Cryptocurrency Engineering and Design
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Lecture Notes; Lecture Videos; Problem Sets
- Before you start: Programming experience is required to succeed in this course. See the list of Introductory Programming Courses on OCW.
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Spring 2018
- Department: Media Arts and Sciences
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How Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work: signatures, proof of work, transactions, forks, Lightning, privacy and smart contracts.
How does Bitcoin actually work, and what are the engineering trade-offs behind it and other cryptocurrencies? This course studies their design and how they function in practice through cryptography, game theory and network architecture: signatures and hash chains, proof of work and mining, transactions and the UTXO model, wallets, forks, fees and Segregated Witness, payment channels and the Lightning Network, privacy techniques, Ethereum and smart contracts, and alternative consensus mechanisms, with programming assignments that work with real systems.
What You Will Achieve
- Explain how signatures, hashing and proof of work secure a cryptocurrency
- Describe Bitcoin’s transaction model, synchronization and wallet types
- Analyze scaling and privacy designs such as payment channels and confidential transactions
- Compare Bitcoin with Ethereum smart contracts and alternative consensus mechanisms
Program Overview
Bitcoin Fundamentals
The cryptography and mechanics at the core of Bitcoin.
- Signatures, hashing, hash chains and e-cash
- Proof of work and mining
- Transactions and the UTXO model
- Synchronization, pruning and wallet types
Forks, Fees and Payment Channels
How the protocol evolves, and how payments move off the chain.
- Forks, fees and transaction malleability
- Segregated Witness
- Payment channels and the Lightning Network
- Discreet log contracts and cross-chain swaps
Privacy, Smart Contracts and New Directions
Anonymity, programmable contracts and other consensus designs.
- Coinjoin, signature aggregation and confidential transactions
- MAST, Taproot and Graftroot
- Ethereum and smart contracts
- Alternative consensus mechanisms and zkLedger
Course Completion
Job Outlook
Cryptocurrency engineering is used in blockchain development, applied cryptography, security research, financial technology and protocol design.
Good for: Programmers who want to understand cryptocurrencies from the protocol up, not from the headlines.
Keep in mind: Taught in 2018 in a field that moves quickly, so read it as a foundation rather than a current survey; the materials are lecture videos, notes and problem sets.
Bottom line: A rigorous, engineering-first look at how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it about investing in cryptocurrency?
No. It is about how the systems are designed and engineered, through cryptography, game theory and network architecture.
Who are the guest lecturers?
Researchers and practitioners, among them Alin Tomescu on OP_RETURN and Catena, Sharon Goldberg on peer-to-peer networks, Joseph Bonneau on Ethereum and David Vorick on proof of work at industrial scale.
How does the final project work?
In groups of one to four, you build an application or system, add a feature to an existing cryptocurrency, propose a new formalization, or pose and solve a problem, with a presentation and a short paper.
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