Blockchains with Rust

Blockchains have a lot of mystery around them, and only a few engineers have complete clarity of the inner workings and how disruptive they will be to the incumbent way of working for many industries.

With the help of this chapter, we want to tackle the very core concepts of blockchains. Since this is a book about using Rust for blockchains, we want to, at the same time, understand why Rust and blockchains are a match made in heaven. This will also provide us with insight into why some popular blockchains (Solana, Polkadot, and NEAR) have used Rust and why the latest blockchains to enter the market (Aptos and Sui) are also choosing Rust above any other technology that exists on the market today.

The end goal of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the critical concepts around blockchains that will enable us to build a blockchain from scratch later in the book.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• Laying the foundation with the building blocks of blockchains
• Exploring the backbone of blockchains
• Understanding decentralization
• Scaling the blockchain
• Introducing smart contracts
• The future of the adoption of blockchains