Presenter Abhiram Ravikumar
- What is block chain?
- Peer to peer protocol
- Transactions recorded in blocks, chain of blocks
- Each block has pointer to previous block’s hash, so can’t change a block without changing all subsequent blocks in the chain.
- Mining is process of validating blocks of transactions
- Each node in network has copy of decentralized ledger
- Bitcoin this is only transactions of bitcoins, but can be anything
- Reviewed Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference
- -from ethereum’s webite
- Unlike bitcoin smart contracts allow ledger for ethereum to apply to whatever smart contracts are created
- Ether is unit of transactions, like bitcoin. When offer a transaction apply ‘gas’ or amount of ether it pays. More ether, more quickly it is processed
- Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference
- We then used an ubuntu VM to run mock ethereum block chain and build a small node based voting application over it.
- Interesting link about apps build using block chain: https://www.stateofthedapps.com/
Parting Thoughts
Didn’t pickup much more than I already knew about bitcoin, but had never seen ethereum before so that was enlightening. Had fun monkeying around with node on ubuntu and do have a better clue as to what block chain provides beyond bitcoin.