Decentralized Applications: Harnessing Bitcoin's Blockchain Technology

by Siraj Raval

Overview

Take advantage of Bitcoin’s underlying technology, the blockchain, to build massively scalable, decentralized applications known as dapps. In this practical guide, author Siraj Raval explains why dapps will become more widely used—and profitable—than today’s most popular web apps. You’ll learn how the blockchain’s cryptographically stored ledger, scarce-asset model, and peer-to-peer (P2P) technology provide a more flexible, better-incentivized structure than current software models.

Once you understand the theory behind dapps and what a thriving dapp ecosystem looks like, Raval shows you how to use existing tools to create a working dapp. You’ll then take a deep dive into the OpenBazaar decentralized market, and examine two case studies of successful dapps currently in use.

• Learn advances in distributed-system technology that make distributed data, wealth, identity, computing, and bandwidth possible
• Build a Twitter clone with the Go language, distributed architecture, decentralized messaging app, and peer-to-peer data store
• Learn about OpenBazaar’s decentralized market and its structure for supporting transactions
• Explore Lighthouse, a decentralized crowdfunding project that rivals sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGogo
• Take an in-depth look at La’Zooz, a P2P ridesharing app that transmits data directly between riders and drivers

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491924549
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/06/2016
Pages:	116
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Siraj Raval is a dapp developer & entrepreneur. He is founder of a crowdfunding platform for developers called Havi, has developed several iOS apps including Meetup, and has worked on a host of open source work. Besides being a programmer, Siraj is also a traveler, musician, postmodernist, and scuba diver.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 What Is a Decentralized Application? 1

Preliminaries: What Is Bitcoin? 1

What Is a Decentralized Application? 3

Feature 1 Open Source 4

Feature 2 Internal Currency 6

Feature 3 Decentralized Consensus 6

Feature 4 No Central Point of Failure 7

The History of Decentralized Applications 8

PopcornTime 9

OpenBazaar 9

FireChat 9

Lighthouse 10

Gems 10

Enabling Technologies 11

Defining the Terms 11

Getting Started 14

2 A Flourishing Dapp Ecosystem 15

Decentralized Data 15

Option 1 Storing Data Directly in the Bitcoin Blockchain 16

Option 2 Storing Data in a Distributed Hash Table 17

Decentralized Wealth 21

Decentralized Identity 26

Decentralized Computing 29

Decentralized Bandwidth 31

Decentralized Markets for Decentralized Assets 33

Practical Decentralization 36

3 Building Your First Dapp 39

Go 39

Centralized Architecture 40

Decentralized Architecture: Introduction to IPFS 41

What Are We Building? 43

Setup 43

Routing 48

Data Storage and Retrieval 49

Passing and Displaying Data to the Frontend 52

Dapp Economics 54

Remaining Problems 58

Private Networks 58

Human-Readable Names 59

Showing Only Peers on Mikro, Not IPFS in General 59

Tamper-Free Payments 59

4 OpenBazaar 61

Why Make OpenBazaar? 61

What Is OpenBazaar? 62

How Does OpenBazaar Work? 63

Merchant 63

Buyer 64

Notary 65

How to Install OpenBazaar 66

Possible Errors 66

Identity 70

Reputation 71

What Could OpenBazaar Have Done Better? 74

5 Lighthouse 77

Functionality 78

SPV Wallets 84

Identity 84

6 La'Zooz 87

What Is La'Zooz? 87

Distribution Protocol 88

DAO Structure 89

UX 91

Architecture 92

Contracts 95

Improvements 96

Conclusion 97

Index 99