Blockchain for Business in 2020: Fundamentals and Use Cases

Understand why blockchain can fit specific needs by examining decentralization, public verifiability, security, tokenization, and the reduction of intermediaries through smart contracts.

Illustrate how decentralized networks share ledgers, with block chain as a global distributed database that supports create and read operations while prohibiting update or delete, and how consensus achieves trust.

Explore the different types of block chain, including public, private, open, closed, and the permission versus permissionless spectrum, with real-world use cases in supply chains, loyalty, and gaming.

Learn how blocks in a blockchain are created, linked by hashes, and become immutable once sealed, with blocks formed on a schedule and protected by merkle roots and timestamps.

Explore cryptography and cryptographic hashes as foundations of blockchain, including public-private key cryptography, one-way hashes for data integrity, and hash values that detect tampering and protect privacy.

Learn how blocks are mined, how confirmations secure transactions over time with increasing block height, including six confirmations, and how hard and soft forks create divergent ledgers.

Explore blockchain 2.0 on the Theorem platform, using the ethereal virtual machine to write smart contracts and understand gas as a separate value for stable costs, including private networks.