What this book covers

Chapter 1, Blockchain Architecture, covers basic blockchain knowledge, which is essential before starting to make sure we understand the requirements that will be used across the book. We will cover the history of Ethereum from the beginning and end up in more complicated topics regarding development.

Chapter 2, Ethereum Ecosystems, shows us the infrastructure and setup of a blockchain. We will conduct a deeper analysis on how blockchains work so that we understand the entire ecosystem. We will also learn about the Ethereum components and their various implementations.

Chapter 3, Ethereum Assets, shows us how to configure and work with various implementations of the Ethereum protocol before developing applications in it. There are several flavors, which can be used interchangeably for development, testing, and deployment. Later, we will look at the Modified Ghost implementation, computation, and Turing completeness to understand the Ethereum workflow better. It is also important to understand and use the tools and services in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Chapter 4, Mastering Smart Contracts, teaches us advanced smart contracts that go beyond normal use cases. It is useful because it will help us understand advanced techniques, methods, and tools to improve our Solidity and Vyper coding skills in order to create powerful smart contracts that scale.

Chapter 5, Mastering dApps, introduces you to the decentralized app (dApp) architecture and its building blocks. Then we will create one dApp step by step from scratch, from a blank application to writing smart contracts, creating crypto wallets, and unit testing them. We will show you how to create specialized UIs for these apps. We will also show you how to use other testing services, such as Truffle, to build seamless dApps. We will then show you how to deploy your apps on multiple Ethereum instances, such as testrpc, private chain, test chain, and main net.

Chapter 6, Tools, Frameworks, Components, and Services, introduces us to several important tools available for Ethereum developers to create powerful dApps and smart contracts that scale and that are secure enough to serve millions of potential users.

Chapter 7, Deployment on Testnet,  shows us how to deploy our blockchain applications on testnet. Ethereum blockchain applications can be deployed on Rinkeby-testnet. Testnet provides test gathers, with which developers can test all smart contracts and the behavior of dApps. Gas calculation and other factors can be tested on testnet.

Chapter 8, Various dApps Integrations, moves ahead and shows you how to create more efficient dApps with workflows that will help us to develop code more quickly and safely. We will understand all the aspects related to decentralized web app development including web client code using React; backend code with Node.js, Solidity, or Vyper; and using web3.js for dApp communication.

Chapter 9, Decentralized Exchanges Workflow, shows you how to create complex decentralized exchanges (DAXs) by understanding the intricacies of such complex systems in an easy-to-assimilate language that covers each section in great detail.

Chapter 10, Machine Learning on the Ethereum Blockchain, uses the smart contract in blockchains to automatically validate the solution, so there will be no debate about whether the solution was correct or not. Users who submit the solutions won't have counterparty risk that they won't get paid for their work. Contracts can be created easily by anyone with a dataset, even programmatically by software agents.

Chapter 11, Creating a Blockchain-Based Social Media Platform, goes through the steps required to create a solid decentralized social media platform that uses Swarm for distributed storage of resources, such as videos, while leveraging the trustless nature of the blockchain to guarantee the privacy of each individual.

Chapter 12, Creating a Blockchain-Based E-Commerce Marketplace, goes through the steps required to set up a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, renting, and exchanging goods, similar to OpenBazaar. We will be build a unique marketplace with scalability in mind.

Chapter 13, Creating a Decentralized Bank and Lending Platform, creates a decentralized bank that uses Ethereum for managing and storing crypto in a safe environment. We will use cold storage for added security and lending systems with collateral default protections in place. This is an online chapter and can be found at the following link: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Creating_a_Decentralized_Bank_and_Lending_Platform.pdf.