The Science of the Blockchain

Download or read book The Science of the Blockchain written by Roger Wattenhofer and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FinTech developers and managers understand that the blockchain has the potential to disrupt the financial world. The blockchain allows the participants of a distributed system to agree on a common view of the system, to track changes in the system, in a reliable way. In the distributed systems community, agreement techniques have been known long before cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (where the term blockchain is borrowed) emerged. Various concepts and protocols exist, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. This book introduces the basic techniques when building fault-tolerant distributed systems, in a scientific way. We will present different protocols and algorithms that allow for fault-tolerant operation, and we will discuss practical systems that implement these techniques.