Session 11 Study Questions: How do decentralized blockchain applications affect the cost of verification and the cost of networking? How do blockchain applications affect market power? What might the economics and organization of the Internet–with its protocol layers and applications–tell us about the future of blockchain technology? What lessons should be drawn from crypto skeptics–Krugman, Stiglitz, Roubini, Gates, Buffett, Dimon, & others–about the economic potential for blockchain technology? What is an answer to the oft stated query: ‘what problem do cryptocurrencies solve?’ Session 11 Readings: ‘Why Bitcoin is and isn’t the Internet’, Ito. ‘Some Simple Economics of the Blockchain’, Catalini and Glans. ‘Transaction Cost and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto…

Session 10 Study Questions: What are the tradeoffs of centralized institutions and markets in the financial sector? Which challenges of the financial sector–periodic crises, concentrated risks, economic rents, legacy systems, processing risks, financial inclusion–might present opportunities for blockchain applications? How does blockchain technology fit within other trends–particularly with regard to technology–facing the financial sector in 2018? Session 10 Readings: ‘Top financial services issues of 2018’ PwC Financial Services Institute ‘Sheila Bair on What Hasn’t Changed since the Great Recession’, New York Magazine. ‘The Rise of Market Concentration and Rent Seeking in Financial Sector’, Zhang. Optional: ‘Ten Years after the Crash, We are Living in a World it Brutally Remade’, New…

Session 9: Permissioned Systems Session 9 Study Questions: What is permissioned or private distributed ledger technology? How does it differ from permissionless or open blockchain applications? What are the key blockchain inspired features of Corda and Hyperledger Fabric? What is Digital Asset Holdings? What are the business tradeoffs of utilizing a permissioned vs. a permissionless application? What are the tradeoffs for consumers? Session 9 Readings: ‘Enterprises building Blockchain Confront Early Tech Limitations’, CoinDesk. ‘Technical difference between Ethereum, Hyperledger fabric & R3 Corda’ by Nandi ‘What is Corda’, Newton. ‘A Blockchain Platform for the Enterprise, Introduction’, Hyperledger Fabric. ‘What is Digital Asset? / Distributed Ledgers for Financial Institutions’, Coin Central. Overview:…

Session 8: Public Policy Session 8 Study Questions: How do key public policy frameworks–guarding agains illicit acticities, ensuring financial stability, & protecting investors–relate to blockchain technology and crypto finance? Under tax, bank secrecy, securities & commodities laws, what is the relevance if crypto tokens are deemed property? Currencies? Something of value? An investment contract? A commodity? What is the essence of the U.S. Supreme Court ‘Howey Test’? How might the ‘Duck Test’ guide thinking of blockchain technology and crypto finance? Session 8 Readings: ‘Cryptocurrencies: Oversight of New Assets in the Digital Age’, Gensler. ‘The Future of Money’, Carney. ‘Nobel-Winning Economists: Authorities will bring down ‘hammer’ on bitcoin’, CNBC. Overview: Crypto…

Session 7: Technical Challenges Session 7 Study Questions: How critical are the technical and commercial challenges–scalability, efficiency, privacy, security, interoperability–of current blockchain technology? What are the possible tradeoffs of decentralizaton, scalability and security? What are tradeoffs of consensus software updates, governance and so-called ‘hard forks’? What might current work–Layer 2 applications, zero-knowledge proofs, alternative consensus algorithms–do to address current commercial challenges? Session 7 Readings: Required: ‘Geneva Report’ Chapter 2 (pages 9-16); Casey, Crane, Gensler, Johnson, & Narula ‘On the Scalability of Blockchains’ The Control ‘Transaction Speeds: How do Cryptocurrencies Speeds Stack up to Visa or PayPal?’, HowMuch.net ‘Layer 2/ the Lightening Network’ Digital Currency Initiative ‘Top 8 Privacy Coins’ Invest…

Session 6: Smart Contracts and DApps Session 6 Study Questions: What are smart contracts? How do they compare to traditional contracts? What are tokens? What are smart contract platforms such as Ethereum? What generally distinguishes them from Bitcoin? What are decentralized application (DApps)? What has been the usage and why haven’t any DApps yet received wide consumer adoption? Session 6 Readings: Required: “Smart Contracts: 12 Use cases for Business & Beyond”, Chamber of Digital Commerce. “State of the DApps: 5 Observations from Usage Data”, McCann. “Ethereum Competitors: Guide to the Alternative Smart Contract Platforms”, Blockonomi. Optional: “Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets”, Szabo. “A Next-Generation Smart Contract & Decentralized…

Session 5: Blockchain Basics & Transactions, UTXO, & Script Code Session 5 Study Questions: How does Bitcoin record transactions? What is Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO)? What is script code embedded in each Bitcoin transaction and how flexible a programming language is it? As many design features (public key cryptography, hash functions, append-only timestamped logs, digital cash, & proof-of-work) pre-date Bitcoin, what was the novel innovation of Satoshi Nakamoto? Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? (Only kidding a bit.) Session 5 Readings: ‘Bitcoin’s Academic Pedigree’ Narayanan and Clark ‘Making Sense of Cryptoeconomics’ CoinDesk Narayanan & Clark’s Chronology of Ideas in Bitcoin Overview: Transaction Inputs & Outputs; Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO); Scripting Language; Blockchain…

Session 4: Blockchain Basics and Consensus Session 4 Study Questions: What is the Byzantine General’s problem? How does proof-of-work and mining in Bitcoin address it? More generally, how does blockchain technology address it? What other consensus protocols are there? What are some of the tradeoffs of alternative consensus algorithms–proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, etc.? How do economic incentives work within blockchain technology to maintain decentralized ledgers and avoid double spending? What are the incentives of consensus protocols & mining? Session 4 Readings: ‘Geneva Report’ Chapter 1 (pages 1-7); Casey, Crane, Gensler, Johnson & Narula. ‘Blockchain Technology Review’ NIST (pages 23-32, section 3 & 4). ‘The Byzantine Generals Problem’; Lamport, Shostak & Pease (382-387).…

Session 3: Blockchain Basics & Cryptography Session 3 Study Questions: What are the design features–cryptography, append-only, time-stamped blocks, distributed consensus algorithms, and networking– of Bitcoin, the first use case for blockchain technology? What are cryptographic hash functions, asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures? How are they utilized to help make blockchain technology verifiable and immutable? What is the double spending problem and how it is addressed by blockchain technology? Session 3 Readings: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System; Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper. ‘Blockchain Technology Overview’ NIST (pages 9-23, sections 1 & 2) ‘Blockchain 101-A Visual Demo’ Brownworth; Youtube video. Bitcoin is just the first use-case of blockchain technology. We’re going to look…