Networking in Blockchain

In the previous chapters, we covered the cryptography concepts that are essential for blockchain to function in a trustless network. But we haven't discussed what a trustless network is. A decentralized network facilitates a trustless environment. In this chapter, we will explore how blockchain achieves decentralization with peer-to-peer (P2P) networking.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• P2P networking
• Network discovery
• Block synchronization
• Building a simple blockchain in a P2P network

We know that blockchain was created to remove the trust in a single central authority by building a trustless network that decentralizes all the tasks that are otherwise centralized in a single entity. P2P networking is an architecture style used to achieve this decentralization in blockchain applications. We'll begin this chapter by exploring the definition, history, and architecture of P2P networking.