Author Profile

Steven Farrell is Professor of Statistics and Computer Science at UC Berkeley and Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind. At Berkeley, he is the Machine Learning Research Director at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, Director of the Foundations of Data Science Institute, and Director of the Collaboration on the Theoretical Foundations of Deep Learning, and he has served as Associate Director of the Simons Institute. He is President of the Association for Computational Learning, Honorary Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the Australian National University. He was awarded the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year in Australia in 2001, was chosen as an Institute of Mathematical Statistics Medallion Lecturer in 2008, an IMS Fellow and Australian Laureate Fellow in 2011, a Fellow of the ACM in 2018, and recipient of the Chancellor's Distinguished Service Award in 2023. He was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2015. Steve is a Machine Learning Engineer in the Data and Analytics Services group at NERSC. He supports machine learning and deep learning workflows on the NERSC supercomputers and collaborates with scientists for applied ML research.

About The Book

The best way to explain blockchain is to break it down into its basic components. We define components as the applied technologies and concepts which are either standalone technologies or concepts in computer science, which have been researched for decades in contexts other than blockchain. We identify technical and mathematical components as well as economic, political and social concepts, which are intertwined to facilitate blockchains' functionalities. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the applied technologies and concepts and an understanding of how they are combined. The blockchain has received a lot of attention in the public discussion and in the media. Some enthusiasts claim that the blockchain is the biggest invention since the emergence of the Internet. Hence, a lot of books and articles have been written in the past few years about the blockchain. However, if you want to learn more about how the blockchain works, you may find yourself lost in a universe of books that either quickly skim over the technical details or that discuss the underlying technical concepts at a highly formal level. The former may leave you unsatisfied because they miss to explain the technical details necessary to understand and appreciate the blockchain, while the latter may leave you unsatisfied because they already require the knowledge you want to acquire. This book is written because a conceptual understanding of the technical foundations of the blockchain is necessary in order to understand specific blockchain applications, evaluate business cases of blockchain startups, or follow the discussion about its expected economic impacts. Without an appreciation of the underlying concepts, it will be impossible to assess the value or the potential impact of the blockchain in general or understand the added value of specific blockchain applications. This book focuses on the underlying concepts of the blockchain since a lack of understanding of a new technology can lead to being carried away with the hype and being disappointed later on because of unrealistic unsubstantiated expectations. The book teaches the concepts that make up the blockchain in a nontechnical fashion and in a concise and comprehensible way. It addresses the three big questions that arise when being introduced to a new technology: What is it? Why do we need it? How does it work? This book presents a detailed exploration of adaption and implementation, as well as a 360-degree view spectrum of blockchain technologies in real-world business applications. Blockchain is gaining momentum in all sectors. This book offers a collection of protocol standards, issues, security improvements, applicability, features, and types of cryptocurrency in processing and through 5G technology. This book fills the gap that exists between purely technical books about the blockchain, on the one hand, and the literature that is mostly concerned with specific applications or discussions about its expected economic impact or visions about its future, on the other hand.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. FUNDAMENTALS OF BLOCKCHAIN
2. BLOCKCHAIN TYPES AND CONSENSUS MECHANISM
3. CRYPTOCURRENCY – BITCOIN, ALTCOIN AND TOKEN
4. PUBLIC BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEM
5. SMART CONTRACTS
6. PRIVATE BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEM
7. CONSORTIUM BLOCKCHAIN
8. INITIAL COIN OFFERING (ICO)
9. SECURITY IN BLOCKCHAIN
10. APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN
Bibliography
Index