Smart Contracts & DApps
Required Readings:
‘Introduction to smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps)’ MIT Cryptocurrency Online
Short Course (as adapted, August 2019)
‘Blockchain Technology Overview’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (October 2018)
(pages 32 – 33, section 6)
‘What Are Smart Contracts? Guide for Beginners’ CoinTelegraph
‘Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets’ Szabo (1996)
‘DApp Statistics’ State off the DApps
Optional Readings:
‘A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform’ Ethereum Whitepaper as
maintained on Ethereum Wiki (2013, updated through June 17, 2019)
Study Questions/Issues to Prepare:
1) What are smart contracts? How do they compare to traditional contracts? What are tokens?
2) What are smart contract platforms such as Ethereum? What generally distinguishes them from
Bitcoin?
3) What are decentralized applications (DApps)? What has been the usage to date?