Blockchain Systems, Security, and Governance

This unit explores applied blockchain architectures, consensus mechanisms, smart contract development, security practices, and governance models across public and private platforms. Students investigate real-world financial and industry applications (insurance, DeFi/gaming, identity/borders), build and deploy starter networks and contracts, and assess risks related to oracles, publication, and key management in preparation for a culminating project.

Learning Objectives

• analyze and categorize at least three real-world blockchain use cases from the unit (e.g., insurance, decentralized finance/gaming, border/identity security), identifying stakeholders, benefits, limitations, and regulatory or ethical considerations
• apply platform-specific tools and workflows to configure and deploy a basic node, private network, or smart contract (using examples from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Marlowe, Polkadot, IBM, or Azure) in a guided lab environment
• demonstrate secure key management and resilience practices by creating, backing up, and recovering private keys and explaining how consensus mechanisms (e.g., mining, PoS) affect security and network behavior
• evaluate governance, oracle, and publication risks by designing a simple DAO governance model and proposing technical and policy mitigations to reduce fraud, oracle manipulation, and unsafe data publication