Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Free Online Course (MOOC) on Bitcoin Given by Experts

I ran across a very interesting educational opportunity yesterday that I wanted to call your attention to. 



It is called Introduction to Digital Currencies and it originates at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus. You can delve into the details more by clicking on the link, but I wanted to give you the "Learning Objectives" to see if they suit your needs, before you took the time to do that.

After completion of the course students are expected to be able to:
• Understand the fundamental technology components of blockchain-based digital currencies, the process of currency issuance, proof-of-work and alternative consensus mechanisms, how they are applied and and how the distributed ledger is structured in it’s core.
• Understanding digital currency transactions, create their wallets, be able to acquire bitcoins, conduct transactions from a wallet, and understand the risks and options in keeping their coins reasonably safe.
• Understand more advanced uses of the blockchain such as escrow services, multisignature transactions, asset registration, attestation and smart contracts applications.
• Understand alternative blockchains to Bitcoin, such as alt-coins and Ethereum and IOU-based systems like Ripple.
• Understand what parallels and differences cryptocurrencies have with the existing monetary and banking systems, what approaches are the same and what are fundamentally different.
• Understand existing approaches by regulators globally, and the likely frameworks for regulating cryptocurrencies, and their interface with conventional finance, in the future.
• Be able to critically judge on their own, whether cryptocurrencies are disruptive innovations, and what hurdles, bottlenecks or avenues exist towards wider adoption, as well as the potential they present for leapfrogging infrastructure in developing nations and the potential they present for improving financial inclusion and economic development.
The course is taught by renowned Bitcoin experts Andreas Antonopoulos and Antonis Polemitis and includes 12 live online sessions. Antonopoulus is the author of the bestseller THE INTERNET OF MONEY
This looks like a great opportunity.