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 12 The Blockchain Life Cycle 12 Consensus: The Driving Force of Blockchains 13 Blockchains in Use 15 Current blockchain uses 16 Future blockchain applications 16 Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain 19 Where Blockchains Add Substance 19 Determining your needs 20 Defining your goal 21 Choosing a Solution 22 Drawing a blockchain decision tree 23 Making a plan 24 Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain 27 Diving into Blockchain Technology 28 Creating a secure environment 28 Buying your first Bitcoin 31 Securing and Exchanging Your Cryptocurrency 32 Downloading Jaxx 33 Securing your Jaxx wallet 33 Transferring Bitcoin to Jaxx 34 Trading Bitcoin for Ether 35 Loading up your MetaMask account 35 Setting up a CryptoKitties account 36 Building a Private Blockchain with Docker and Ethereum 38 Preparing your computer 39 Building your blockchain 41 Part 2: Developing Your Knowledge 43 Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain 45 Getting a Brief History of the Bitcoin Blockchain 46 The New Bitcoin: Bitcoin Cash 48 Debunking Some Common Bitcoin Misconceptions 50 Bitcoin: The New Wild West 51 Fake sites 52 No, you first! 52 Get-rich-quick schemes 52 Mining for Bitcoins 53 Making Your First Paper Wallet 54 Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain 57 Exploring the Brief History of Ethereum 58 Ethereum: The Open-Source World Wide Computer 59 Decentralized applications: Welcome to the future 60 The power of decentralized autonomous organizations 61 Hacking a Blockchain 64 Understanding smart contracts 64 Discovering the cryptocurrency Ether 65 Getting Up and Running on Ethereum 65 Mining for ether 66 Setting up your Ethereum wallet 66 Building Your First Decentralized Autonomous Organization 67 Test net and congress 68 Governance and voting 69 Uncovering the Future of DAOs 69 Putting money in a DAO 70 Building smarter smart contracts 70 Finding bugs in the system 71 Creating Your Own ERC20 Tokens 71 Seeing up your GitHub account 71 Requesting KETH on the Gitter Faucet 72 Creating your tokens 73 Chapter 6: Riding the Waves Blockchain 77 Seeing How the Waves Blockchain Differs from Other Blockchains 78 Unleashing the Full Power of Waves 79 Setting up your Waves wallet 80 Backing up your wallet 80 Uncovering Your Wallet’s Features 81 Transferring crypto assets 82 Using a decentralized exchange 82 Creating and Leasing Out Your Own Cryptocurrency 85 Chapter 7: Finding the Factom Blockchain 87 A Matter of Trust 88 The purpose of the Factom blockchain: Publishing anything 89 Incentives of federation 90 Building on Factom 93 Authenticating documents and building identities using APIs 93 Getting to know the Factoid: Not a normal cryptocurrency 93 Anchoring your application 94 Publishing on Factom 94 Building transparency in the mortgage industry 96 Verifying physical documents: dLoc with Factom 98 Chapter 8: Examining the EOS Blockchain 101 Getting Familiar with EOS 102 New mining versus old mining 104 The 21 block producers 104 Setting Up EOS Voting for Block Producers 105 Setting up the Greymass voting tool 106 Voting for a block producer 107 Introducing the EOS Decentralized Application Collection 108 Everipedia: The next-generation encyclopedia 108 Decentralized EOS games 109 Part 3: Powerful Blockchain Platforms 111 Chapter 9: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger 113 Getting to Know Hyperledger 114 Identifying Key Hyperledger Projects 115 Focusing on Fabric 115 Investigating the Iroha project 115 Diving into Sawtooth Lake 117 Building Your System in Fabric 119 Building asset tracking with Hyperledger Composer 119 Working with Smart Contracts on Hyperledger 123 Step 1: Setting up an auction network 123 Step 2: Setting up auction windows 124 Step 3: Creating an auctioneer 124 Step 4: Creating two participants 124 Step 5: Creating a new asset 125 Step 6: Creating a new listing 126 Step 7: Auctioning off the car 127 Step 8: Closing your auction 128 Chapter 10: Applying Microsoft Azure 129 Bletchley: The Modular Blockchain Fabric 129 Cryptlets for encrypting and authenticating 130 Utility and Contract Cryptlets and CrytoDelegates 132 Building in the Azure Ecosystem 133 Getting Started with Chain on Azure 135 Installing Chain’s distributed ledger 135 Creating your own private network 135 Using financial services on Azure’s Chain 136 Deploying Blockchain Tools on Azure 136 Exploring Ethereum on Azure 137 Cortana: Your analytics machine learning tool 137 Visualizing your data with Power BI 138 Managing your access on Azure’s Active Directory 138 Chapter 11: Getting Busy on IBM Bluemix 139 Business Blockchain on Bluemix 140 Your isolated environment 140 Bluemix use cases 141 Watson’s Smart Blockchain 142 Building Your Starter Network on Big Blue 144 Part 4: Industry Impacts 147 Chapter 12: Financial Technology 149 Hauling Out Your Crystal Ball: Future Banking Trends 149 Moving money faster: Across borders and more 151 Creating permanent history 152 Going International: Global Financial Products 153 Border-free payroll 155 Faster and better trade 155 Guaranteed payments 156 Micropayments: The new nature of transactions 156 Squeezing Out Fraud 157 Chapter 13: Real Estate 159 Eliminating Title Insurance 160 Protected industries 160 Consumers and Fannie Mae 162 Mortgages in the Blockchain World 162 Reducing your origination costs 163 Knowing your last-known document 163 Forecasting Regional Trends 164 The United States and Europe: Infrastructure congestion 165 China: First out of the gate 166 The developing world: Roadblocks to blockchain 166 Chapter 14: Insurance 169 Precisely Tailoring Coverage 169 Insuring the individual 170 The new world of micro insurance 171 Witnessing for You: The Internet of Things 172 IoT projects in insurance 173 Implications of actionable big data 173 Taking Out the Third Party in Insurance 174 Decentralized security 174 Crowdfunded coverage 175 The implications of DAO insurance 175 Chapter 15: Government 177 The Smart Cities of Asia 177 Singapore satellite cities in India 179 China’s big data problem 180 The Battle for the Financial Capital of the World 181 London’s early foresight 182 The regulatory sandbox of Singapore 183 The Dubai 2020 initiative 184 Bitlicense regulatory framework: New York City 185 Friendly legal structure of Malta 186 Securing the World’s Borders 187 The Department of Homeland Security and the identity of things 188 Passports of the future 188 The new feeder document 188 Chapter 16: Other Industries 191 Lean Governments 191 Singapore’s Smart Nation project 192 Estonia’s e-Residency 193 Better notarization in China 194 The Trust Layer for the Internet 194 Spam-free email 195 Owning your identity 196 Oracle of the Blockchain 196 Trusted authorship 197 Intellectual property rights 197 Part 5: The Part of Tens 199 Chapter 17: Ten (or So) Free Blockchain Resources 201 Ethereum 201 DigiKnow 202 Blockchain University 202 Bitcoin Core 202 Blockchain Alliance 202 Multichain Blog 203 HiveMind 203 Smith + Crown 204 Unchained and Unconfirmed Podcasts 204 Chapter 18: The Ten Rules to Never Break on the Blockchain 205 Don’t Use Cryptocurrency or Blockchains to Skirt the Law 205 Keep Your Contracts as Simple as Possible 206 Publish with Great Caution 207 Back Up, Back Up, Back Up Your Private Keys 207 Triple-Check the Address Before Sending Currency 209 Take Care When Using Exchanges 209 Beware Wi-Fi 210 Identify Your Blockchain Dev 210 Don’t Get Suckered 210 Don’t Trade Tokens Unless You Know What You’re Doing 211 Chapter 19: Ten Top Blockchain Projects 213 The R3 Consortium 213 T ZERO: Overstocking the Stock Market 215 Blockstream’s Distributed Systems 215 MadHive 216 Blockdaemon 217 Gemini Dollar and Exchange 217 Decentraland 218 TransferWise 218 Lightning Network 219 Bitcoin Cash 219 Index 221

Get a clear picture of what a blockchain can doLearn how blockchains rule cryptocurrencyDiscover how current blockchains operate Understand how blockchains are changing technology Blockchain is the techno-magic that enables cryptocurrencies and impacts the worlds of finance, insurance, supply chain management, and others. But you don't need to be a programmer or financial wizard to understand blockchain; you just need this book! It explains blockchain basics, smart contracts, and cryptocurrencies, with real-world examples showing how blockchains function and where they add value. Learn how to interact with a blockchain, tour key blockchains, see how they disrupt huge industries, and much more. Inside... Blockchain definedChoose the right blockchainTest blockchain appsGet to know current blockchain platformsHow blockchain enhances securityThe impact of blockchain on industries

Introduction 1 Part 1: Getting Started with Blockchain 5 Chapter 1: Introducing Blockchain 7 Chapter 2: Picking a Blockchain 19 Chapter 3: Getting Your Hands on Blockchain 27 Part 2: Developing Your Knowledge 43 Chapter 4: Beholding the Bitcoin Blockchain 45 Chapter 5: Encountering the Ethereum Blockchain 57 Chapter 6: Riding the Waves Blockchain 77 Chapter 7: Finding the Factom Blockchain 87 Chapter 8: Examining the EOS Blockchain 101 Part 3: Powerful Blockchain Platforms 111 Chapter 9: Getting Your Hands on Hyperledger 113 Chapter 10: Applying Microsoft Azure 129 Chapter 11: Getting Busy on IBM Bluemix 139 Part 4: Industry Impacts 147 Chapter 12: Financial Technology 149 Chapter 13: Real Estate 159 Chapter 14: Insurance 169 Chapter 15: Government 177 Chapter 16: Other Industries 191 Part 5: The Part of Tens 199 Chapter 17: Ten (Or So) Free Blockchain Resources 201 Chapter 18: The Ten Rules to Never Break on the Blockchain 205 Chapter 19: Ten Top Blockchain Projects 213 Index 221