Blockchain Architecture

Blockchain architecture covers the fundamentals when it comes to understanding how the blockchain works internally. It is essential to be able to work on different projects that use different areas of Ethereum, because once you have a solid understanding about how everything works together, your mind will begin to see things differently. You will get a high-level overview of what happens in the blockchain when you use it and when you program for it. The moving parts of this complex ecosystem will begin to make so much sense once you go through this chapter, because you'll receive a high-level overview of how smart contracts work and how they are related to the underlying structure.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Beyond Ethereum
• The EEA
• Understanding the Ethereum blockchain
• A high-level overview of how smart contracts work
• Essential...

Beyond Ethereum

You probably understand what Ethereum is, but just to make sure that we are on the same page, it's important that you have some background knowledge about what Ethereum really is in order to progress further without too many distractions.

Explaining Ethereum

Ethereum is, first and foremost, a blockchain. Ethereum is a technology that runs on many computers and provides its consumers with a guarantee that they are trusting a solid system that will work as expected.

"Ethereum is the world computer."

-Vitalik Buterin

To learn more about the core Ethereum ideas, check their official website: https://ethereum.org.

A web of thousands of computers connected all over the world are called nodes and they...

The EEA

The EEA (entethalliance.org) is one of the most exciting projects being developed by the core Ethereum team, because they intend to help companies from all over the world to benefit from decentralized technology. By learning about this project, you'll be well positioned when it comes to working as an EEA expert.

In this section, we will cover the following topics:

• The EEA's vision
• The EEA membership
• The EEA architecture

Vitalik funded the organization because he received a huge demand from executives to create software that could be used in big companies to handle demanding dApps. Those companies now want to build a private version of Ethereum to fulfill their research and development needs.

What's interesting about this initiative is that they work with hundreds of companies to research and develop solutions that are shared across them. For instance,...

Understanding the Ethereum blockchain

The Ethereum blockchain is a complex system made of several important components that work together to achieve an impressive platform that everybody can use to create unstoppable applications. You'll learn the intricacies of the internal workings of the blockchain to gain a greater understanding about how it's made.

The reasoning behind a decentralized blockchain

At the most basic level, the Ethereum blockchain is a set of connected blocks that contain information that many nodes share so that there's an unchangeable data structure to keep information permanently. The goal of any blockchain is to preserve information without the possibility of changing it or deleting it...

Workings of smart contracts

Smart contracts are blockchain applications that can execute code and do a diverse variety of tasks. These are programs that the miners execute when mining blocks. They are secure and unstoppable agreements that are automatically executed and enforced. You are probably familiar with them, since this book is aimed at Ethereum developers; however, if you don't know how to use them or if you want to learn more about them, you can rest assured that you'll understand everything because of detailed explanations that you'll be given at the appropriate times.

Unlike traditional paper contracts, smart contracts don't have real-world legal consequences on Ethereum, and they can't be enforced by a legal entity when they break. Instead, they rely on the principle that code is law, which means that the code is the one governing the behaviors...

Essential smart contract programming

After understanding how smart contracts are created and where they integrate in the blockchain system, you will now get a more practical insight about how to create smart contracts using the two most popular languages for it—Solidity and Vyper.

Solidity

Solidity is the most advanced programming language created for developing smart contracts on the Ethereum network. Its syntax is similar to JavaScript, but with statically typed variables and functions. It provides simple features, such as functions, loops, and several types of variables, as well as complex functions, such as assembly, encryption functions, and signature verification systems.

It's been used in many projects,...

Summary

In this chapter, we started by getting a high-level overview of Ethereum's history to understand where it came from and where it's headed. Then, we moved to specific topics, such as the EEA, since it's great to know how the Ethereum technology is being applied in different real-world scenarios. After that, we covered many different topics regarding the specifics of the Ethereum blockchain to understand it more on a technical level that makes sense as a developer, since we'll be dealing with all aspects related to its blockchain. Next, we moved to more technical topics regarding smart contracts, since they are at the core of what an Ethereum developer does, so that you get a clear vision of how they are implemented in the grand scheme of things. Finally, we moved to essential smart contract programming with Solidity and Vyper to kick-start your understanding...