A BIT OF HISTORY
In October 2008, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakomoto published a document describing a monetary system based on secure crypto-graphical mathematics. The document, titled “Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System” proposed a revolutionary payment system using an inviolable distributed ledger known as the blockchain.
According to Satoshi’s vision in the published article, the Bitcoin (BTC) token was designed to operate as a system of monetary exchange, the Bitcoin token being the currency, sustained by an immutable ledger of transactions held in interwoven blocks, termed the blockchain. The blocks in the blockchain are tightly interwoven by crytographical links and are distributed over internet, mirrored in several computers as synchronized nodes. Thus we can view the blockchain as a decentralized database of transactional information secured by cryptographical links.
In the case of the Bitcoin blockchain, the transactional information in each block consists of basic instructions to maintain a perfect ledger of token movements.
From a computational point, the instruction set available in the Bitcooin blockchain is very limited, kept simple by design for efficiency and security.
Then came ETHEREUM
Vitalik Buterin, while working on Bitcoin, expanded on these ideas and introduced the Ethereum blockchain which allowed more complex instructions to be stored and executed on the blockchain. These instructions, known as Smart Contracts and are foundational to the Decentralized Applications (Dapps) in use today.
In the same way Bitcoin represents the token of the Bitcoin blockchain, the Ethereum blockchain uses its own token, Ethers (or ETH), which can also be used as currency. Moreover, the ability to have more sophisticated code on the Ethereum Blockchain allows the Ethereum tokens to have enhanced programmable functionality and custom tokens can be spawned based on ETH.
The HashRepos Dapp
HashRepos takes advantage of the additional features of the Ethereum Blockchain and includes a custom utility token which can be traded, used to pay for HashRepos registration. These tokens may also be kept for future applications in the same ecosystem. HashRepos uses the Ethereum blockchain to store hash and other relevant timestamped information, permanently. The HashRepos Smart Contract manages the information and interacts with users through a web based front end (the browser client you are using) as is typical of a Dapp (Distributed Application).
In order to create HashRepos transactions with the Ethereum blockchain, a digital wallet supporting Ethereum and Etherum based tokens is required. The next section provides instructions on how to install the Metamask Wallet on your Desktop.