Credits: 5EC
Delivery: This course is not tele-lectured.
Prerequisites: Security and Cryptography (IN4191) and Distributed Algorithms (IN4150)
Capacity: 40 students maximum.
Motivation: Ledgers and blockchains are an emerging technology with the potential to radically improve financial transactions, supply-chain flows, transactions in general, and distributed databases.
Synopsis: In this course you will learn all aspects of blockchain technology, including tamper-proof data structures, digital identities, transitive trust, fault tolerance, distributed consensus, smart contracts and applications. The first three weeks of the course will provide a fast-paced introduction to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and TrustChain developed by TUDelft itself.
The main component in this course is a team-based complex engineering project. This course is designed for computer scientists wishing to understand blockchain technology and to produce significant hands-on experience. To provide a deep understanding of blockchain technology and understand why it is special you need to experience first-hand how it operates at a detailed technical level. Students design, implement, and test their own independent project in teams of 3-5 students. Students can choose from a pool of possible project ideas. This course requires you to like software engineering.
Learning outcomes: After this course students are able to
- design and engineer complex blockchain-based systems.
- describe blockchain technology, the various consensus model, smart contracts, markets, and relation to existing database technology
- setup a new architecture for blockchain applications.
Lecturers: Dr Johan Pouwelse (TUD) and Dr Zekeriya Erkin (TUD)
Examination: 100% project based.
Contents: Blockchain basics and evolution (Bitcoin 1st generation, smart contract generation, future 3rd generation); Identity and transitive trust (Authentication and security primitives, tamper-proof identities, trust models, MITM attacks, Sybil attacks, and TrustChain by TUDelft); Consensus models (Proof-of-work, permissioned, Proof-of-stake, Corda no-global-consensus, TUDelft bottom-up fast consensus model); Smart Contract (pro/con encrypted data, Bitcoin scripts, Etherium execution model, Hyperledger + Docker issues, Corda Jar file approach, Tezos difficult to use, powerful technology, vision of the future: trusted verified execution); Markets and exchanges (Disruption by open markets, winner-takes-all, and multi-sided market platforms, Uber, Airbnb, 22 years of eBay, Silk Road, honesty among drug dealers,the role of trust in markets, P2P exchange markets).
Core text: Various papers from the literature