Blockchain Enabled Applications

Learn all about blockchain and its applications in cryptocurrency, healthcare, Internet of Things, finance, decentralized organizations, and more. Featuring case studies and practical insights, this book covers a unique mix of topics and offers insight into how to overcome hurdles that arise as the market and consumers grow accustomed to blockchain-based organizations and services.

The book is divided into three major sections. The first section provides a historical background to blockchain technology. You will start with a historical context to financial capital markets when Bitcoin was invented, followed by mining protocols, the need for consensus, hardware mining, etc. Next, a formal introduction to blockchain is provided covering transaction workflow, role of decentralized network, and payment verification. Then, we dive deep into a different implementation of a blockchain: Ethereum. The main technical features, such as Ethereum Virtual Machine, are presented along with the smart contract programming language, Solidity.

In this second section, you will look at some modern use cases for blockchain from a decentralized autonomous organization, high-performance computing in Ethereum and off-grid computations, and healthcare and scientific discovery. The final section of the book looks toward the future of blockchain. This is followed by chapters covering the rise of consortia in the blockchain world, the Hyperledger project, particularly the updates since 2018, and a chapter on educational blockchain games. This is followed by updates to EOS.IO, Chain Core, and Quorum, ICOs and a look at the major changes to financial markets brought about by blockchain and decentralized networks.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

* Get an overview of the popular games employed to teach the basic concepts of blockchain and decentralized networks
* Be familiar with the rise of blockchain consortiums as well as updates to Hyperledger Project, 2020
* Find out about cloud blockchains, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Webservices, and how to set up test environments
* Study machine learning integration in the blockchain and the role of smart contracts

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Blockchain developers interested in keeping up with the newest updates and students looking for a broad overview of this vast ecosystem, plus business executives who want to make informed product decisions about including blockchain as well as policy makers who want a better understanding of the current use cases

VIKRAM DHILLON is an internal medicine resident physician at Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center and a research fellow at the Institute of Simulation and Training, University of Central Florida (UFC). He holds a bachelor of science degree in molecular biology from the University of Central Florida where his main focus was bioinformatics, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, and a doctoral degree from Nova Southeastern University. He has published multiple scientific papers on computational genomics. He has worked as a software and business development coach at the Blackstone Launchpad to mentor young entrepreneurs and startups through the process of building technology products. He was previously funded by the National Science Foundation through the Innovation Corps program to study customer discovery and apply it to commercialize high-risk startup ideas. He is a member of the Linux Foundation and has been involved in open-source projects and initiatives for the past several years. He often speaks at local conferences and meetups about programming, design, security, and entrepreneurship.

DAVID METCALF is a serial entrepreneur who has launched multiple successful ventures and spinoff companies. He has reviewed thousands of emerging technology companies as an advisor and investor. He is the Director of the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab at UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. His past projects involving XR and IoT span across education, health, space, cyber, and transportation. Current efforts include smart cities, blockchain, and enterprise learning transformation for government and industry. He is the co-editor/author of Voice Technology in Healthcare (2020) and Blockchain in Healthcare (2019) as part of the HIMSS Emerging Technology Series, Blockchain Enabled Applications (2018), Connected Health (2017), HIMSS mHealth Innovation (2014), and the HIMSS best-seller mHealth: From Smartphones to Smart Systems (2012).

MAX HOOPER is the chief executive officer of Merging Traffic. He is responsible for the company’s management and growth strategy, serving as the corporate liaison to the financial services industry and various capital formation groups. Prior to starting the company, he was co-founder of Equity Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), a media company that owned and operated more than 100 television stations across the United States. He was responsible for activities in the cable, satellite, investment banking, and technology industries, and during his tenure, it grew to become one of the top 10 largest broadcasting companies in the country. He is a lifelong learner and has earned five doctorate degrees: PhD, DMin, PhD, ThD, and DMin from a variety of institutions. Hooper studied financial technology with cohorts at MIT, and cryptocurrency and business disruption with cohorts at the London School of Economics. As an avid runner, he has completed more than 100 marathons and an additional 20 ultra-marathons, which are 50- or 100-mile runs. He has completed the Grand Slam of Ultra Running. He is committed to his family and is a husband, father to five children, and grandfather to seven grandsons. He is active in many organizations and serves on various boards of directors. He works globally with several ministries and nonprofit aid groups and was honored to speak at the United Nations in New York in 2015.

CHAPTER 1: BEHOLD THE DEAMERS

Chapter Goal: Provide a backdrop for introducing blockhain and the basics of a decentralized app

Sub -Topics:

1. Financial crisis of 2008, the origins of bitcoin

2. Basics of private-public keys

3. What is a block, how is a block created

4. What's a blockchain-enabled application? What is a decentralized application?

CHAPTER 2: GOLD RUSH: MINING BITCOIN

Chapter Goal: Provide a technical introduction to mining and the mathematical background to hashes, block headers, and consensus

Sub -Topics:

1. Overview of mining, why is mining necessary for Bitcoin

2. What is consensus

3. Components of a block and a block header (mining components)

4. What are hashes and how are they used in Bitcoin

5. Hardware for mining (the gold rush part refers to the arms race that happened in hardware mining field).

CHAPTER 3: FOUNDATIONS OF A BLOCKCHAIN

Chapter Goal: Provide a technical introduction to transaction workflow, a blockchain network, simple payment verification, merkel roots, and block identifiers

Sub -Topics:

1. What is a block header (block identifiers)

2. How does the network participate

3. A transaction workflow

4. Unspent transaction outputs, transaction propagation

5. Simple payment verification

6. Merkel roots, blockchain forks

CHAPTER 4: UNPACKING ETHEREUM

Chapter Goal: Provide a technical introduction to Ethereum, the differences between a Bitcoin blockchain and Ethereum blockchain, internal states, Ethereum Virtual Machine, and dApps

Sub -Topics:

1. Overview of Ethereum

2. Proof of stake

3. Accounts and contract model in Ethereum

4. Global state, gas, internal storage

5. Ethereum Virtual Machine

6. Solidity programming language + Smart Contracts

7. World Computer Model and components

8. Blockchain as a service

9. Decentralized apps

10. Geth, Mist

CHAPTER 5: DECENTRALIZED ORGANIZATIONS (DAOS)

Chapter Goal: Provide a technical introduction to DAOs and Aragon for setting up a DAO, including updates to new implementations of decentralized organizations in 2020.

Sub -Topics:

1. What is a DAO

2. What is a blockchain organizations/companies

3. Aragon-core and Kernel

4. How do you make DAOs and other blockchain organizations using Aragon?

5. How do you operate DAOs?

CHAPTER 6: THE DAO HACKED

Chapter Goal: Provide an overview to the vulnerabilities in the original DAO model, the conditions that led up to the hack, and the consequences to security hardening since.

Sub -Topics:

1. Concept of a DAO building on Vitalik’s concepts

2. Slock.it and its involvement in making the DAO

3. The Smart Contract for DAO

4. The code vulnerability responsible for the hack

5. Consequences of the hack

6. Ethereum splitting into ETC

CHAPTER 7: ETHEREUM TOKENS: HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING (HPC)

Chapter Goal: Provide an introduction to token in Ethereum by highlighting applications in HPC. Particularly, focus on Golem, SONM, and iEx.ec grid computing for off-chain computations and conflict resolution.

Sub -Topics:

1. Why tokens and what’s the value of using tokens

2. Introduction to tokens, ERC 20 compatibility

3. Token layer and an app layer

4. Prototype for tokens and HPC – Ethereum Computation Markets

5. Golem network, app registry, transaction framework, use-cases initially, and how the Smart Contract system ties them together

6. SONM network and fog computing, use-cases, Smart Contract system, buyer-miner-hub interactions, purchasing computational power, Superglobal architecture, and OS

7. iEx.ec, grid computing, sidechains, and how iEx.ec works

CHAPTER 8: BLOCKCHAIN IN HEALTHCARE

Chapter Goal: Provide an introduction to areas in healthcare where using a blockchain can provide benefit - Patient workflows, insurance claims processing, lightning network, verifiable data audit

Sub -Topics:

1. Payer-provider-patient model, how claims work within this framework, and how will that change in the future

2. Patient workflow based on permissions, blockchain-based workflow of a simple EHR, how permissions are passed as a patient moves from a general physician to a specialist

3. Show how permissions work in blockchain insurance claims processing

4. Waste management in healthcare and claims processing

5. Concept of hotswitching, mentioning lightning network

6. How can blockchain be used to reduce economic waste

7. DeepMind’s Verifiable Data Audit as an alternative to blockchain

8. Blockchain to streamline business processes

CHAPTER 9: BLOCKCHAIN IN SCIENCE

Chapter Goal: Provide an introduction to major topics in science where blockchain can be beneficial – Reputation markets, reproducibility crisis, drug tracking, digital clinical trials

Sub -Topics:

1. Reproducibility crisis in science

2. Prediction markets in science – Augur and Gnosis

3. Initiatives to fix reproducibility traditionally

4. Clinical trials using the blockchain, colored coins to demonstrate workflow

5. Reputation systems using Blockchain

6. Pharma drug tracking using blockchain

CHAPTER 10: BUILDING HEALTHCARE COMPANIES ON BLOCKCHAIN

Chapter Goal: Interview with John Bass on how to build a healthcare company on the blockchain and lessons learned along the way.

Sub -Topics:

1. The makings of Hashed Health

2. Collaborative and consortium models

3. Working groups for high-risk, high-reward technologies

4. Governance models for Hashed Health consortia

5. Member participation

CHAPTER 11: RISE OF CONSORTIUMS

Chapter Goal: Provide an overview of consortium models that have become popular in the blockchain industry, the challenges consortiums hope to solve, and advantages to individual members

Sub -Topics:

1. Collaborative and consortium models

2. Working groups for high-risk, high-reward technologies

3. Governance models for Hashed Health consortia

CHAPTER 12: THE HYPERLEDGER PROJECT

Chapter Goal: Provide a broad overview of the Hyperledger Project and cover the rapid pace of developments since 2018 to the new products launched.

Sub -Topics:

1. Updates to all the components under Hyperledger umbrella including Fabric and Sawtooth

2. New consensus algorithm (PBFT)

3. Demo of Hyperledger Fabric Constructor

4. Does your business need a blockchain (flowcharts)?

5. Security in enterprise-grade Blockchains

6. Smart Contracts in Fabric

CHAPTER 13: RECENT ADVANCES IN BLOCKCHAIN

Chapter Goal: Provide a review of three major networks shaping the future of Blockchain – EOS.io with parallel processing virtual machine, chain-core with asset management, and Ivy Playground and Quorum with private–public transaction interfaces

Sub -Topics:

1. EOS.io, how the tech works, the new advances such as parallel processing of smart contracts and instructions

2. Chain Core, managing assets on blockchain, Ivy Playground as the new programming language to manage assets

3. Quorum by JP Morgan, how the consensus works, how private transactions work, zero-knowledge proofs, Ethereum Enterprise Alliance

CHAPTER 14: BLOCKCHAIN GAMES

Chapter Goal: Provide a review of the educational games and APIs that have been released to teach the basic concepts of a blockchain network

Sub -Topics:

1. Components of a blockchain game

2. Formal education and training in blockchain

3. Formalization of blockchain study with journals and research articles

4. Review of major blockchain games (3)

CHAPTER 15: CLOUD BLOCKCHAINS

Chapter Goal: Provide an overview of how to click and deploy a blockchain using cloud services and give a visual tutorial on how to set it up

Sub -Topics:

1. Demo of Hyperledger Fabric Constructor on IBM Bluemix

2. Azure blockchain deployment

3. Amazon ECS cloud blockchain deployment

4. Setting up your own blockchain test-lab and budget it

CHAPTER 16: TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS AND FINANCIAL CAPITAL

Chapter Goal: Provide an overview of the financial markets and ICOs, focusing particularly on how to set up ICOs, how to manage them, advances to financial regulation technology based on blockchain

Sub -Topics:

1. Dr. Hooper’s chapter focused on ICOs and financial capital markets

2. Setting up ICOs, major pitfalls to avoid, and challenges to overcome during an ICO

3. Major tech advances in financial markets using blockchain

4. Reg Tech

AFTERWORD – CALL TO ACTION AND THE FUTURE OF BLOCKCHAIN