Blockchain Technology

– IOE411

Dr. Shajulin Benedict

[email protected]
Syllabus
• Introduction – blockchain history, basics, architectures, Types of
blockchain, Base technologies – dockers, docker compose, and
data structures, hashes, Digital Signature - ECDSA, Zero
Knowledge Proof.

• Bitcoins – Fundamentals, aspects of bitcoins, properties of

bitcoins, bitcoin transactions, bitcoin P2P networks, block
generation at bitcoins, consensus algorithms.

• Introduction to Ethereum- Consensus Mechanism -

Implementation, Transactions, demonstrations, Smart Contracts
(Blockchain hyperledger – Fabric architecture, implementation,
networking, fabric transactions, demonstration, smart contracts.)

• Applications – blockchain applications, e-governance, smart

cities, smart industries, anomaly detections, use cases, trends on
blockchains, serverless blocks, scalability issues, blockchain on
clouds.
Blockchain – A new perspective…
• Bitcoin… (Public, Cryptocurrency)
• Ethereum… (Public, Crypto+Application)
• Issues:
• Some organizations do not want their database or strategy to
be shared to others.
• E.g., Govt. organizations or departments.
Blockchain Hyperledger
• Hyperledger Fabric is a platform for distributed ledger
solutions underpinned by a modular architecture
delivering high degrees of confidentiality, resiliency,
flexibility, and scalability.
• It is an enterprise-grade system.
• The current version is release-2.5
• It offers a network of networks.
• It is a permissioned blockchain
• Transaction processing is performed by predefined users.
• Direct access to blockchain data is limited to predefined users.
Thus, only participants that are registered on the blockchain
network can download the ledger.
• It supports private transactions and confidential contracts.
Hyperledger Fabric
• The Linux Foundation founded the Hyperledger project
in 2015 to advance cross-industry blockchain
technologies.
• Hyperledger Fabric offers several pluggable options.
• Ledger data can be stored in multiple formats,
• Consensus mechanisms can be of varying types (in a
pluggable options)
• Contracts could be written in multiple languages
• Different trusted Membership Service Providers are
supported.
• Hyperledger Fabric also offers the ability to create channels,
allowing a group of participants to create a separate ledger of
transactions.
– to privately agree on the terms of interactions
Channels – A Broad perspective

Channels in Hyperledger Fabric

 Hyperledger Fabric Functionalities

Identity • Fabric provides a membership identity service (as it is a

permissioned service)
management • It has UserID to authenticate users.

• Hyperledger Fabric enables competing business interests,

Privacy and and any groups that require private, confidential
transactions, to coexist on the same permissioned network.
Confidentiality • Via. channels

Chaincode • Chaincode applications encode logic that is invoked by

specific types of transactions on the channel.
Functionality

Modular design • to provide functional choice to network designers

https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.4/functionalities.html
 Hyperledger Fabric – Design Features
• Assets
• Asset definitions enable the exchange of almost anything with
monetary value over the network -- from whole foods to
antique cars to currency futures.
• Assets can be represented in binary and/or JSON form.
• Chaincode
• Chaincode is a software that defines an asset or assets
• It is a business logic
• Chaincode enforces the rules for reading or altering key-value
pairs or other state database information.
• A system chaincode is a system-level chaincode that defines
the operating parameters for the entire channel.

https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.4/fabric_model.html
Hyperledger Fabric – Design Features
• Ledger Features
• The ledger is the sequenced, tamper-resistant record of all
state transitions in the fabric.
• State transitions are a result of chaincode invocations
(‘transactions’) submitted by participating parties.
• Each transaction results in a set of asset key-value pairs that
are committed to the ledger as “creates, updates, or deletes”.
• Privacy
• Hyperledger Fabric employs an immutable ledger on a per-
channel basis.
• A ledger exists in the scope of a channel
– it can be shared across the entire network (assuming every
participant is operating on one common channel)
– OR, it can be privatized to include only a specific set of
participants.
Hyperledger Fabric
• Security & Membership Services
• Hyperledger Fabric provides a transactional network where all
participants have known identities.
• Permissioned membership provides a trusted blockchain
network, where participants know that all transactions can be
detected and traced by authorized regulators and auditors.
• How? Public Key Infrastructure is used to generate
cryptographic certificates which are tied to organizations,
network components, and end users or client applications
(using MSPs).
Hyperledger Fabric
• Consensus
• Consensus is defined as the full-circle verification of the
correctness of a set of transactions comprising a block.
• A unique approach to consensus enables the flexibility and
scalability needed for the enterprise.
• Consensus plays a major role throughout the process
– i.e., it plays a fundamental role in the entire transaction flow, from
proposal and endorsement, to ordering, validation and
commitment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ORrdusUzeg
Blockchain Fabric Architecture
• The blockchain runs programs called chaincode, holds
state and ledger data, and executes transactions.

MSP-Membership Service Provider

 Transaction Flow

• Starts with an API request from the client —

We want to write some data to the
Blockchain

• Ends with an API response to the client —

the block is committed in the Blockchain for
your data

• Assumptions:
• a channel is set up and running.
• The application user has registered
and enrolled with the organization’s
Certificate Authority (CA) and received
back necessary cryptographic material,
which is used to authenticate to the
network.

https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.4/txflow.html
 Transaction Flow
• A Client, such as an iOS app, sends an API request to a Backend server
with Hyperledger Fabric SDK — I want to write some data to the
Blockchain
• The SDK sends a Transaction Request to the Peer(s) for the
endorsement
• The Peer(s) endorses (signs) the Transaction Request and returns it to
the SDK (, also, the Peer performs Chaincode / Smart Contract
execution at this point, before endorsing the transaction proposal)
• The SDK sends a transaction to the Orderer (& Kafka) for the
transaction ordering service
• The Orderer orders the transactions, forms block and broadcasts it to the
Peers
• The Peer(s) notifies the SDK — the block is committed in the Blockchain
for your data (, also, the Peer performs transactions validation and block
commitment at this point, before notifying the SDK)
• The SDK (the Backend server) sends an API response to a client — the
block is committed in the Blockchain for your data
https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.4/txflow.html
 Getting Started -- Fabric
• Download SDKs (go, Nodejs, Java, Python)
• The Hyperledger Fabric client SDK provides a structured
environment of libraries for developers to write and test
chaincode applications.
• The SDK is fully configurable and extensible through a
standard interface. Components, including cryptographic
algorithms for signatures, logging frameworks and state
stores, are easily swapped in and out of the SDK.
• Prerequisites
• Docker and Docker compose
• Golang
• Samples and binaries are available. Download them.

https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/latest/glossary.html
https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting_started.html
Smart Contracts -- Chaincode
• A smart contract defines the rules between different
organizations in executable code.
• Applications invoke a smart contract to generate
transactions that are recorded on the ledger.
• Chaincode is a piece of code that implements the
smart contracts for businesses.
• i.e., chaincode contains smart contracts.
• Chaincodes are written in go or java or nodejs which
holds the business logic.
• It is installed and instantiated through an SDK or CLI
onto a network of Hyperledger Fabric peer nodes,
enabling interaction with that network’s shared ledger.
• Multiple smartcontracts can be implemented in on
chaincode.
Smart contracts -- Chaincode
• Examples
Chaincode Interfaces
• Init() method
• Init is called when you first deploy your chaincode.
• As the name implies, this function is used to do any
initialization for chaincodes.
• Invoke() method
• Invoke is called when you want to call chaincode functions to
do real work (i.e. read and write to the ledger).
• These two interfaces are also named as stub
interfaces
Chaincode program structure (golang)
• Step 1:
• Package main
• Step 2:
• Import packages

• Step 3:
• Define chaincode
Chaincode program structure (golang)
• Step 4:
• Implement chaincode interface

• These interfaces are mandatory for all chaincodes

• Init function is executed whenever there is instantiation or
upgrade to chaincodes.
Chaincode program structure (golang)
• Step 5: Add functions to chaincode

• Step 6: Finalize chaincode

Golang
• https://tour.golang.org/welcome/1
• Learn packages, variables, functions
• Flow control statements
• For loop
• If—else
• Switch
• Defer -- A defer statement defers the execution of a function until
the surrounding function returns.
• structs, arrays, slices, and maps
• Slices -- An array has a fixed size. A slice, on the other hand, is a
dynamically-sized, flexible view into the elements of an array. For
eg. var s []int
• Methods and interfaces
• Concurrency
• A goroutine is a lightweight thread managed by the Go runtime.
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
• Organizations involved
• Orderer – 1
• Channel – 1
• No.of Peers -2
– Org1→ iiitkottayam.com
– Org2 → aic.com

• Program Flow
• Generates certificates using cryptogen
• Generates genesis block (Orderer)
• Generates channel configuration → channel.tx
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
Hyperledger Fabric (Implementation)
• Identity
• Membership
• Peers
• Smart Contracts and Chaincode
• Ledger
• Ordering Service
• Private Data
• Channel Capabilities
• Use-Cases
Other frameworks under HyperLedger

Fabric

Iroha

Sawtooth

Burrow

Indy
Major Blockchains
• Bitcoin (Studied earlier)
• Bitcoins are virtual currencies
• Also called as cryptocurrency.
• Technologies such as public key, digital signature, hash, P2P,
Proof-of-Work
• Ethereum (Studied earlier)
• Ethereum is an open source distributed public blockchain
network; Ethereum is public;
• It is named as an internet built on neutral, open-access
infrastructure, controlled by no company or person.
• It includes smart contracts – written in solidity (high level
programming language).
• Solidity is statically typed scripting language which does the
process of verifying and enforcing the constraints at compile-
time as opposed to run-time.
• Ethereum has its native cryptocurrency called Ether &
Ethereum Wallet
Major Blockchains
• Ripple Consensus Network
• Ripple platform has been designed on open-source distributed
consensus ledger, and local currency referred as XRP.
• It is developed for digital asset exchanges, banks, payment
providers, and corporate who want to send money globally...
• Ripple allows quick, safe, secure and free financial
transactions around the globe without charge back.
• More towards global financial market.
• It is mainly meant for international wire transfers in a secure
manner.
• Hyperledger
• Studied earlier

https://www.ripple.com/
Major Blockchains
• R3’s Corda
• It is a distributed ledger using open source protocol which is
used to supervise, record, and sync the financial agreements
with the controlled financial institutions.
• Permissioned or private blockchain platform.
• Corda eliminates the unnecessary global sharing of data.
• In Corda, consensus is accomplished at individual deals and
not at the system level.
• It directly allows regulatory and supervisory observer nodes.
• Hence, they are legally bounded to financial sectors.
• It doesn’t have cryptocurrency.

• R3 (financial agreements platform) and Ripple (financial

transfer platform) mutually joins for effective dealing of money.
Diff between Corda, Hyperledger, and
Ethereum
VMWare Blockchain
• https://labs.hol.vmware.com/HOL/catalogs/lab/4689
VMWare Blockchain
• HOL-2088-01-EMT - VMware's Blockchain - Getting
Started
• Blockchain is a decentralized distributed ledger
• A team of nodes involved in the blockchain network
would be responsible for deciding the updates on
blockchains.
• Two types of implementation in VMware
• Permissioned
• Permissionless
• Scalable Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus
algorithm
VMWare Blockchain
Lab
• Steps:
• Launch Chrome
• Login
– [email protected]
– VMware1!
• VMWare Blockchain UI Navigation pane
– Deploy – to create a new consortium
– Dashboard contains
– Nodes involved and their health status
– Number of blocks
– Deployed contracts
– Current block with indexing
– Transactions (hashes)
Dashboard
Smart Contracts - UI
• Options available are
• Connect with truffle (Ethereum blockchain)
– Truffle is a development environment, testing framework, and
asset pipeline all rolled into one.
• Deploy – to manually deploy smart contracts
Blocks – UI
• Current block and indexing
• Reverse chronological order
Blocks -UI
• Individual block shows the hashes (incl. parent
hashes)
Transactions – UI
• Status of blocks and their indexing the blockchain
APIs - Appearance
• You could try the APIs using Try it Out option!
API - advantages
Add User
Users in VMware Blockchain
• Org User - The end user who wants to use an
application built on blockchain or is engaging in
transactions. For example, this might be an individual
buying or selling an asset.
• Org Developer - A person who is managing and
writing smart contracts or applications that will
leverage the blockchain infrastructure.
• Org Admin - A person who is responsible for
managing an organization, including managing the
Org Users.
• Consortium Admin - A person responsible for
managing which Orgs are members of a Consortium.
• Systems Admin - A person responsible for managing
a blockchain implementation.
AWS blockchain
• https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/