Introduction

In episode 10, Bill dove into the technical implementation of his genesis record and defined a custom Go type representing the record. While doing so, he provided an in-depth look at the reasoning behind the fields he included.. After declaring this type, Bill wrote a function that loads the genesis record from disk and onto memory. His function will use the standard library encoding/json package to load JSON data from a hard-coded file path.

In this video, Bill begins by writing a scratch program he’ll use to get a feel for the Ethereum API. He proceeds by highlighting the problem of identity and why it’s important for the blockchain to reliably verify a user’s identity. To better frame this issue, Bill’s blockchain needs to verify a user’s identity without a central key store. The first step he’ll take is to implement the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) as means to verify the authenticity of the transactions performed on his blockchain. Watch to learn how a blockchain manages to verify identity in a decentralized and distributed environment.

Things you will learn in this video

• Mechanisms used by Ethereum to confirm a user’s identity.
• Overview of ECDSA and why it’s so practical to use as a means of identity verification on the blockchain.
• How the blockchain manages to verify identity in a decentralized environment.

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