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University at Buffalo

Blockchain Basics

This first course of the Blockchain specialization provides a broad overview of the essential concepts of blockchain technology – by initially exploring the Bitcoin protocol followed by the Ethereum protocol – to lay the foundation necessary for developing applications and programming. You will be equipped with the knowledge needed to create nodes on your personal Ethereum blockchain, create accounts, unlock accounts, mine, transact, transfer Ethers, and check balances. You will learn about the decentralized peer-to-peer network, an immutable distributed ledger and the trust model that defines a blockchain. This course enables you to explain basic components of a blockchain (transaction, block, block header, and the chain) its operations (verification, validation, and consensus model) underlying algorithms, and essentials of trust (hard fork and soft fork). Content includes the hashing and cryptography foundations indispensable to blockchain programming, which is the focus of two subsequent specialization courses, Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (Dapps). You will work on a virtual machine image, specifically created for this course, to build an Ethereum test chain and operate on the chain. This hands-on activity will help you understand the workings of a blockchain, its transactions, blocks and mining. Main concepts are delivered through videos, demos and hands-on exercises.

Status: Algorithms
Status: Emerging Technologies
BeginnerCourse15 hours

Featured reviews

MK

4.0Reviewed Mar 15, 2019

Very nicely arranged course and very informative. Learned a lot in no time. Only hurdle is The Ethereum Virtual machine takes hell lot of time in the Miner step. rest all fine. thanks a lot.

SJ

5.0Reviewed Feb 4, 2022

Really l​earned a lot about the fundamentals of blockchain, being a software engineer looking into blockchain. It just got me up to speed with the underlying workflow of blockchain and more. loved it.

SJ

5.0Reviewed Apr 6, 2022

very good course it starts from basics and provides a amazing learning path , they focus on your self study rasher than spoon feeding like other courses ,which is the best thing of this course .

SS

5.0Reviewed Jul 27, 2018

I find this course helpful to absolute beginner and for one who wants to grasp the basic concepts of Blockchain . The tutor tried to explain most part with simplicity and good and sufficient details.

DL

5.0Reviewed Jul 30, 2020

This course gave me a lot of knowledge about BlockChain. Before this course, I didn't have any knowledge about BlockChain. I learned BitCoin and Ehereum. I knew, how they work, how to apply?

BR

5.0Reviewed Jan 20, 2019

Thank you Bina mam for making this this course. My knowledge is so much expand to take this course.If you live 100+ years don't be confused many peoples blessing with you.Thank you so much.

SP

5.0Reviewed Jul 15, 2018

Amazing Course , easy to follow , in depth explanation, easy to understand , I have was amazing Experience, still learning a lot ... and for me this was the best way to start learn about blockchain

YY

5.0Reviewed Jul 25, 2018

Excelente, me ha servido para afianzar conceptos que ya tenía pero que no había visto materializados. El proyecto aunque asusta un poco es bastante sencillo y entiendes muchas cosas. Gracias

RL

5.0Reviewed Jul 14, 2019

A comprehensive course covering everything related to Blockchain Basics and great for Beginners and any professional who wants to start their career in Blockchain technology can take this course.

TT

5.0Reviewed Nov 18, 2018

This is an introductory course to Blockchain. The supplemented material (in other words self-study) is excellent and in my opinion is the only way to master the concepts and details of this discipline

RH

5.0Reviewed May 4, 2019

The course is well designed to give you an overview of Blockchain and the basic concepts. What is Smart Contract and other various terminologies and how they play a role in the blockchain. Thanks

AU

5.0Reviewed Dec 24, 2020

A comprehensive and clear course that summarizes the basic concepts to understand blockchain technology. Also, the resources and contents included are very valuables. I totally recommend this course.

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