A developer's guide to Ethereum

A Developer's Guide to Ethereum

Notice of Rights

Notice of Liability

Trademark Notice

About SitePoint

Preface

Who Should Read This Book?

Conventions Used

Chapter 1: Blockchain: What It Is, How It Works, Why It's So Popular

Mario and Luigi

Papers

Seals and Mining

Conclusion

What Next?

Chapter 2: What is a Bitcoin Node? Mining versus Validation

Validation Nodes

Mining Nodes

Conclusion

Chapter 3: How the Lightning Network Helps Blockchains Scale

The Basics of the Lightning Network

How the Lightning Network Works

Network and Routing

Conclusion

Chapter 4: The Top Nine Uses for Blockchain

1. Financial Freedom

2. Decentralized Data

3. Decentralized Internet and Chat

4. Immutable Records

5. Automation of Civilization

6. Democracy (Voting)

7. Loyalty Points

8. Royalty and Proof-of-authorship

9. Company Management

Bonus: Supply Chain

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Introduction to Ethereum: A Cryptocurrency with a Difference

Finality

Smart Contracts

What are ERC20 Tokens?

PoS

Conclusion

Chapter 6: A Deep Dive into Cryptography

Cryptography

Symmetric Encryption (with a Private Key)

Asymmetric Encryption (with a Public Key)

Asymmetric Encryption and Bitcoin

Conclusion

Chapter 7: 3 Bitcoin Alternatives Compared: Ethereum, Cardano and NEO

What is Ethereum?

What is Cardano?

What is NEO?

Conclusion

Chapter 8: Compiling and Smart Contracts: ABI Explained

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)

Solidity Compiler

ABI

Application Binary Interface

Example

Conclusion

Chapter 9: Ethereum Wallets: Send and Receive Ether with MyEtherWallet

Creating and Reading an Address

Receiving Ether

Sending Ether

Conclusion

Chapter 10: Ethereum: How Transaction Costs are Calculated

EVM

Gas, Ether, and GWei

Conclusion

Chapter 11: Proof of Stake vs Proof of Work

Proof of Work

Proof of Stake (PoS)

Delegated Proof of Stake (dPoS)

Proof of Authority

Conclusion

Chapter 12: Ethereum's Casper: Ghostbusting Proof of Stake Problems

Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Consensus Mechanisms

Ethereum Consensus Algorithms

Casper, the "Friendly Ghost"

Advantages of Proof Of Stake

Problems with PoS

Conclusion

Chapter 13: Decentralized Storage and Publication with IPFS and Swarm

Decentralized Storage and Publication

IPFS

Swarm

Commonalities

Conclusion

Chapter 14: Ethereum Messaging: Explaining Whisper and Status.im

Whisper

Protocol Elements

Status.im

The Ecosystem

Conclusion

Chapter 15: Ethereum: Internal Transactions & Token Transfers Explained

External and Internal Addresses

Transaction Types

Token Transfers

Conclusion

Chapter 16: BigchainDB: Blockchain and Data Storage

Other Alternatives

Part of a Decentralized Future