MIS41220 The Ethereum Ecosystem

Academic Year 2023/2024

This module is concerned with the Ethereum blockchain. We will first gain a foundational understanding of how Ethereum works. We will encounter its underlying blockchain technology and the exciting smart contract technology running on top of it. We then turn to how Ethereum’s technology is expressed as an economy and a culture. Toward the end, we begin to explore the Ethereum ecosystem, including Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Decentralised Finance (DeFi), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Throughout we will ask what problems and prospects this fresh digital innovation will face as it enters the mainstream.

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Curricular information is subject to change

What will I learn?

Learning Outcomes:

On finishing this module, you will be able to:

(1) Understand and explain the fundamental technology underlying Ethereum.
(2) Grasp the motivations behind the Ethereum project and situate it within the right amount of cultural and economic context expected in the industry.
(3) Be capable of independently assessing the various technologies built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, including Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Decentralised Finance protocols (DeFi), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

Indicative Module Content:

The topics we cover are dynamic and evolve quickly. The topics will be settled quite close to the start of the module to ensure it is up-to-date. However, we will certainly cover the fundamentals of Ethereum, e.g. smart contracts.