Blockchain Engineering

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. Ledgers and blockchains are an emerging technology with the potential to radically improve financial transactions, supply-chain flows, transactions in general, and distributed databases. 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 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.

Topics covered:

• Blockchain basics and evolution Bitcoin 1st generation, smart contract generation, future 3rd generation (trust or trust in math).

• 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.

• Decentralized Autonomous Organization, novel method to collaborate and organise any economic activity.

• Web3: how the Internet can be re-decentralised using DAOs

After this course you will have a firm grasp on the current operational blockchain-based systems, realistic view of real-world applications that may be built on top of ledger technology. You will be able to reason and discuss the open challenges and questions that still need to be resolved. This course is a key course for distributed systems students.