Becoming a Blockchain Professional

Portia BurtonBits and Chains

Who Am I?Full-stack developer (mostly Python/JS)

Blockchain educator

Creator of the website bits and chains

Question: What is bitcoin/blockchain?

What is Bitcoin?Type of Cryptocurrency

Creation based on paper by Satoshi Nakamoto titled “Bitcoin: Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”

Peer-to-peer which means transactions happen without a third party. Alice can send money directly to Bob

Bitcoin Ledger

Ledger offers Transparency by Design!!!!!!!!

Question: What are some of the use cases of bitcoin?

Bitcoin and Humanitarian Issues

1. Directly send money to disaster victims and decrease instances of charity fraud. Hold nonprofits more accountable

2. Help the unbanked have access to managing and distributing capital

3. Remittances, less expensive and more efficient way to send money to relatives and friends residing in developing nations

Bitcoin Microeconomics

Good for small businesses: Charges for transactions are usually well below 2%, much lower than credit and debit cards

Efficient way of paying freelancers

Financial vehicle for people looking for yield. An alternative or complement to 401k or index fund

Bitcoin is not the only Cryptocurreny out there...

What is a Blockchain?

A blockchain is an immutable decentralized data store.

Blockchains and Smart Contracts Stored on the blockchain and

executed by code

Many smart contracts are written in Solidity

Powered by gas which can be computationally mined or purchased in an exchange

Example of Smart Contract

pragma solidity ^0.4.0;

contract SimpleStorage {

uint storedData;

function set(uint x) {

storedData = x; }

function get() constant returns (uint) {

return storedData;

}

}

Question: What are Some Practical Use Cases for Smart Contracts?

Democracy and Governance

Democracy as We Know It Can Change

Voting can occur on the blockchain

Some agreements will be controlled by code as opposed to legal contracts

Alternative way to keep track of identity

Laws and bill can be kept on the blockchain which will create a permanent immutable record

Less Sharing in the Sharing Economy

Blockchain Technology: Peer to Peer Profits

Distribution of creative digital assets flows directly from artist to fan

Ability to rent out rooms and rides without giving a portion of the profits to Uber or AirBnB

Blockchain in the Nonprofit World

Blockchain: Solutions to Urgent Social Problems

Creating identity that is not based on Nation or State (like the initiative between the World Bank and Accenture)

Provenance is using blockchain technology to create and analyze seafood supply chain (guard against seafood acquired by forced labor)

Question: How does one become a blockchain professional?

1. Get a foundation in blockchain technologies

2. Make a list of cool “ah-ha” moments that you get while learning more about blockchain

3. Make a list of your company’s pain points that blockchain technology addresses

4. Make a pitch to your current or future boss the expertise you bring to the table

Steps to Become a Blockchain Professional

Drive Your Professional Future:Take Initiative

1. Create a Career Roadmap

2. How to Create Your Own Job

3. How to Pitch a Big Idea to Your Boss

But Where to Begin?

Places to Learn More About Blockchain

1. B9Lab

2. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

3. Udemy Blockchain 101

4. Coursera Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technology

5. Government Blockchain Course

Introduction to EthereumEthereum is a programmable blockchain, every new blockchain

spawned from Ethereum has the same properties as Ethereum

Ethereum Virtual Machine is the low level machine language

Is Turing complete, unlike bitcoin which does not have looping capabilities

It also is aware of multiple states, unlike bitcoin which is only aware of two states (spent and unspent)

Different Consensus MechanismsProof of Work: Uses the Etash DAG algorithm. The Etash DAG algorithm is based on Bitcoin’s the Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm.

Proof of Stake: Proof of Stake is another way of validating. It calculates the weight of the node, being proportional to its computational resources. It’s less resource intensive than Proof of Work.

Ethereum BlockchainsPublic blockchain: It is the official Ethereum chain that everyone can read and interact with

Testnet blockchain: The official test chain of Ethereum. Good way to test contracts without wasting real ether

Private Chains*

Consortium Blockchain: Preselected Nodes are selected. Good example of this would be R3

Private Blockchain: Only one organization is permissioned to use the blockchain

*The difference between a private blockchain and a public blockchain is similar to the different between the internet vs intranet. One network is outward facing, while the other network is specific to a company or organization

Case for Public Blockchains

● More developers actively maintaining the blockchain, which can make it more secure

● Lower influence of lone bad actors

Case for Private Blockchains

Transactions are cheaper since there are less nodes

Easier to scale, and to experiment with new technologies

“Know Your Node” Multiple ways to verify node identities, which makes it more secure

Parity

What is Parity?

Rust client for ethereum

Includes a light client

Wallet which includes a robust dev environment for interacting with the ethereum blockchain

How to Start Parity Chains

Parity --testnet

Parity --chains dev127.0.0.1:8180

Configure Parity using the Toml fileAccount

UI

Network

Must get Ether!!

http://faucet.ropsten.be:3001/

Or if you are not interested in this setup there is a vagrant file…...

Demo Time!!!!

Goals

1. Create a new account

2. Send ether

3. Create a coin

Developers How to Get Started

1. Creating a Dapp in Parity/Ethereum

2. Introduction to Ethereum Smart Contract Development

3. Solidity by Example

Contribute to Open Source

1. 21.co

2. Go Ethereum

3. Hyperledger Project

Bibliography

1. https://augur.net/

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXAbJQoZlE

3. What is Blockchain

4. Private Blockchains

5. Intro to Parity UI

6. Morden vs Ropsten Testnet

7. MakerDao

8. Mining

9. How Bitcoin Transactions Really Work

10.Paperchain.io

Bibliography

11. Solidity Docs

12. Accenture Identity Management

13. Parity

14. Parity Progress Report

15. Combating Slave Labor with the Blockchain

Portia Burton

https://twitter.com/pkafei

Creator of www.bitsandchains.com