Components of the Ethereum ecosystem

The Ethereum blockchain stack consists of various components. At the core, there is the Ethereum blockchain running on the peer-to-peer Ethereum network. Secondly, there's an Ethereum client (usually Geth) that runs on the nodes and connects to the peer-to-peer Ethereum network from where blockchain is downloaded and stored locally. It provides various functions, such as mining and account management. The local copy of the blockchain is synchronized regularly with the network. Another component is the web3.js library that allows interaction with the geth client via the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface.

The overall Ethereum ecosystem architecture is visualized in the following diagram:

Figure 11.6: Ethereum high-level ecosystem

A list of elements present in the Ethereum blockchain is presented here:

• Keys and addresses
• Accounts
• Transactions and messages
• Ether cryptocurrency/tokens
• The...