A Tester's Guide to Blockchain Applications

Blockchain technology – the architecture that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin – is going mainstream. It is now easy to deploy your own blockchain instance on AWS, Microsoft Azure or IBM Bluemix. Companies as diverse as Deloitte, Visa and Toyota are developing their own blockchain projects.

As developers grapple with the challenges of this emerging technology, so must testers understand how to evaluate and test blockchain applications, where they will encounter problems such as evaluating transaction costs and dealing with back-end code that is often beyond the control of their project.

Note that blockchain use cases are not limited to the financial world – smart contracts can touch many different areas of our lives, from energy allocation to government services.

In this Masterclass, Rhian will discuss why mainstream companies may want to use blockchain technology. Then go on to describe how blockchain applications differ from traditional applications and how testers should approach requirements and acceptance criteria. Finally, she will explain the purpose of a smart contract and how to go about debugging one.