You're reading from Blockchain Quick Reference

Product typeBook

Published inAug 2018

Reading LevelIntermediate

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781788995788

Edition1st Edition

Languages

Solidity

Tools

Ethereum

Concepts

Blockchain

Authors (4):

Mariko Amekodommo

Brenn Hill

Samanyu Chopra

Paul Valencourt

View More author details

Ethereum 101

In the previous chapters, we have studied in detail blockchain, Bitcoin, alternative cryptocurrencies, and crypto wallets. We discussed blockchain usage and benefits in not only currency-based applications, but other similar areas. We also discussed how Bitcoin has changed the landscape of blockchain usage for monetary benefits and how it has shaped the global economy.

In this chapter, we will be studying Ethereum blockchain in depth. It is currently the largest community-backed blockchain project, second to Bitcoin, with supporters and various projects and tokens running on top of it. In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:

Ethereum accounts
Ethereum network
Ethereum clients, such as Geth
Execution environment for Ethereum blockchain projects
Ethereum block
Ethereum virtual machine
Using gas in an Ethereum transaction
Ether and Ether procurement methods...

Introducing Ethereum

Ethereum is a blockchain-based system with special scripting functionality that allows other developers to build decentralized and distributed applications on top of it. Ethereum is mostly known among developers for the easy development of decentralized applications. There are differences between Ethereum and blockchain. The most important difference is that Ethereum blockchain can run most decentralized applications.

Ethereum was conceptualized in late 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, cryptocurrency researcher and developer. It was funded by a crowd sale between July and August 2014. Ethereum has built in Turing, a complete programming language, that is, a programming language meant to solve any computation complexity. This programming language is known as Solidity and is used to create contracts that help in creating decentralized applications on top of Ethereum...

Components of Ethereum

Let's discuss some general components of Ethereum, its primary currency, network, and other details. This will help in understanding Ethereum in a much better way and also help us see how it is different to Bitcoin and why it has a huge community, currently making it the most important cryptocurrency and blockchain project, second only to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Ethereum accounts

Ethereum accounts play a prime role in the Ethereum blockchain. These accounts contain the wallet address as well as other details. There are two types of accounts: Externally Owned Accounts (EOA), which are controlled by private keys, and Contract Accounts, which are controlled by their contract code.

EOAs are similar...

Ether

Ether is the main cryptocurrency associated with the Ethereum blockchain; each of the contract accounts can create their own currency, but Ether is used within the Ethereum blockchain to pay for the execution of the contracts on the EVM. Ether is used for purchasing gas, and the smallest unit of Ether is used as the unit of gas.

Since Wei is the smallest unit of Wei, here is a table, listing the denominations and the name commonly used for them, along with the associated value:

Procuring ether

There are various ways by which Ether can be procured for trading, building smart contracts, or decentralized applications:

Mining of Ethers, by either joining a mining pool or doing solo mining
Trade using a crypto exchange...

Summary

In this chapter, we discussed various components of Ethereum, its execution, network, and accounts, and there was a detailed study of Ethereum's clients. We also discussed gas and EVM, including its environment and how an execution process works. Finally, we discussed the Ethereum block and its block header, the Ethereum algorithm, and the procurement of ether.

In the next chapter, we will learn about Solidity, the official and standard language for contract writing on Ethereum blockchain. Learning about Solidity will help us gain a better understanding of smart contract development and deployment.

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Authors (4)

Mariko Amekodommo

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