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Blockchain basics
Economist, scientific Director of the graduate FINTECH, Director of research Thalamus Lab, Ranepa
Chapter 1. Introduction and game theory
Alexander Didenko
Our course begins with the analysis of Bitcoin and Ethereum — the two most well-known cases in decentralized finance world. In this part, you will only get acquainted with the most important principles and algorithms underlying Bitcoin and Ethereum. In the future, we will repeatedly return to these two cases, use them to illustrate the concepts of game theory and cryptography, and compare them with other cryptocurrency and non-cryptocurrency systems.
How Bitcoin works
To sum up, in order to have cashless payment system we need to store some way or another information about the transactions between all participants of the system. But then, in turn, those who control «general ledger», the center, control each transaction. Cash transactions are decentralized but have many disadvantages of non-digital world such as easier to fake, harder to store, impossible to split indefinitely. And what can we do if nobody trusts each other? Everyone can keep a copy of the central ledger with him, but how to synchronize them with each other and why someone would want to keep all these copies? And how to agree on which copy is «correct». In other words, how to reach consensus?
As you can see the bitcoin system has much in common with the currency system of our imaginary islanders:
Kauri shells and Rai stones are «mined». It is almost like mining in Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work
Blocks are interconnected as in a nodal writing
The block is «closed» and it is almost like burning a clay tablet — it is impossible to fake after the block is «closed»
Additional links to this video
Original Satoshi's Bitcoin whitepaper
Few words about Satoshi
How Bittcoin's work — Basic Block's podcast about bitcoin-reformation
In this report we will try to show that Bitcoin, encryption, the Internet and the generation of millennials are not just the trends of the 21st century, but the harbingers of a wave of changes similar to the revolutionary European era of the 16th–17th centuries.
How Ethereum works
Additional links to this video
Blockchains are not just cryptocurrencies
Even in bitcoin's blockchain you could supply transactions with short messages. They even say that lovers used bitcoin's blockchain as pumped version of Pont des Arts bridge. While physical bridge once in a year is cleaned from padlocks, «Alice + Bob = Love», transacted between Bob and Alice with the smallest amount of bitcoin possible, would be stored in blockchain forever, on thousands of nodes across the world. All in all, every cryptocurrency blockchain is in the first hand distributed database. Even cash currency transaction is exchange of information: Kauri shell is no more than symbol of value. Among
Short non-technical introduction in Hyperledger blockchain
More technical and longer introduction in Hyperledger blockchain
Plenty of short videos, podcasts and papers, describing principles of Corda blockchain and real-world applications outside cryptocurrencies world. Corda also have its channel on Vimeo, which also store many interesting short videos among which is the definition of distributed edger by R3 Corda CTO, Richard Gendal Brown. Usually «distributed ledgers» term is used as more wide, with proof-of-work blockchains being one possible solution for distributed ledger.
A distributed ledger is a system that allows parties that do not really trust each other to come to consensus about the existence, nature and evolution of a set of shared facts without having to rely on a fully trusted centralized third-party.
Distributed ledger
Richard Gendal Brown, R3 Corda CTO
Additional materials
Great MOOC about money on Lectorium
Read more about the medieval roots of blockchains here.
A Very Brief History Of Blockchain Technology Everyone Should Read — here
Blockchain at Wikipedia — here
Blockchain for startups
A distributed ledger is a special algorithmic type of economic mechanism, since human agents in it also interact with machines. In the course, we will understand how the discipline of design of algorithmic mechanisms can be useful for a design engineer and a distributed ledger researcher.
What will you get
- 12 lessons with assignments in a chatbot
- Author’s presentation: simple, clear and with interest in the subject
- Free schedule: no deadlines and due dates for assignments
- All materials are available immediately, you can start learning at a convenient time
- Professional video and modern graphics
- Quick contact with technical support
- Certificate of Completion
What will you learn
- Build equilibrium models and other types of models in R and NetLogo
- Study deviations from equilibrium
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