From the course: Blockchain: Beyond the Basics
Join today to access over 23,100 courses taught by industry experts.
What are smart contracts? - Blockchain Tutorial
From the course: Blockchain: Beyond the Basics
What are smart contracts?
- While the Bitcoin blockchain continues to dominate the cryptocurrency space today, the second crypto powered blockchain leader, in terms of both market capitalization and uses, is Ethereum. Ethereum's peer-to-peer network is made up of participant computers collectively called the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM. It's decentralized and trustless and uses the proof of work consensus to add blocks. While currently stalled, Ethereum is preparing to move its consensus mechanism to proof of stake sometime in the near future. Instead of cryptocurrency as the end goal, Ethereum enables programmers to use a proprietary language called Solidity to write code that is distributed across the EVM. In blockchain parlance, we call this code a smart contract. Stated simply, a smart contract is software code that executes based on meeting predetermined rules. Smart contracts enable distributed applications, also known as Dapps.…
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
Download courses and learn on the go
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.