Office Hours: Mondays 2:00PM-4:00PM, Engineering 5333 (also by appointment)

Lectures: Mondays 4:30PM-7:10PM, Location: TBA 

Class Website: http://www.baldimtsi.com/teaching/cs795_sp17

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Course Summary

This class will serve as an introduction to the exciting new world of blockchain technologies. We will start our journey studying Bitcoin (the cryptocurrency everyone talks about) which is one of the first popular application of blockchains. We will study in detail how bitcoins are generated/mined, how transactions are being made and how the blockchain makes it possible to keep everything secure, fast and reliable without depending in any ``trusted party'' such as a government or a financial institution. We will explain the limitations of Bitcoin and will explore new systems and cryptocurrency proposals that overcome them. Then, we will look at the smart contract technology that enforces the automated execution of electronic commitments among parties without the need for a mediator.  Finally, we will explore further applications of blockchain such as identity management or distributed data storage.

Prerequisites: No specific prerequisites. Familiarity with networks, security and cryptography will be helpful. There will also be some programming assignments and students should be familiar with programming in C, Java or another language.

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Grading

Homeworks: 20% (2 assignments that will require both programming and problem solving) 
Paper Presentation: 25% Every student will present one research paper in class.
Labs: 5% (There will 2-3 in class labs)
Class Participation: 5% 
Final Project: 45% (You will work on project in blockchain technologies with a writeup/coding and in class presentation) 

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