In the privacy technologies grad seminar that I taught last semester, Bitcoin proved to be the most popular topic among students. Two groups did very different and equally interesting final projects on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies; more on that below.
More broadly, we’re seeing a huge demand for learning the computer science underlying Bitcoin, both at Princeton and elsewhere. But research papers on Bitcoin don’t make for great teaching materials. Identifying the core ideas, building them up in logical progression, and connecting them to other areas of computer science is a challenging task.
Over the summer, I teamed up with Joe Bonneau, Ed Felten, and Andrew Miller to do just that. We’ve produced a lecture series which will start going online soon. While we spend some time in the lectures on the specifics of Bitcoin, much of our discussion is about the underlying principles which apply to cryptocurrencies in general. Steven Goldfeder and other students are working with us to produce homeworks, programming assignments, and a textbook, which will together comprise a complete online course. We’ll announce it here when it launches.
[Read more…]