Dr. Imre Kocsis, assistant professor, Dept. of Measurement and Inf. Systems

Dr. András Pataricza, full professor, Dept. of Measurement and Inf. Systems

The students will learn the fundamental design principles and properties of Blockchain-based systems, as well as their application principles and patterns. From the point of view of applications, a) creation and integration of general-purpose business capabilities and b) Cyber-Physical System (CPS) use cases receive a strong emphasis. The course underpins its core messages with the introduction, discussion and showcasing of specific technologies.

1. Introduction. Core concepts of blockchain systems, key motivating factors by sector, phases of evolution. "The blockchain revolution"; known and planned applications and their transformative effects.

2. Bitcoin, the first "blockchain" technology. The motivation for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, introduction to its operating principles. Proof of Work (PoW) consensus and its properties. Specialized mining: clusters, GPU and ASIC-based approaches.

3. Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency. Usage, wallets, the Bitcoin market. Regulatory environment. Bitcoin-style alternative currencies ("altcoins").

4. Visualization and analysis of blockchains. Key patterns of visualization and analysis. Visual discovery of transaction patterns.

5. Smart contracts over blockchains. The Ethereum technology; the main network; smart contract support. Programming model, example smart contracts. Smart contract weaknesses and vulnerabilities, formal approaches to smart contract validation and verification.

6. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Permissioned-consensus blockchains and closed-network blockchains. "Business to business" and "shared ledger" application patterns. An introduction of the Hyperledger project of the Linux Foundation. In-depth introduction of the Hyperledger Fabric platform. Non-blockchain DLTs: an overview of the CORDA platform.

7. Implementation examples. Design and implementation of Solidity smart contracts. Smart contract (“chaincode”) development for Hyperledger Fabric.

8. Beyond Proof of Work. The distributed consensus problem. Consensus protocols and their properties. Protocols replacing Proof-of-Work in various blockchain platforms and their rationale. Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), Proof of Stake (PoS, Ethereum) and Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET, Hyperledger Sawtooth).

9. Performance analysis of blockchain systems. Motivation; Quality of Service (QoS) aspects and metrics of blockchain systems. Empirical identification of bottlenecks using visual exploratory and statistical analysis; worked-out example: Hyperledger Fabric.

10. Blockchain-based business processes. Specification and execution of business processes over blockchain platforms, using smart contracts. Monitoring, log-based compliance validation. Case study: smart contract-based execution of business patterns captured in the BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) language.

11. Blockchain technologies in governance and public services. Standardization efforts.

12. Convergence of Cyber-Physical Systems and blockchain. Challenges in storing, processing and accessing sensor data. Sensor- and data fusion in smart contracts. Technologies and applications, "in-field" blockchains.

13. High-level blockchain business logic definition approaches for distributed ledgers; DAML, Hyperledger Concerto. End-to-end engineering design of privacy, confidentiality and dependability in blockchain solutions.

14. Homework presentations.

a) During the semester proper: working out and presenting a homework assignment. The homework assignment requires the students to perform specification-based, independent design, implementation, and documentation of a non-trivial smart contract. An assignment list with the platform options is given for the students to choose from; custom assignments are possible, but subject to the explicit agreement of the course coordinator.

Submitting and presenting the homework, and the acceptance of the homework by the course coordinator are prerequisites of passing the course. The course grade is determined by the evaluation of the homework.

b) During the examination period: -

c) Possibility for examination during the semester proper: -

As per the corresponding faculty regulations in effect:

Homework: the homework can be submitted late or again during the one-week "recovery" period between the semester proper and the examination period. The respective administrative fees apply.

Mid-term: once, during the semester proper.

On a case-by-case basis, by appointment, during the office hours of the lecturers.

• World Economic Forum (2019): Building Value with Blockchain Technology: How to Evaluate Blockchain’s Benefits. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Building_Value_with_Blockchain.pdf
• M. Swan: "Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy", O'Reilly, 2015.
• Tapscott, D. Tapscott: "Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World", Portfolio / Penguin, 2016.
• S. Nakamoto, "Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system." 2008.
• The Hyperledger project page: https://www.hyperledger.org/
• Androulaki, E. et al. (2018): Hyperledger Fabric: A Distributed Operating System for Permissioned Blockchains. https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.10228
• The Ethereum project page: https://www.ethereum.org/
• Blochchain material on IBM developerWorks: https://developer.ibm.com/blockchain/
• ISO standardization (TC307): http://www.standards.org.au/OurOrganisation/News/Documents/Roadmap_for_Blockchain_Standards_report.pdf
• The Blackett review from the UK Government Office for Science (2016): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/distributed-ledger-technology-blackett-review
• Object Management Group: Cloud Customer Architecture for Blockchain. https://www.omg.org/cloud/deliverables/cloud-customer-architecture-for-blockchain.htm