Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Decentralized Applications and beyond.

The need for blockchain. What exactly is blockchain? How is the blockchain implemented? Mining, Consensus, Rewards and decentralization. Application of blockchain, problems to blockchain.

Transcript

1. Blockchain Blockchain Understanding blockchain technologies from scratch. By Satwik Kansal (https://satwikkansal.xyz)
2. A humble question How many of you have tried to learn blockchain in the past and found it to be a complicated and confusing technology?
3. Purpose of the session...
4. Blockchain is a very simple concept on it’s own. In the following slides, we’ll - Understand the “need” of blockchain - Learn how blockchain works interactively - See some real word applications and technology advancements.
5. The present world we live in...
6. Current state of internet-based apps - An integral part of our lives - Immense improvement in the past 10 years (BFC) However, there are problems - Too many middle-men - Black box operation of the apps - It’s centralized and concentrated!
7. So most of the apps run on “trust”.
8. But Satoshi had an
9. Enter Bitcoin! - Whitepaper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - No need to trust a centralized authority (like banks) to make payments. - Combination of cryptography, peer-to-peer networks and several other concepts from the past to achieve all this. - The data was stored in a thing called “blockchain”
10. What banks primarily do? - Maintain a record of transactions Bitcoin, did exactly this! And in a transparent and automated fashion!
11. Okay enough, but what exactly is this “Blockchain”?
12. Highest level definition of blockchain - It’s a way to store data. - The data can literally be anything! - In Bitcoin’s case, the data was “who paid how much to whom”, but it can even be virtual cats. - Blockchain offers highly desirable characteristics - Immutability - Un-hackablity - Persistence
13. Tell me how blockchain is implemented!
14. Blockchain is a “glorified” linked list!
15. Linking via hashes in the blockchain
16. Hash function The characteristics of an ideal hash function are: • Easily computed • High degree of randomness • Not reversible
17. What hashing and linking does? - Hashes serve as “fingerprint” of data. - It enables us to - Detect modifications to the data - Make hacker do extra work if he intends to manipulate the data. But guess what?, there’s a problem :(
18. Making the “extra work” difficult - a.k.a Proof of work. - Adding constraints to acceptable block hashes. - Let’s see “Hashcash” with a live example.
20. Uh, wait! There is still a problem.
21. Beyond blockchain
22. Enter Decentralization Peer-to-Peer Client-server (centralized)
24. Immutability Un-hackablity Persistence Elimination of “trust”? Summing up till now
25. Concerns with Bitcoin - 51% attack - Network congestion - High fees - Energy sustainability - Quantum attacks - Limited application (payments, and storage of wealth)
26. Technological Advancements: Smart contracts It became possible to entirely automate the processes of trust like voting, maintaining ownership of an asset (car, property, posts, etc), replacing intermediaries with automatically executing pieces of code.
27. Smart Contracts example
28. Blockchain 3.0: Other Technological Advancements • Smart contracts • Proof of Stake • Block-DAGs • Permissioned chains • Gossip protocol and the quest continues...
29. Blockchain 3.0: A promising future? - Governance through blockchain (DecisionToken) - Digital identity (Civic Platform) - Supply chain management (Modum) - Renewable Energy Trading (Power Ledger) - Distributed computation (GridCoin, Golem Network) - Distributed storage (StorJ)
30. A few roadblocks, however - Regulations? Good or bad? - Threat to centralization - Wide adoption - Solutions looking for problems - INSANITY! (Shitcoins, shilling, FOMO and FUD)
31. Developing stuff with blockchain - Shameless Plug: Implementing a blockchain app from scratch in Python https://github.com/satwikkansal/ibm_blockchain OLIDITY Serpent Lisp Like Language
32. Thank you! A bit more about me... - Freelance Developer (Data Science and Blockchain Technologies) - Author, IBM developerWorks, "What the f*ck Python?" - GSoC 17 student, GCI 17 and GSoC 18 mentor - Rank 1 Github python developer in India satwikkansal@gmail.com Handle: @satwikkansal