Just as we were at the dawn of the internet age in the nineties, we are at the dawn of the blockchain age now. This new technology will disrupt existing business models and give birth to new ones. It will inspire the emergence of community economies built on blockchain networks, where every participant makes contributions to and receives benefits from the community. There will no longer be a single entity controlling and receiving dividends from the economy.

Thanks to its immutability, transparency, and the consensus mechanism for avoiding double-spending, along with other clever designs such as blocks chained with the hashes of the previous blocks, the technology allows untrusting parties to trade with each other directly. As a result, most of the intermediary services currently provided by existing institutions will no longer be needed. As a consequence, blockchain technology is receiving attention the world over.

There are many articles and books on blockchain. However, there are no good books serving beginners who are looking for a quick way to gain a good understanding of the technology as a whole and learn what's needed to be able to develop a complete blockchain application. This quick guide fills in this gap. The book covers coding details on how to develop blockchain applications on Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, the two most popular platforms for public and enterprise blockchain, respectively.