Decentralization

dapp, decentralized app

https://www.blockaid.io

Blockchain

https://etherscan.io https://goerli.etherscan.io

OpenZeppelin

Think of blockchains as a ledger or record book

A proof of ledger even

Immutable ledger

So BTC would be proof of payment

Distributed P2P network

Byzantine Fault Tolerance

consensus protocol

orphaned blocks

Cryptocurrency

Ecosystem includes: nodes, miners, mines, mining pools

proof-of-work (POW), used by BTC

proof-of-stake (POS), used by ETH (or currently at POW and plans to move to POS)

field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)

ICO initial coin offering

  • Bitcoin can process about 7 tps (transaction per second)
  • Ethereum can process aorund 15-30 tps
  • PayPal’s tps is 193
  • Visa is 1,700 tps

So scalability is an issue

Bitcoin (BTC)

first cryptocurrency

invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, released in around 2008

limited supply of 21 million coins

Bitcoin’s Monetary Policy - halving, block frequency

Ethreum (ETH)

focuses on smart contracts

Ethereum 2.0 was built to reduce energy consumption and increase transaction speed

Ether.js

Hardhat, development environment, deployment tool

Polygon / Matic Network

https://polygonscan.com

MATIC

Finality variant ensures that once a transaction is confirmed, it cannot be altered or reversed

Others

  • Solana (SOL)
  • Ripple (XRP)
  • Cardano (ADA)
  • Dogecoin (DOGE)
  • USD Coin (USDC), stablecoin, always worth $1

Polygon can compete and complement Ethereum

Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

“People Are Spending Millions of Dollars on Loot for Games That Don’t Exist”

https://mintofdestiny.xyz

ERC-721, this means each token is unique, represents different assets with distinct values

OpenSea

NFT is just a digital asset

NFTs are unique and not interchangeable

Think collectibles, art, etc. Any unique item where each token has a different identifier and metadata

Smart Contracts

Solidity

Libra

Tokenization

real world assets (RWAs)

apparently BlackRock and Fidelity (along with startups like Tzero, Securitize, and Polymath) are using blockchaint to tokenize assets

physical asset oracle problem / blockchain oracle problem

“If Alice tokenizes her car, and Bob buys the token; how can Bob be sure he will receive the car?”

Fungible

ERC-20

Fungible tokens are identical and interchangeable

Versatile

ERC-1155

Supports both non-fungible and fungible tokens within the same contract

A single contract to handle multiple token types

Think games

Mining

To mine, you need: hardware, software, wallet (hardware or software)

CPUs vs GPUs vs ASICs (application-specific integrated circuit)

Nonce

Golden nonce

Nonce range

Picking transactions

Mempools

Wallets

MetaMask

good for ETH