Now that you have a basic idea of what Ethereum and DApps are, we can start to build our auction DApp. An auction is a typical example, but it is complex enough to provide a perfect first DApp. It demonstrates the trustless nature of the blockchain, in which we can manage funds automatically and securely, without requiring legal recourse or relying on a trusted third party. Moreover, auctions are generally needed for building smart contracts for token sales in ICOs, which is a hot topic that we will cover in Chapter 8, Creating an ICO.

To summarize, our auction DApp will be a web application that enables users to start in auctions using ether. Let's see what we can throw together:

• First, we will write (in Solidity) and compile the auction contract
• We will interact with our contract through a web page
• We will deploy our smart contract on different environments and set up a local blockchain