Emerging Technologies

Blockchain Fundamentals for Enterprise Applications

Most blockchain projects that reached production solved a problem a shared database would have solved more cheaply, and the ones that succeeded had several parties who genuinely did not trust each other. This course starts from that test. Delegates work through what a distributed ledger is and the specific property it provides, consensus mechanisms and what each costs in speed and energy, and the difference between public, private and permissioned networks. Smart contracts are covered, including their limits and the fact that a bug in one is often permanent. Use cases that hold up are examined: provenance, trade documentation and multiparty settlement, alongside the ones that do not. Integration with existing systems and data privacy on a shared ledger are addressed. The course closes on cost, on governance of a consortium and on evaluating a vendor proposal honestly.