Lectures
Topic | Lecturer | Study & Teaching Materials | |
---|---|---|---|
Lec 1 & 2 | Bitcoin | Marek Bielik | Bitcoin Handout, Bitcoin Slides The Bitcoin handout is the recommended study material for the first two lectures. The slides are supplementary. |
Lec 3-4 | Introduction to web3 and security audits | Josef Gattermayer, Ph.D. | https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tgnBd4-5ArTYE7dNOYw4egneiuYd3mzNkGEbSmwgosI/edit?usp=sharing Introduction to the web3 ecosystem and security audits, example audit report, how to read it and write it. More about audits, more about web3. |
Lec 5-6 | Systems design, hands-on development | Jakub Růžička | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tyMP7ZfbcCbQftDQyRytfRIOS55YstAw/view The "System Design and Hands-On Development" lecture features an interactive discussion on when blockchain is a good or bad fit, demonstrated on widely used products and services. It covers design decisions around architecture of blockchain-based software, most used tools, programming languages (incl. platform-specific ones) and high-level libraries. It also includes code walkthroughs / explanations of simple scripts. The two follow up labs give a short introduction to system design and practical security (a bridge to the next lecture) and let students practice their skills on mock projects, under the guidance of the course lecturers. They are concluded with presentations of the created design docs to the whole study group. |
Lec 7-8 | Smart contract hacks | Josef Gattermayer, Ph.D. & guests | Most notable hacks (The DAO hack, Parity hack, Poly Network, GSN vulnerability), attack vectors, threat modelling, platform governance, best practices. |
Lec 9-10 | Web3 use cases | Dušan Kovačič | Why Web 3 Matters? Use-cases and examples of real world applications utilizing blockchain on the backend, review of key trends in the blockchain industry and outlook for the next 2 years. |
Lec 11-12 | Decentralization under Proof of Stake | Martin Vejmelka, Ph.D. | Proof Of Stake networks approach the problem of securing the blockchain by creating a market for the service of processing transactions. Entities providing these services are called validators. In the spirit of decentralization, each validator is a separate commercial entity that wants to optimize profit. Unfortunately this is insufficient for decentralization as we show on real data that we colllect. To maintain and improve decentralization, new incentive structures relying on measurements and observation must be developed. We will discuss and demonstrate efforts to track blockchain networks and create incentive structures and distribution mechanisms to support decentralization. |