Blockchain

This book focuses on the innovation of blockchain technology and the advantages it offers. It provides a clear and comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and its possibilities, and thereby helps readers to form an opinion and draw their own conclusions about its potential exploitations.

The book begins with a chapter on the topic of decentralized networks, which familiarizes readers with their challenges by using the example of an online trading platform. Hereinafter, it is then detailed what blockchain technology is, where it comes from, and how it works. The necessary underlying technologies are explained, and various individual approaches as well as their composition are presented. Using well-known examples such as Bitcoin and Ethereum as an illustration, the book looks at the architecture of blockchain technology and focuses on the challenges such as security and scalability. The options available when introducing blockchain technology are also outlined, and best-practice examples are presented to get a better idea of what areas benefit from this technology.

Numerous examples and detailed explanations will accompany the readers throughout the book. By the time they have reached the end, they will be able to decide for themselves what is truly innovative about blockchain technology and what is nothing more than hype.

Tatiana Gayvoronskaya has been working in research on blockchain technology, identity management and IT security at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (HPI) since 2016. Her professional and research experience includes technical aspects of the blockchain technology with its possibilities and challenges as well as its public awareness. She has investigated how companies and the public are familiar with the technology, where they get their insights and how they use them. Together with Christoph Meinel, she has already developed and implemented a MOOC on the OpenHPI platform on the topic of blockchain, which was held in July 2018. The survey previously issued by Tatiana Gayvoronskaya and Christoph Meinel was the basis for the MOOC. With this experience, she supported and accompanied another course on the topic in 2019.

Christoph Meinel is Scientific Director and CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (HPI). He isa full professor for computer science and holds a chair at HPI on Internet Technologies and Systems. His areas of research focus on future Internet technologies, in particular Information Security, Web 3.0: Semantic Web, Social and Service Web, as well as on innovative Internet applications, especially in the domains of e-learning, tele-teaching and tele-medicine. Besides, he is scientifically active in the field of innovation research Design Thinking. Christoph Meinel is author/co-author of 10 books and 4 anthologies, as well as editor of various conference proceedings. More than 400 of his papers have been published in high-profile scientific journals and at international conferences. Christoph Meinel is a member of acatech, the German academy of sciences and engineering, and of the SAP Security Advisory Board.