Cryptocourse

Complex full-fledged University-grade course for Computer Science classes focused on in-depth understanding of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology lectured at Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies at Slovak University of Technology by David Stancel, MSc. of CoinStory and Kristian Kostal,Phd.
The creation of this course has been supported by Ernst&Young - Thank you!
Feel free to use anything for whatever purpose as long as you attribute credits appopriately. Everyone is also welcomed to send comments, inquires and proposals of topics, and resources to include into the course at [email protected].
Updated slides will be linked here throughout 2021.
Inspired by Courses:
1.Introduction to Digital Currencies at University of Nicosia as well as the whole MSc. Program
2.Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies at Princeton University
Based on Books:
  1. 3.
    A. Narayanan, J. Bonneau, E. Felten, A. Miller, S. Goldfeder - Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies (available for free) or at Amazon
  2. 5.
    SerHack & Monero Community - Mastering Monero (available for free) or at Amazon
  3. 6.
    Darren Lau, Daryl Lau, T. Sze Jin, K. Kho, E. Azmi, TM Lee, B. Ong -- How to DeFi (available for free)
  4. 7.
    Kurt M. Alonso, Sarang Noether, Koe - Zero to Monero (available for free)
Further Recommedned Reading:

1. Introduction to Digital Currencies and Blockchain

  • History and emergence of digital currencies - Digicash, Bitgold, B-money,Hashcash, RPOW, E-gold ..
  • Fundamental technology stack
  • Emergence of Bitcoin
  • Main principles and definitions

Reading & Resources:

A. Back - Hashcash
N. Szabo - Bitgold
W. Dai - B-money
S. Nakamoto - Bitcoin Whitepaper
H. Finney - RPOW
Lamport, Shostak, Peace - The Byzantine General Problem
Optional:
Diffie, Hellman - New Directions in Cryptogprahy
S. Haber, S. Stornetta - How to Timestamp a Digital Document
Live Examples:

Slides

2. Bitcoin Protocol

  • Bitcoin protocol specifications
  • Transactions - UTXO model, data structures
  • Proof-of-Work Consensus Mechanism
  • Bitcoin Script

Reading & Resources:

Mastering Bitcoin - Chapters 2 and 6

Slides

3. Consensus Algorithms

  • Mining & Consensus Mechanisms,
  • Bitcoin Core
  • Nodes
Reading & Resources:
Mastering Bitcoin - Chapters 3 and 10

Slides

4. Ethereum Protocol and Smart Contracts

Reading & Resources:

Mastering Ethereum - Chapters 5,6,7 and 12

Optional:

Slides

5. Coding Solidity

  • Syntax, Tools
  • Programming decentralized applicatins

Reading & Resources:

Building Ethereum Dapps - Roberto Infante - Chapters 4,5,6, and 8

Slides: TBD

6. Alternative Cryptocurrencies

  • Introduction to Altcoins
  • Basic Differences
  • Comparison of selected altcoins in terms of technology - Monero, Zcash, Decred, Pivx ...
  • Smart Contract Platforms: Cardano, Cosmos, Avalanche, Polkadot, Near
  • Tokenisation as a phenomenom

Reading & Resources:

Mastering Blockchain - Imran Bashir - Chapter 15

Optional:

Mastering Monero - Chapter 3
Zcash WP

Slides

7. Blockchain Scaling and layer two technologies

  • Bitcoin and Ethereum scaling techniques
  • Lightning Network - main principles, and overview of implementations
  • Plasma, State Channels - main principles, and overview of implementations

Reading & Resources:

FYI

Slides: TBD

8. Security & Privacy Considerations of Cryptocurrencies

  • Types of Wallets, Seeds and archiving
  • Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Tools
  • Attack vectors - 51% attack, Selfish Mining, Time Jacking, Eclipse attack, Flood attack, Sybil attacks ...
  • Anonymity and privacy techniques

Reading & Resources:

Seed
BIP 0032

Slides

9. Blockchain in Enterprise

  • Blockchain Consortia - overview adn technologies
  • Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, Hyperledger, Qorum
  • EY - Nightfall, Baseline

Reading & Resources:

Slides

10. Alternative sue-cases for Blockchain

  • Overview of different blockchain usecases and applicaitons
  • Public sector usecases, Supply Chain, Finance, Timestamping
  • NOnf-ungible tokens
  • DeFi - MakerDAO & DAI, Decentralized Exchanges, Lending, Derivatives, Insurance, Aggregators

Reading & Resources:

How to DeFi Book chapters 6 and 7

Slides

11. Interoperability in Blockchain

  • Cosmos, Polkadot
  • Homogenous vs. heterogenous
  • different categorization of blockchain interoperability

Reading & Resources:

Slides: TBD

  • Legal Challenges of Smart Contracts & Dapps & DAOs
  • Legal and Economic Aspects of Cryptocurrencies - KYC, AML, MiCA
  • ICOs, STOs, IEOs, Airdrops, CBDCs

Reading & Resources:

Slides

13. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) - BONUS

  • Introduciton to DeFi
  • MakerDAO & DAI
  • Decentralized Exchanges, Lending, Derivatives, Insurance, Fund Management, Lottery
  • Uniswap, Compound, Synthetix, Opyn, TokenSets, PoolTogether

Reading & Resources:

Slides: TBD

Last modified 2yr ago