Blockchain Basics: Append Only Ledgers & Cryptography
Required Readings:
‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ Nakamoto (October 31, 2008)
‘Blockchain Technology Overview’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (October 2018)
(pages 1 – 3, & 7 – 17, sections 1 & 3)
‘Blockchain 101 – A Visual Demo’ Brownworth, MIT (November 5, 2016)
6
Optional Readings:
‘How to Time-stamp a Digital Document’ Haber & Stornetta (1991)
‘Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney)’ Hal Finney, Bitcoin Forum (March 19, 2013)
‘Bitcoin’s Academic Pedigree’ Narayanan and Clark (August 29, 2017)
Study Questions/Issues to Prepare:
1) What are the design features – cryptography, append-only timestamped ledgers, distributed
consensus algorithms, and networking – of Bitcoin, the first use case for blockchain technology?
2) What are cryptographic hash functions and digital signatures? How are they utilized to help
make blockchain technology verifiable and tamper resistant?
3) What is the double-spending problem and how it is addressed by blockchain technology?