Will be posted on Piazza.
Blockchain technology amalgamates technical tools, economic mechanisms, and system design patterns. It facilitates the construction of information systems with novel combinations of robustness, decentralization, privacy, cost, and flexibility. Beyond their initial use in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchains have become a promising and powerful technology in business, financial services, law, and other areas.
This course covers blockchain technology in a comprehensive, systematic, and interdisciplinary way. It surveys major approaches, variants, and applications of blockchains in these areas. Beyond a solid grasp of the principles, the course aims to build familiarity with practice through numerous case studies and hands-on projects.
To facilitate its interdisciplinary perspective, this course will be open to two categories of students: students with Computer Science background (graduate or advanced undergraduate), and graduate students with a substantial Business or Law background and a working knowledge of computer programming.
Projects will be done in heterogeneous teams combining these categories, and will center on devising and analyzing sample applications of blockchain technology, including both prototype implementations and analysis of its business/legal implications.
Disentangling "blockchain”; cryptographic prerequisites; assets and their representations; on-chain programming; state consensus; deployments; decentralized applications (Dapps/Web3); protocol governance; protocol revenue and business models; market structure; privacy and authorization; regulation.
Students will obtain a comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and markets, suitable as a foundation both for academic research and for industry practice/entrepreneurship. They will learn the capabilities of this technology, as well as the pitfalls and lessons learned from past security and business failures.
Since blockchain technology draws on a wide array of tools from distributed systems, software development, and cryptography, the course will also exemplify the usage of concepts students have seen in prior classes or (if not previously encountered) to gain awareness of these tools.
Similarly, blockchain markets provide ample, often dramatic, examples of key concepts in economics, business model development, funding, and risk management.
Furthermore, through the interdisciplinary topic coverage and the heterogeneous project groups, students will gain exposure to other disciplines’ core conceptual and analytical frameworks.
The course will cover the following topics:
Connections between these topics, and to real-world projects, will be explored through abundant examples and suggestions for further reading.
Class time will also be allocated to student project presentations and feedback.
One of the following:
Law School students with a suitable background are also welcome. Exceptions, such as equivalent industry or informal experience, will be considered.
Questrom students can take this course for 3 point credits. The meetings and labs are joint with CAS CS559 (4 credit points), but there is an exemption from certain assignments involving extensive programming work.
This Questrom variant is listed as QST IS795, and formal registration is as QST IS898 "Directed Study". In detail:
The course will be listed in the system under the IS795 course code with the corresponding class and lab meeting schedules, but MBA students will be registered using IS898. Questrom's Registrar will email the MBA students who request to join and ask them to choose between the two lab portion of the course. Students will then be formally registered IS898 A1 and either IS898 A2 or IS898 A3, based on their lab schedule preference, but the class/lab meeting schedules will not display on their schedule in the system.
The course’s grading policy is in the spirit of the following, but subject to the staff’s qualitative discretion:
Extraordinary contributions will be noted and rewarded.
For any questions, you can contact the instructor.