The Helium Cryptocurrency Project

Abstract

In this chapter, we shall begin the construction of the Helium cryptocurrency. Our implementation is going to include all of the features that you expect in a production-quality cryptocurrency. Helium is modeled after Bitcoin, which is the canonical standard. We will implement Helium in Python. Python is a simple yet powerful language whose syntax is lucid and exceptionally easy to understand. Python is an ideal language for clearly exposing the algorithms and techniques that constitute the backbone of a cryptocurrency. The downside of using Python is that it is an interpreted language and thus inherently slow. This limitation makes it unsuitable for a production environment.