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Index
Learning Bitcoin
Table of Contents
Learning Bitcoin
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
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Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Setting up a Wallet
A brief history of money
Buying your first bitcoin in 15 minutes
Signing up for a wallet – five minutes
Adding a funding source – ten minutes
Buying bitcoin – less than a minute
Looking at your Bitcoin balance
Explaining Bitcoin addresses
Sending and receiving bitcoins
Sending bitcoins
Receiving bitcoins
Private keys and wallets
Transactions and confirmations
Transactions
Confirmations
Comparing Bitcoin wallets
Online wallets
Desktop wallets
Mobile wallets
Hardware wallets
Summary
2. Buying and Selling Bitcoins
Understanding Bitcoin's price volatility
Exchange rates
Bitcoin's price history
Price bubbles
Theft
Seizure
Following exchange rates and news
Price tickers
Detailed price tracking
Candlestick charts
Market orders
Trading techniques
News sources
Comparing Bitcoin exchanges
Volume and liquidity
Fees and commissions
Transfer limits
Jurisdiction and regulations
Service uptime
Trading Bitcoins on an exchange
Setting up an account
Depositing funds
Using Coinbase Exchange
Funding and orders
Order book and history
Price charts
Physical Bitcoins
Summary
3. Protecting Your Bitcoins
Storing your bitcoins
Bitcoin savings
Paper wallets
One time use paper wallets
Creating a paper wallet
Verifying your wallet's balance
Importing versus sweeping
Importing your paper wallet
Paper wallet guidelines
Paper wallet services
Brainwallets
Creating a brainwallet
Increasing brainwallet security
Deterministic wallets
Creating a deterministic wallet
Spending from a deterministic wallet
Type 2 Hierarchical Deterministic wallets
Installing a HD wallet
Bitcoins in cold storage
Cold storage with Electrum
Verifying access to a private key
Good housekeeping with Bitcoin
Summary
4. Understanding the Blockchain
The Genesis block
Satoshi Nakamoto
The whitepaper
The blockchain
Keys, transactions, and blocks
Creating a transaction
Digital signatures
Public key encryption
Signing a document
Elliptic Curve Cryptography
Bitcoin addresses
Cryptographic hashes
Generating a Bitcoin address
Signing a transaction
Decentralized network
Broadcasting the transaction
The blockchain
Blocks
Forks
The Bitcoin supply
Proof of work
Confirmation
Difficulty level
Mining
Solving a difficult problem
Transaction fees
Network attacks
51 percent attacks
Race attacks
Finney attacks
Alternative coins
Summary
5. Installing a Bitcoin Node
Understanding a Bitcoin node
Bitcoin Core
Internals of a node
Node discovery
Messaging
Maintaining a Blockchain
Transaction relaying
Bitcoin wallets
Installing the client
Requirements
Starting the client
Connecting to the network
Downloading the blockchain
Using the client
Encrypting your wallet
Backing up your wallet
Balance and history
Receiving transactions
Sending transactions
Executing Bitcoin operations
Opening the console
Working with an encrypted wallet
Working with Bitcoin addresses
Creating and sending a transaction
Generating a destination address
Selecting a funding source
Specifying a change address
Including a transaction fee
Defining the transaction in JSON
Encoding and signing the transaction
Reviewing the transaction
Broadcasting the transaction
Summary
6. Understanding the Mining Process
Digital gold
Bitcoin mining
Exploring the mining ecosystem
Validating transactions
Proof-of-Work
SHA-256
Scrypt
Mining rewards
Difficulty metrics
Mining hardware
Mining conditions
Mining pools
Mining shares
Fees and Payout
Cloud mining
Estimating profitability
Hardware efficiency
Factoring in the difficulty level
Selecting a currency
Exchange rates
Setting up a mining client
Requirements
Capital
Hardware
Facilities
Choosing the equipment
Choosing the software
Connecting to a mining pool
The payout method
The pool fees
The pool speed
Additional features
Avoiding large pools
Running the client
Summary
7. Programming Bitcoin
Programmable money
Decentralized applications
Blockchains
Public Blockchains
Permissioned Blockchains
Smart contracts
Installing BitcoinJS
Requirements
Beginning the installation
Editing the source code
Programming common Bitcoin operations
Checking your balance
Generating addresses for a website
Sending transactions
Simple transactions
Building an Escrow contract
Generating the keys
Generating the Escrow address
Creating a withdraw script
Signing the transaction
Broadcasting the transaction
Refunding
Summary
8. Exploring Alternative Coins
Open source money
The rise of the alt-coin
Namecoin
Decentralized domain name service
Merged mining
Litecoin
Block rate
Scrypt mining
Peercoin
Proof-of-stake
Primecoin
Prime numbers
Mining prime numbers
Evaluating an alt-coin
Developer activity
Launching of the alt-coin
The legitimate feature set
Protocols built on the Bitcoin Blockchain
Digital assets
Building a voting system with Counterparty
The XCP alt-coin
Creating a voting system
Creating a wallet
Funding the wallet
Creating the tokens
Sending tokens
Casting votes
Verifying the results
Finishing up
The future of finance
Index
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