Overview and description:

This course focuses on Blockchain, one of the most interesting topics in the last decade. It starts from Bitcoin 1.0; Satoshi Nakamoto’s original design and continues with structure of well-known chains such as Ethereum, and alternative and additional components, e.g., consensus algorithms, smart contracts, oracles etc. It also covers the recent trends such as Token Economies, DeFi, Web3 and Metaverse.

Target audience:

All the people, who are interested in Blockchain and relevant technologies. 

Prerequisites:

Although some of the courses, e.g., the ones on Smart Contracts, require programming expertise (in Solidity), and some e.g., Consensus Algorithms, require a basic understanding of a distributed system, for most of them, no preliminary knowledge is required.

Workflow: 

This is a 3-day school where each day has two sessions. There is no hardware or HPC connection required. The presentation materials and the practical exercises will be shared after the course for the students to review and practice on their computers. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school was online.

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the course, the students will:

• understand how a blockchain works, distinguish its components such as the underlying consensus algorithms, security, and privacy guarantees, etc.
• learn what a smart contract is and be able to implement and deploy a basic one on the Ethereum blockchain,
• learn the meanings and the ideas behind the NFTs, DAOs, i.e., all the side products and 
• learn what a cryptocurrency is, how to build a token economy, 
• understand the recent trends such as Web3 and Metaverse and what/if they will change (in) our lives.