Blockchain Frameworks — Part 4: Ethereum
In this and the next articles, I will make an explanation of the Blockchain technology and its most known frameworks
INDEX:
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Smart Contracts
- Part 3: Blockchain Types
- Part 4: Ethereum
- Part 5: Hyperledger
- Part 6: IOTA
- Part 7: Quorum
- Part 8: Extra 1; Hedera Hashgraph
- Part 8: Extra 2; Libra
Part 4: Ethereum:
In Ethereum, the state is made up of objects called accounts, with each account having a 20-byte address and state transitions being direct transfers of value and information between accounts. An Ethereum account contains four fields:
- The nonce, a counter used to make sure each transaction can only be processed once
- The account’s current ether balance
- The account’s contract code, if present
- The account’s storage (empty by default)
Ether (ETH) is the main internal crypto-fuel of Ethereum, and is used to pay transaction fees.
Wallets are applications that allow Ethereum users to store Ether and to interact with smart contracts on the Ethereum network.
Smart Contracts
In Ethereum, contracts are given an address to uniquely identify them (it’s a hash of the creator’s address and how many transactions they’ve sent before). Clients can then interface with this address by sending it ether, calling functions, querying the distributed state that it manages, etc.
Ethereum Smart contacts are written in a programming language called Solidity, which looks a lot like Javascript.
Gas
Smart Contracts are executed by every single full node in the network with the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). The cost of performing computations is directly tied to which computations your code performs.
Each low level code in the EVM costs a certain amount of gas ( is the cost of performing computation ) to perform.
The “price” of gas is determined by the market, similar to Bitcoin’s transaction fees. If you pay a higher gas price, nodes will prioritize your transactions.
dApps (Decentralized Applications)
In Ethereum a Distributed Application is another way to call an existing Smart Contract in the network.
A dApp eventually stores a state of trust in the Blockchain that anyone can read. Some dApps also use distributed technologies such as IPFS and Golem to handle computing and storage outside the Blockchain Ethereum, but in an equally decentralized way.
dApp Client
A dApp Client is an application (usually web app) that provides a friendly interface with which to interact with the dApp.
dApp Browsers
A dApp Browser is an application that makes using dApp clients easier.
The primary purposes of a dApp browser are:
- Providing a connection to an Ethereum node and an easy way to change that connection to point to a different node.
- Providing an account interface (“wallet”) for the user so that they can easily interface with these dApps.
Examples:
dApps Examples
Resources
