Blockchain Platforms and Industry Applications

This unit builds on foundational blockchain concepts to survey major public, consortium, and enterprise platforms and their real-world applications. Students explore platform architectures and consensus, deploy components on cloud and enterprise stacks, and evaluate use cases (financial products, mortgages, IoT, smart cities), governance, and security to prepare for advanced development and capstone work.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and compare the architectures, consensus mechanisms, and scalability/security trade-offs of major blockchains and frameworks (Ethereum, Cardano/Ouroboros, Polkadot, Solana, Hyperledger)
• Demonstrate the ability to configure and deploy blockchain nodes and tooling in cloud and enterprise ecosystems (Azure, IBM Bluemix) including Hyperledger Besu and blockchain developer sandboxes
• Apply blockchain design principles to model and evaluate industry use cases (global financial products, mortgages, IoT witness systems, smart cities), identifying business benefits, limitations, and regulatory considerations
• Evaluate smart contract, token, governance, and security best practices (DAO design, ADA/token handling, attack vectors, sandbox testing) and propose mitigations for identified risks