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Blockchains and Crypto Assets (N1621)

15 credits, Level 6

Autumn teaching

Blockchains are the backbone of the future of financial markets. Smart contracts are the vehicles of the new era of decentralised finance institutions. And crypto assets are the energy that drive this digital revolution. Think of blockchains as the motorways, smart contracts as the automobiles and coins as the ‘gas’ that powers them.

The module covers:

• the fundamental concepts underlying private and public blockchains and crypto assets, the bitcoin blockchain, proof-of-work and bitcoin transactions
• the concepts of hash functions, digital signatures for cryptographic transfers and proof for cryptography such as ZK-snarks and elliptic curves
• smart contracts and the Ethereum blockchain, proof-of-stake, consensus algorithms, public blockchains
• venture capital, crowdfunding and the new token economy, ICO/IEO/IDOs
• stable coins and CBDCs
• centralised and decentralised exchanges, market making, microstructure, margin mechanisms and clearing for derivatives products, trading and regulation.

During this module you’ll come to understand a wealth of entirely new ideas. The knowledge and information that you will gain will put you at a great advantage in your career.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 117 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.