Introducing Ethereum and Solidity: Foundations of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Programming for Beginners

352 Pages·2017·2.76 MB·English

by  Chris Dannen [Chris Dannen]

Chris Dannen
Introducing Ethereum and
Solidity
Foundations of Cryptocurrency and
Blockchain Programming for
Beginners
Chris Dannen
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced
by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via
the book’s product page, located at
www.apress.com/9781484225349 . For more detailed information, please visit
http://www.apress.com/source-code .
ISBN 978-1-48422534-9
e-ISBN 978-1-4842-2535-6
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2535-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936045
© Chris Dannen 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by
the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting,
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now known or hereafter developed.
Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this
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even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an
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proprietary rights.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to
be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the
authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal
responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made.
The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein.
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Many thanks to Brandon Buchanan, Christopher McClellan,
Dr. Solomon Lederer, and the entire Iterative Instinct team for
their support and enthusiasm. Thanks also to Joseph Lubin
and the team at ConsenSys for acting as a sounding board
during the writing of this book .
Contents
1. Chapter 1: Bridging the Blockchain Knowledge Gap
1. Blockchain Roll Call!
2. What Ethereum Does
3. Three Parts of a Blockchain
1. Ethereum Assumes Many Chains
2. This Is a Scam, Just Like Bitcoin!
4. Ether as a Currency and Commodity
1. Gresham’s Law
2. The Path to Better Money
3. Cryptoeconomics and Security
4. Back to the Good Old Days
5. Cryptochaos
5. The Power Is in the Protocol
1. You Can Build Trustless Systems
6. What Smart Contracts (Really) Do
1. Objects and Methods for Value
2. Just Add Commerce
3. Content Creation
7. Where’s the Data?
1. What Is Mining?
2. Ether and Electricity Prices
8. Going Inside the EVM
1. The Mist Browser
2. Browser vs. Wallet or Keychain
3. Solidity Is Kind of Like JavaScript, But …
9. What Ethereum Is Good For
1. A Critical Take
2. State of Smart Contract Development Today
10. Deciding Where You Fit In
1. A Note to New Programmers
2. Ethereum Is Free and Open Source
11. The EVM Is Here to Stay
12. What You Can Build Today
1. Private and Public Chains
2. The Promise of Decentralized Databases
3. What’s Next: New Ways of Working
13. Summary
2. Chapter 2: The Mist Browser
1. Wallets as a Computing Metaphor
1. Your Address Is What?
2. Where Is My Ether?
2. The Bank Teller Metaphor
1. In Cryptocurrency, You Hold Your Own Assets
2. Visualizing Ethereum Transactions
3. Breaking with Banking History
4. How Encryption Leads to Trust
5. System Requirements
1. More about Eth.guide and This Book
2. Tools for Developers
3. CLI Nodes
6. Recommended: Using Parity with Geth
7. Finally, into the Mist!
1. Downloading and Installing Mist
2. Configuring Mist
3. Finding Your New Address
4. Sending and Receiving Ether
5. Understanding Ethereum Account Types
6. Backing Up and Restoring Your Keys
7. Using Paper Wallets
8. Using Mobile Wallets
9. Working with Messages and Transactions
8. So, What Is a Blockchain?
1. Paying for Transactions
2. Understanding Denominations
3. Getting Ether
9. Anonymity in Cryptocurrency
1. Blockchain Explorers
10. Summary
3. Chapter 3: The EVM
1. The Central Bank Network of Yesterday
2. What are Virtual Machines, Exactly?
1. The Role of the Ethereum Protocol in Banking
2. Anyone Can Make a Banking Platform
3. What the EVM Does
4. EVM Applications Are Called Smart Contracts
1. The Name “Smart Contracts”
2. The EVM Runs Bytecode
5. Understanding State Machines
1. Digital vs. Analog
2. “Statements”
3. Data’s Role in State
6. How the Guts of the EVM Work
1. The EVM Constantly Checks for Transactions
2. Creating a Common Machine Narrative of What Happened
3. Cryptographic Hashing
4. What Hash Functions (or Hash Algorithms) Do
7. Blocks: The History of State Changes
1. Understanding Block Time
2. The Drawbacks of Short Blocks
3. “Solo Node” Blockchain
4. Distributed Security
8. Mining’s Place in the State Transition Function
9. Renting Time on the EVM
10. Hello, Gas
1. Why Is Gas So Important?
2. Why Isn’t Gas Priced in Ether?
3. Fees as Regulation
11. Working with Gas
1. Gas Specifics
2. How Gas Relates to Scaling the System
12. Accounts, Transactions, and Messages
1. Externally Owned Accounts
2. Contract Accounts
13. Transactions and Messages
1. Characteristics of Transactions
2. Characteristics of Messages
14. Estimating Gas Fees for Operations
15. Opcodes in the EVM
16. Summary
4. Chapter 4: Solidity Programming
1. Primer
2. Global Banking Made (Almost) Real
1. Extra-Large Infrastructure
2. Worldwide Currency?
3. Complementary Currency
1. The Promise of Solidity
2. Browser Compiler
4. Learning to Program the EVM
1. Easy Deployment
2. The Case for Writing Business Logic in Solidity
3. Code, Deploy, Relax
5. Design Rationale
1. Writing Loops in Solidity
2. Expressiveness and Security
6. The Importance of Formal Proofs
1. Historical Impact of a Shared Global Resource
2. How Attackers Bring Down Communities
3. Hypothetical Attack Written in Solidity
7. Automated Proofs to the Rescue?
1. Determinism in Practice
2. Lost in Translation
8. Testing, Testing, Testing
1. Command Line Optional!
9. Formatting Solidity Files
10. Tips for Reading Code
11. Statements and Expressions in Solidity
1. What Is an Expression?
2. What Is a Statement?
3. Functions, Public and Private
12. Value Types
1. Booleans
2. Signed and Unsigned Integers
3. Addresses
4. Members of Addresses
5. Address-Related Keywords
6. Less-Common Value Types
7. Complex (Reference) Types
13. Global Special Variables, Units, and Functions
1. Block and Transaction Properties
2. Operators Cheat Sheet
3. Global Functions
4. Exceptions and Inheritance
14. Summary
5. Chapter 5: Smart Contracts and Tokens
1. EVM as Back End
1. Smart Contracts to Dapps
2. Assets Backed by Anything
1. Bartering with Fiat Currency
2. Ether as Glass Beads
3. Cryptocurrency Is a Measure of Time
1. Asset Ownership and Civilization
2. Coins are Collectibles