Advanced Network Technologies and Services Laboratory - Blockchain and Smart Contract (Spring2018)

Blockchain and Smart Contract

It is a FinTech-related course with an emphasis on the aspects of blockchain and smart contract theory, operation and implementation issues for the next generation of FinTech leaders with proven deep technical and managerial skills, experience, and credibility to design, engineer, implement, and manage their overall blockchain program and smart contract, and explore the possibility of applying blockchain and smart contract in new and innovative applications. This course will also discuss the certain concept of IoT (Internet of Things) to enrich the application of smart contract, as well as the modern Cloud-based computation model, such as virtual machine and Docker container.

It is designed for senior students who wish to work in positions such as FinTech Consultant, Blockchain Engineer, IT Director/Manager, FinTech Architect, FinTech Analyst, and Chief Information Officer. The design of this course is to bridge the gap between academic theory and industrial practice. The student will learn why and how blockchain and smart contract are designed, what is the limitation of blockchain and smart contract, how to apply blockchain and smart contract in the real-world application, how FinTech affects our finance operation and innovation, and the security issues related to blockchain and smart contract.

Class Info

Instructor: Shun-Wen Hsiao, NCCU MIS Dept., hsiaom at nccu.edu.tw
Lectures: Tuesday 234 (09:10 ~ 12:00).
Classroom: ~~商館 260309~~ 研究大樓 250106
TA: 李宜臻 (106356021); Lab TA: 劉其峰 (105356019)
Office Hours: By appointment only.
Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/nccu-bcsc
Note: it is an English taught course.

Announcements (Spring 2018)

03/01: Classroom changed! Research Building (250) Room #106.
03/05: For students who want to evaluate taking this course, I list some resources below. If you can comprehend 60%+ of the content, then you may have no problem with taking this course (I will go over these topics in the class). If you can only comprehend 30%~45% of the content, you might need to consider.
- Technical knowledge: Hash function, Public-key cryptography
- Programming: A Simple Smart Contract, Full Stack Hello World Voting Ethereum Dapp Tutorial
03/19: Homework upload site is ftp://140.119.19.178, the id and the password will be announced later (blockchain/blockchain). If you have any problem of uploading your homework, please email TA before the deadline. You should upload your homework in PDF format, and your filename should be your student ID plus a version number, for example, 106306000-1.pdf. We will grade your homework by using your latest submitted file before the deadline. To upload homework, you may use Filezilla.
04/10: Take-home essay exam is announced. (Due: on Monday, 23 April at 23:59.)
04/10: Term Projects is announced. (Due: on Monday, 11 June at 23:59.)

Course Objectives & Learning Outcomes

This course covers several topics, such as FinTech and digital currency, blockchain and Bitcoin, smart contract and Ethereum, and Internet of Things. The course objective is to comprehend the theory behind blockchain and smart contract (in order to understand the limitation and applicable scenario of blockchain and smart contract) and to be able to design a new blockchain or smart contract based application. The main topics include but not limited to:

The history and application of FinTech and digital currency
Hashcash, distributed consensus, and proof-of-work
Design, analysis, and implementation of blockchain
Underlying technique of blockchain: cryptography and virtual machine
Design, analysis, and implementation of smart contract
Create private blockchain and smart contract
IoT and smart contract
Case study
Security issue

Schedule (Spring 2018)

2/27: Introduction. 00-Syllabus
3/6: FinTech and Digital Currency. 01-DigitalCurrency
- Classroom changed! Research Building (250) Room #106.
3/13: Blockchain 101. 02-BlockchainBasics Case Study: Everledger
- Try to play around with this website (hash, block, ...).
3/20: Bitcoin and Transaction. 03-BitcoinI.
- HW-01 (due: on Monday, 26 March at 23:59). See the announcement for uploading your homework.
3/27: Script Language. 04-BitcoinII
- HW-02 (due: on Monday, 2 April at 23:59).
- For your reference, here is an example of RSA (a symmetric encryption) calculation.
4/3: Lab: Bitcoin Core. Team member list.
- HW-03 (due: on Monday, 9 April at 23:59).
4/10: Bitcoin Network, Private Blockchain and Security Issues. 05-BitcoinIII
- Announce the take-home essay exam.
- A reference: M. Conti et al. "A Survey on Security and Privacy Issues of Bitcoin," https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.00916.pdf
4/17: No class.
4/24 (M): Lab: Bitcoin APIs. Discussion of Term Projects and Exam.
5/1: Smart Contract. 06-EthereumI
5/8: Ethereum and Contract Script Language.
- HW-04 (due: on Monday, 14 May at 23:59).
5/15: Ethereum Lab
5/22: Ethereum Transaction, Message, and Mining Process.
5/29: Smart Contract Case Studies, Poof of Stake. 07-EthereumII
6/5: Block Architecture, Events/Logs, 08-EthereumIII; DApp, Running Ethereum 09-EthereumIV
- Ref: WannaCry, Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph by D. Ron and A. Samir, Smart Contracts: 12 Use Cases for Business & Beyond by Nick Szabo
- HW-05 (due: on Monday, 18 June at 23:59).
- HW-06 (due: on Monday, 25 June at 23:59).
6/12: Term Project Presentation
- Here is the Team list. The presentation order is based on the alphabet order. If you send email in prior, I will change your order.
6/19: Term Project Presentation
6/26 (F): Smart Contract Security Issues, ICO, 10-EthereumV. Lightening Network.

Grading Policy

Homework 30%
Participation 10%: attendance and discussion
Term Project 30%: implement a smart contract application on a private blockchain. Find your classmates to form a group (the number of group member will be announced according to the number of students in this class).
Exam 30%: an individual take-home essay exam (graded according to the quality of in-depth argument with proper citations to support your arguments), and working in groups is considered cheating.

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