Session 7: Technical Challenges Session 7 Study Questions: How critical are the technical and commercial challenges–scalability, efficiency, privacy, security, interoperability–of current blockchain technology? What are the possible tradeoffs of decentralizaton, scalability and security? What are tradeoffs of consensus software updates, governance and so-called ‘hard forks’? What might current work–Layer 2 applications, zero-knowledge proofs, alternative consensus algorithms–do to address current commercial challenges? Session 7 Readings: Required: ‘Geneva Report’ Chapter 2 (pages 9-16); Casey, Crane, Gensler, Johnson, & Narula ‘On the Scalability of Blockchains’ The Control ‘Transaction Speeds: How do Cryptocurrencies Speeds Stack up to Visa or PayPal?’, HowMuch.net ‘Layer 2/ the Lightening Network’ Digital Currency Initiative ‘Top 8 Privacy Coins’ Invest…

Session 6: Smart Contracts and DApps Session 6 Study Questions: What are smart contracts? How do they compare to traditional contracts? What are tokens? What are smart contract platforms such as Ethereum? What generally distinguishes them from Bitcoin? What are decentralized application (DApps)? What has been the usage and why haven’t any DApps yet received wide consumer adoption? Session 6 Readings: Required: “Smart Contracts: 12 Use cases for Business & Beyond”, Chamber of Digital Commerce. “State of the DApps: 5 Observations from Usage Data”, McCann. “Ethereum Competitors: Guide to the Alternative Smart Contract Platforms”, Blockonomi. Optional: “Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets”, Szabo. “A Next-Generation Smart Contract & Decentralized…

Session 5: Blockchain Basics & Transactions, UTXO, & Script Code Session 5 Study Questions: How does Bitcoin record transactions? What is Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO)? What is script code embedded in each Bitcoin transaction and how flexible a programming language is it? As many design features (public key cryptography, hash functions, append-only timestamped logs, digital cash, & proof-of-work) pre-date Bitcoin, what was the novel innovation of Satoshi Nakamoto? Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? (Only kidding a bit.) Session 5 Readings: ‘Bitcoin’s Academic Pedigree’ Narayanan and Clark ‘Making Sense of Cryptoeconomics’ CoinDesk Narayanan & Clark’s Chronology of Ideas in Bitcoin Overview: Transaction Inputs & Outputs; Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO); Scripting Language; Blockchain…

Session 4: Blockchain Basics and Consensus Session 4 Study Questions: What is the Byzantine General’s problem? How does proof-of-work and mining in Bitcoin address it? More generally, how does blockchain technology address it? What other consensus protocols are there? What are some of the tradeoffs of alternative consensus algorithms–proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, etc.? How do economic incentives work within blockchain technology to maintain decentralized ledgers and avoid double spending? What are the incentives of consensus protocols & mining? Session 4 Readings: ‘Geneva Report’ Chapter 1 (pages 1-7); Casey, Crane, Gensler, Johnson & Narula. ‘Blockchain Technology Review’ NIST (pages 23-32, section 3 & 4). ‘The Byzantine Generals Problem’; Lamport, Shostak & Pease (382-387).…

Session 3: Blockchain Basics & Cryptography Session 3 Study Questions: What are the design features–cryptography, append-only, time-stamped blocks, distributed consensus algorithms, and networking– of Bitcoin, the first use case for blockchain technology? What are cryptographic hash functions, asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures? How are they utilized to help make blockchain technology verifiable and immutable? What is the double spending problem and how it is addressed by blockchain technology? Session 3 Readings: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System; Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper. ‘Blockchain Technology Overview’ NIST (pages 9-23, sections 1 & 2) ‘Blockchain 101-A Visual Demo’ Brownworth; Youtube video. Bitcoin is just the first use-case of blockchain technology. We’re going to look…