Introduction to Blockchain

In this chapter, we give an overview of blockchain technology, along with its key concepts, such as the distributed ledger, transactions, blocks, proof of work, mining, consensus, and so on. We will cover bitcoin, the mother of blockchain technology, and Ethereum, which was developed out of bitcoin, in detail. We will then proceed to the discussion of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and security token offerings (STOs) in Chapter 2, STO – Security Token Offering. Chapter 3, Monetizing Digital Tokens Under US Security Laws, is dedicated to STO-related laws and regulations. We will cover the basics on stablecoins in Chapter 4, Stablecoin. Chapter 5, Security Token Smart Contracts, and Chapter 6, Building a Security Token Dapp, demonstrate how to build frontend and backend applications to issue security tokens, along with examples. The last two chapters talk about how to build a stablecoins frontend and backend applications.

In this chapter, we cover the following specific topics:

• A brief overview of the blockchain technology
• Bitcoin basics
• Ethereum basics
• Miscellaneous comments