandbox of Singapore
• The Dubai 2020 initiative
• Bitlicense regulatory framework: New York City
• Friendly legal structure of Malta
• Securing the World's Borders
• The Department of Homeland Security and the identity of things
• Passports of the future
• The new feeder document

Chapter 16: Other Industries

• Lean Governments
• Singapore's Smart Nation project
• Estonia's e-Residency
• Better notarization in China
• The Trust Layer for the Internet
• Spam-free email
• Owning your identity
• Oracle of the Blockchain
• Trusted authorship
• Intellectual property rights

Part 5: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten (or So) Free Blockchain Resources

• Ethereum
• DigiKnow
• Blockchain University
• Bitcoin Core
• Blockchain Alliance
• Multichain Blog
• HiveMind
• Smith + Crown
• Unchained and Unconfirmed Podcasts

Chapter 18: The Ten Rules to Never Break on the Blockchain

• Don't Use Cryptocurrency or Blockchains to Skirt the Law
• Keep Your Contracts as Simple as Possible
• Publish with Great Caution
• Back Up, Back Up, Back Up Your Private Keys
• Triple-Check the Address Before Sending Currency
• Take Care When Using Exchanges
• Beware Wi-Fi
• Identify Your Blockchain Dev
• Don't Get Suckered
• Don't Trade Tokens Unless You Know What You're Doing

Chapter 19: Ten Top Blockchain Projects

• The R3 Consortium
• T ZERO: Overstocking the Stock Market
• Blockstream's Distributed Systems
• MadHive
• Blockdaemon
• Gemini Dollar and Exchange
• Decentraland
• TransferWise
• Lightning Network
• Bitcoin Cash

Index