Schedule
The course plans to cover basic cryptography, consensus mechanisms, scaling proposals, and privacy-oriented protocols.
Weeks 1-2) Cryptography
Meeting Time: Friday, 1-1:50PM
Location: Thornton Hall D115
Topics
Cryptographic primitives:
hash functions
digital signatures
merkle trees
Byzantine General's Problem and Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Permissioned vs. Permissionless
UTXO vs. Account Model
3-4) Consensus Mechanisms
Meeting Time: Friday, 1-1:50PM
Location: Thornton Hall D115
Topics
Proof of Work
client-side validation
synchrony assumptions
Math (Bitcoin Whitepaper Walkthrough!)
Proof of Stake
Nothing at Stake
Casper
Tendermint
Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake Debate
Alternative Protocols
Proof of Authority (identity renting)
Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET, used in Hyperledger)
Proof of Activity (PoA)
Proof of Space (IPFS, Filecoin)
Proofs in General
Proof by Induction
Desirable properties
5) Payment Channels
Meeting Time: Friday, 1-1:50PM
Location: Thornton Hall D115
Topics
Lightning
Lightning paper vs implementation
Setting up a routing node
HTLC
Security
Hub-Spoke Micropayment Networks
6) State Channels
Meeting Time: Friday, 1-1:50PM
Location: Thornton Hall D115
Topics
Sprites
Using state channels for payment routing
Generalized State Channels (by L4)
Counterfactual Instantiation
Related privacy topics: multi-hop locks paper
7) Plasma
Meeting Time: Friday, 1-1:50PM
Location: Thornton Hall D115
Topics
Implementation Challenges
Data Availability Problem
Censorship Resistance
Plasma Cash
Merkle Tree
Google Certificate Management Example
Current Implementations: loom
Other Educational Resources
8-12) TBD
The last few topics will be decided using student voting.
Possible Topics
Privacy
Zero Knowledge Proofs
zkSNARKs and zkSTARKs
Signature Aggregation
Ring Signatures
Token Economics
Auctions
Voting
Token Curated Registries
Token Bonding Curves
Decentralized Governance
Resource allocation assumptions behind modern blockchains
Airdrops
ICOs
DApp
Web3 UX
Frameworks/Tools
Architecture
Your Ideas!
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