Princeton 'Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies' Course Discussion Topic

Princeton is offering a free online course about bitcoin and it starts tomorrow (as of writing; September 4th - October 22nd). This topic will be a way for those of us enrolled to discuss class material as we progress through the course, and perhaps request help if something is confusing.

https://www.coursera.org/course/bitcointech?utm_medium=email&utm_source=other&utm_campaign=notifications.auto.VU_eblI1EeWSdxIbzhXKXw

About the Course

To really understand what is special about Bitcoin, we need to understand how it works at a technical level. We’ll address the important questions about Bitcoin, such as:

How does Bitcoin work? What makes Bitcoin different? How secure are your Bitcoins? How anonymous are Bitcoin users? What determines the price of Bitcoins? Can cryptocurrencies be regulated? What might the future hold?

After this course, you’ll know everything you need to be able to separate fact from fiction when reading claims about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. You’ll have the conceptual foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the Bitcoin network. And you’ll be able to integrate ideas from Bitcoin in your own projects.

Course Lecturers:
Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University
Joseph Bonneau, Princeton University
Edward Felten, Princeton University
Andrew Miller, University of Maryland

Course Syllabus

Intro to Crypto and Cryptocurrencies

Cryptographic Hash Functions
Hash Pointers and Data Structures
Digital Signatures
Public Keys as Identities
Simple Cryptocurrencies

How Bitcoin Achieves Decentralization

Centralization vs. decentralization
Distributed consensus
Consensus without identity: the block chain
Incentives and proof of work
Putting it all together

Mechanics of Bitcoin

Bitcoin transactions
Bitcoin scripts
Applications of Bitcoin scripts
Bitcoin blocks
The Bitcoin network
Limitations & improvements

How to Store and Use Bitcoins

Simple Local Storage
How to Store and Use Bitcoins
Secret Keys
Hot and Cold Storage
Splitting and Sharing Keys
Online Wallets and Exchanges
Payment Services
Transaction Fees
Currency Exchange Markets

Bitcoin mining

The task of Bitcoin miners
Mining hardware
Energy consumption & ecology
Mining pools
Mining incentives and strategies

Bitcoin and anonymity

Anonymity basics
Overview of Bitcoin deanonymization
Mixing
Decentralized mixing
Zerocoin and Zerocash
Tor and the Silk Road

Community, Politics, and Regulation

Consensus in Bitcoin
Bitcoin Core Software
Stakeholders : Who’s in Charge?
Roots of Bitcoin
Governments Notice Bitcoin
Anti Money-Laundering Regulation
New York’s BitLicense Proposal

Alternative Mining Puzzles

Essential Puzzle Requirements
ASIC Resistant Puzzles
Proof-of-useful-work
Nonoutsourceable Puzzles
Proof-of-Stake

Bitcoin as a platform

Bitcoin as an append-only log
Bitcoins as “smart property”
Secure multi-party lotteries in Bitcoin
Bitcoin as randomness source
Prediction markets & real-world data feeds

Altcoins and the Cryptocurrency Ecosystem

Short History of Altcoins
Interaction between Bitcoin and altcoins
Lifecycle of an Altcoin
Bitcoin-Backed Altcoins, “Side Chains”

The future of Bitcoin?

The block chain as a vehicle for decentralization
Routes to decentralization
What can we decentralize?
When is decentralization a good idea?

Recommended Background

An introductory computer science class (such as CS 101) is required.

Basic programming experience as well as some knowledge of data structures and algorithms (linked lists, sorting, searching...) are strongly recommended.

Suggested Readings

There is no required reading for this class. As the lectures progress, we'll provide links to more in-depth material for students who want to dig deeper.

The lectures for this course are also being published as a textbook. Drafts of several chapters are currently available (each corresponds to a lecture):

Chapter 1: Introduction to Cryptography & Cryptocurrencies: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B4-bDFu_72BeRnNqTkFUcGRkcm8
Chapter 2: How Bitcoin Achieves Decentralization: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B4-bDFu_72BeZnJRTTRRcHdibVk
Chapter 3: Mechanics of Bitcoin: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B4-bDFu_72Bea2R0cHB5SFI1VGc
Chapter 4: How to Store and Use Bitcoins: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B4-bDFu_72Beb1UtS0pzbl9ILTg&export=download
Chapter 5: Bitcoin Mining: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B4-bDFu_72Beelkxd3VlbXoyd0E&export=download
Chapter 7: Community, Politics, and Regulation: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B4-bDFu_72Bed2ZGZi16eFh5b0k&export=download

Course Format

The class will consist of lecture videos broken up into 5-7 segments, each 10-15 minutes in length. Each segment contains 1 or 2 integrated quiz questions.

There will also be standalone homeworks that are not part of video lectures.