Blockchain Technology for Managers

✍ Scribed by Gerald R. Gray

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 200
• Edition: 1st ed. 2021
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Blockchain is a technology that tends to be misunderstood by managers that need to make technology acquisition decisions. This book will provide readers with a basic understanding of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT), the technologies that underpin it, and the technologies DLT is built upon. The book is purposefully not a book on how to code or explore other technical aspects of blockchain (other than the fundamentals). Rather, it provides managers with the basic understanding of the architectures and consensus algorithms, how they work, the design trade-offs of each architecture type, and what problems and use cases the core characteristics of DLT are best suited to solve ─ providing business managers with the core information they need to ask the right questions of vendors when making business value assessments and acquisition decisions.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Disclaimer
Contents
About the Author
Part I: Introduction & Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Why Blockchain?
Why Blockchain?
Disruptive Technology – How Do You Know? Why Do You Care?
Questions
Chapter 2: Understanding Blockchain
The DLT Ecosystem: Developers, Pools, and Exchanges
Technology Underpinning of DLT: How We Got Here
The Ledger: The Append Only Database
Proof-of-Work
Digital Currency
Hashing
Verifiable Logs
Peer-to-Peer Networks
Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Public Key-Private Key Cryptography
Public Keys as Identities
Merkle Trees
Smart Contracts
Zero-Knowledge Proof
DLT Transaction Basics/Wallets
Ledger Data Breach
Software Wallet (Fig. 2.26)
Questions
Part II: Consensus, Forks, and Coins
Chapter 3: Immutability and Forks
Ethereum Hard Fork
Bitcoin Hacks and Forks
Bitcoin “Twitter” Hack
Not a Hack – Just the Government Doing Government Things
IOTA Hack
When There Is Risk – Insure
Questions
Chapter 4: DLT Types and Design Trade-Offs
Understanding the Proof-of-Work Process
Bitcoin Halving
Other Consensus Mechanisms/Architectures
Proof-of-Stake
Proof-of-Capacity (Fig. 4.3)
Proof-of-Authority
Directed Acyclic Graph
Proof-of-Cooperation (Fig. 4.6)
Federated Byzantine Agreement (Fig. 4.7)
Questions
Chapter 5: Stable Coins and Non-fungible Tokens
Non-fungible Token (Fig. 5.2)
Questions
Chapter 6: Bitcoin Mining and Making Money
Proof-of-Work and Power Consumption (Fig. 6.3)
Questions
Part III: Use Cases and Applications
Chapter 7: DLT Core Characteristics of Basis of Use Case Evaluation
Not So Immutable?
Better, Faster, Cheaper (Fig. 7.2)
Questions
Chapter 8: Distributed Applications (dApps)
dApps That Talk to Other dApps
Bad Contracts – Bad dApps
Questions
Chapter 9: Global DLT Activity
Disruption in the Utility Industry
Questions
Chapter 10: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and DLT
IIOT and Inflated Expectations
Securing IIoT
What is a Botnet?
Questions
Chapter 11: E-Voting
Questions
Chapter 12: Financial
Finance-Related Proof-of-Concepts
Questions
Chapter 13: Logistics
Questions
Chapter 14: Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading and Transactive Energy
Energy Markets/Price Complexity
Distributed Energy Resources
Questions
Chapter 15: Auditing: What DLT Was Made for
Safety Checklists
Configuration Management
Questions
Chapter 16: B2B, Brokers, and Gigs
Other Gigs
Questions
Chapter 17: Utility Metering
Questions
Chapter 18: Intellectual Property and Privacy
Privacy Management
Questions
Chapter 19: DLT Standards
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
International Organization for Standardization
North American Energy Standards Board
Questions
Part IV: Questions for Managers
Chapter 20: Matching DLT to Business Problems
Bad Vendor Assumptions
Bad Buyer Assumptions
Questions
Chapter 21: Irony of Trust
Questions
Part I Review
Part II Review
Part III Review
Part IV Review
Answers to Chapter Questions
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Definitions
Index