CS 251: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies

Course syllabus and readings

Fall 2019

Every lecture is accompanied by readings that support and expand on what was covered in the lecture. In the listings below we use NBFMG to refer to the course textbook Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction.

 
Lecture 1:
Mon 9/23/19
(DB)
Intro to cryptography & crypto currencies
References:
  • NBFMG Chapter 1
 
Lecture 2:
Wed 9/25/19
(DB)
Overview of consensus protocols
References:
 
Lecture 3:
Mon 9/30/19
(DB)
Bitcoin nuts and bolts
References:
 
Lecture 4:
Wed 10/ 2/19
(DB)
User facing tools: managing and protecting crypto assets
References:
 
Lecture 5:
Mon 10/ 7/19
(BF)
Large Scale Consensus: network models, corruption tolerance, sybil resistance   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 6:
Wed 10/ 9/19
(BF)
Consensus Protocols: Nakamoto, Byzantine Agreement, committee election   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 7:
Mon 10/14/19
(DB)
Ethereum: Decentralized Apps, EVM, and the Ethereum blockchain
References:
 
Lecture 8:
Wed 10/16/19
(Guest)
Programming in solidity (Amir Bandeali, 0x project)   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 9:
Mon 10/21/19
(BF)
scaling the blockchain: payment channels and state channels   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 10:
Wed 10/23/19
(BF)
Scaling the blockchain using shards   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 11:
Mon 10/28/19
(BF)
Privacy: de-anonymizing the blockchain and mixing
References:
 
Lecture 12:
Wed 10/30/19
(DB)
SNARKs: what they are and how they are used
References:
 
Lecture 13:
Mon 11/ 4/19
(DB)
SNARKs applications: Rollup, confidential transactions, and Zcash
References:
 
Lecture 14:
Wed 11/ 6/19
(DB)
The Kilian SNARK, Fiat-Shamir, and R1CS format
References:
 
Lecture 15:
Mon 11/11/19
(BF)
Preprocessings SNARKs with a trusted setup   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 16:
Wed 11/13/19
(BF)
Transparent SNARKs, recursive SNARKs, and applications   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 17:
Mon 11/18/19
(Guest)
Blockchain economics (Olaf Carlson-Wee, Polychain)   [notes]
References:
 
Lecture 18:
Wed 11/20/19
(Guest)
Legal aspects and regulation (Katie Biber, Anchorage)   [notes]
References:
 
Holiday:   
Mon 11/25/19 		Thanksgiving
 
Holiday:   
Wed 11/27/19 		Thanksgiving
 
Lecture 19:
Mon 12/ 2/19
(DB)
Crypto tricks: Signature aggregation, HD wallets, Taproot, MimbleWimble
References:
 
Lecture 20:
Wed 12/ 4/19
(Guest)
The future of blockchains (Chris Dixon, a16z)   [notes]