Teaching

The goal of this Seminar is to give students first-hand experience in programming decentralized applications on the most popular blockchain protocols, including, but not limited, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polkadot. Students will be given theoretical and technical guidance as well as technical infrastructure - forks of several before mentioned blockchain protocols, so that they can start developing their own decentralized applications. Topics that are included in this Seminar (but are not limited to): blockchain protocols (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot), smart contracts, consensus mechanisms, transaction and smart contract languages (Script, Solidity), analysis of transaction networks, large scale preprocessing of blockchain data and extraction of relevant information (balances, addresses, entities).

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Blockchains have disrupted the way of thinking distributed systems; since their introduction multiple applications have surfaced, ranging from financial ones – which have been the most pervasive – to supply chains, digital democracy and distributed computing. Blockchain related research is increasingly becoming an active, heavily interdisciplinary, field of research. This Seminar is intended for PhD students interested in obtaining in-depth familiarity with and current research topics different areas related to blockchains. Students will actively participate in lectures by important researchers from Switzerland and abroad, will critically evaluate the research presented, and will also receive feedback on their current research projects.

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