In this module, we will examine a brief history of distributed ledger technologies, specifically blockchain technology and how it is designed (i.e., cryptography, block structure, mining and consensus). This foundation will allow you to understand blockchain technology and it facilitates to make use of current internet protocols while improving and adding to them. Additionally, we will dive into the history of money and especially Bitcoin as the first application of blockchain technology. As a point of reference, we will look at the characteristics of Bitcoin’s blockchain, specifically its peer-to-peer network which allows to store transactions, provides transparency and immutability as well as different consensus mechanisms.
After the first module, you should be able to:
To lay the foundation for this course, we will first introduce you to Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Blockchain as one of its sub-categories.
