Abstract: Distributed systems are a fascinating field of study, with a wealth of interesting applications. Today, I will talk about a technology, that has turned into a two trillion dollar industry. With underpinnings in distributed computing, blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are built with a diversity of tools and techniques. These tools include low level virtual machines and virtual memory mapping and the techniques include ECDSA signing algorithms and actor models of concurrent programming. It is this amalgamation of computer science methodologies that makes Blockchains so interesting, and at the same time somewhat inaccessible. I will go through some key components that define the most popular Blockchain architectures. These are topics I felt were difficult to understand in my own learning. I believe my explanations will help get newcomers up and running without being bogged down in a swamp of information.
The CICS Theory Seminar is online, free and open to the public. If you are interested in giving a talk, please email Professor Immerman or Rik Sengupta. Note that in addition to being a public lecture series, this is also a one-credit graduate seminar (CompSci 891M) that can be taken repeatedly for credit.