In this course we will learn about the technologies, history and applications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
This course will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10-12. The first lecture will be on Tuesday, 15th October, 10am in room SR049.
Attention: Instead of having every week one lecture and one tutorial, there will be two lectures per week until christmas and then there will be project work in 2025 with three presentations. (For more information see below)
The lectures will be held in English.
The course is stuctured as follows:
| TUE 15.10 VL1 / Do 17.10 VL2 | Introduction, history, ledger, Satoshi Nakamoto (Assignment 1: 17.10-17.11) |
| TUE 22.10 VL3 |
Cryptographic basics: cryptographic hashing, digital signatures Simple cryptocurrency coins: GoofyCoin and ScroogeCoin |
| Do 31.10 VL4 | Ledger vs. Blockchain (Chap. 3.1), Bitcoin and Ethereum P2P network, distributed consensus |
| TUE 05.11 VL5 / Do 07.11 VL6 | Consensus, operation of mining, probabilistics of mining, difficulty (Chap. 2), Numbers in today's systems, mining pools (5.4) |
| TUE 12.11 VL7 | Bitcoin mechanics, types of transactions (Chap. 3) (Assignment 2: 14.11-15.12) |
| TUE 19.11 VL8 / Do 21.11 VL9 | Bitcoin mining, mining pools (Chap. 5) |
| TUE 26.11 VL10 / Do 28.11 VL11 | Bitcoin anonymity, mixing services, zero coin, zero cash (Chap. 6) |
| TUE 03.12 VL12 / Do 05.12 VL13 | Bitcoin community, legal aspects (Chap. 7) |
| TUE 10.12.24 VL14 | Alternative mining, Altcoins (Chap. 8, 9) (Assignment 3: 12.12-06.02) |
| In the last week before christmas there will be probably a workshop on two days in the afternoon. This workshop could be very helpful for the project work. |
|
| TUE 07.01 / Do 09.01 | Project KickOff Presentation |
| TUE 14.01 / Do 16.01 | Q&A (optional) |
| TUE 21.01 / Do 23.01 | Project Interms Presentation |
| TUE 28.01 / Do 30.01 | Q&A (optional) |
| TUE 04.02 / Do 06.02 | Project Final Presentation |
| THU 13.02.2025 | 10-12 Exam |
Literatur:
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction, by Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller, Steven Goldfeder
https://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/ this link has information about the book and links to the lecture videos produced by the authors of the book.
Links:
- https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins
- https://www.coinbase.com/
- https://www.coindesk.com
- https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts
- https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/
- http://ethviewer.live/
- https://bitnodes.io/
- https://ethernodes.org
- https://etherscan.io/
- https://bitcoin.org/en/
- https://john-mecke.medium.com/5-stories-about-people-who-lost-their-bitcoin-cdaaae329468
- https://vanitygen.net/
- https://joshua-zou.github.io/vanity-btc/
- https://bitcoin-vanity-address.com/index.php
- https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/
- bitcoinfees.info
- mempool.space
- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools
- https://etherscan.io/charts
- https://consensys.net/blog/blockchain-explained/the-roadmap-to-serenity-2/
- https://rekt.news/leaderboard/