Blockchain
Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio
Professor: Miguel González Calvo
Academic Program: Bachelor’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence
Contents
- Economic fundamentals
- Real asset vs. financial asset, characteristics of money
- Central banking and free banking
- Monetary aggregates
- Price formation
- Cryptography and hash functions
- Symmetric cryptography
- Asymmetric cryptography
- Hashing and salting
- Introduction to cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin
- Motivation and scenarios
- Blockchain fundamentals
- Block, transactions
- Proof of Work and mining
- Bitcoin operation
- P2PK, P2PKH
- SegWit
- Taproot
- Lightning Network
- Introduction
- Payment channels
- Pathfinding and routing
- Bitcoin problems and alternatives
- Block size: Blocksize War
- Bitcoin Cash vs. Lightning
- Smart contracts
- Introduction
- Ethereum: Ethereum Virtual Machine
- Introduction to decentralized organizations (DAO)
- Decentralized applications (DApps)
- Digital tokens: stablecoins, NFTs
- Transformation of financial services
- Introduction to SWIFT and T2
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi): decentralized exchanges (DEX)
- Stablecoins: classification
- USDT, USDC
- Death spiral
- Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)
- FinTech regulation
- Crypto regulation
- GENIUS Act
- Barriers and challenges
- Systemic and market risks
- Illicit use and opacity
- Energy consumption and carbon footprint
- Structural security attacks
- Other significant risks
News of interest
- Trust Wallet users lose $7 million to hacked Chrome extension. CoinDesk, 26 dec. 2025
- Donald Trump threatens extra 100% tariff as he retaliates against China. Financial Times, 10 oct. 2025
- The 10 charts that define Donald Trump’s tumultuous first 100 days. Financial Times, 29 apr. 2025
- Low approval and sticky inflation: a year of Donald Trump in charts. Financial Times, 5 nov. 2025
- US Congress passes landmark bill to regulate stablecoins. Financial Times, 17 jul. 2025
- The twilight of the central banking elite. Financial Times, 22 ago. 2025
- Binance teams up with BBVA to let customers keep assets off exchange. Financial Times, 8 ago. 2025
- EU speeds up plans for digital euro after US stablecoin law. Financial Times, 22 ago. 2025
- Stablecoin group Tether holds talks to invest in gold miners. Financial Times, 5 sep. 2025
- Crypto group Tether to launch new stablecoin with eye on US markets. Financial Times, 12 sep. 2025
Resources
Resources:
- Course repository on GitHub
- Learn me a bitcoin
- CoinDesk. The math behind the Bitcoin protocol
- Opcode Explained
- Transaction example
- Official repository
- Interesting visualizations
- Interest rates:
Mining:
Videos:
- Juan Ramón Rallo. Saifedean Ammous: Gold and Bitcoin, the End of the Fiat System?
- Saifadean Ammous. Conference at Fundación Rafael del Pino, October 2, 2018
- Saifadean Ammous. Conference at Fundación Rafael del Pino, January 17, 2025
- Saifadean Ammous. Fiat is war, Bitcoin is peace, November 14, 2025
- Johnny Harris. Gold Still Matters More Than You Think: entrevistas a Thomas Hogan y Lawrence H. White
- Lawrence White. Why restrict stablecoins?, January 8, 2026
Finance:
- Perry Mehrling. Economics of Money and Banking. Coursera
Data:
- CoinMarketCap
- See also API
- CoinGecko
- See also API
- Blockchain.com, especially the Charts section and for exploring specific blocks
- BlockExplorer
- Bitcoin Volatility Index
- Naveen Joshi. 8 blockchain consensus mechanism you should know about
Ethereum:
- Etherscan
- Faucet Link
- Patrick Collins. Learn Solidity, Blockchain Development, & Smart Contracts | Powered By AI - Full Course: primera parte, y segunda parte
Code:
- Visual Studio Code
- Extensions:
- Remix IDE
Data for Sepolia:
- Network name:
Ethereum Sepolia - New RPC URL:
https://ethereum-sepolia-rpc.publicnode.com - Chain ID:
11155111 - Currency Symbol:
ETH - Block explorer URL (optional):
https://sepolia.etherscan.io
DeFi:
- Lending:
- Swaps:
- Others:
Wallets:
- Hot wallets:
- Electrum: Bitcoin wallet, good for testing with Testnet
- Phantom
- MetaMask: recommended for testing with ETH Sepolia, integration with Remix
- Trust Wallet
- Cold wallets:
Other Crypto docs:
Web3:
Basic bibliography
- Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
- Saifedean Ammous. El patrón Bitcoin: La alternativa descentralizada a los bancos centrales. Deusto.
- Andreas M. Antonopoulos, David A. Harding. Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain (2023). 3rd edition. O’Reilly.
- Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Carlo Parisi, Alessandro Mazza, Niccolo Pozzolini. Mastering Ethereum: Implementing Smart Contracts (2025). 2nd edition. O’Reilly.
- Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Olaoluwa Osuntokun, René Pickhardt. Mastering the Lightning Network: A Second Layer Blockchain Protocol for Instant Bitcoin Payments (2022). 1st edition. O’Reilly.
- Bertaut, Carol, Bastian von Beschwitz, and Stephanie Curcuru (2025). “The International Role of the U.S. Dollar – 2025 Edition,” FEDS Notes. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, July 18, 2025, https://doi.org/10.17016/2380-7172.3856.
Complementary bibliography
- Anthony Lewis. The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains (2018)
- Joseph Poon, Thaddeus Dryja. The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments
- Lyn Alden. Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better (2023)
- J. Tucker. Bit by bit: how P2P is freeing the world
- Slutskiy. Yes, You Should Own Bitcoin
- Wendy McElroy. The Satoshi Revolution: The Revolution of Rising Expectations
- Adrián Bernabéu. Bitcoinismo
- Álvaro D. María. La filosofía de Bitcoin
- Giacomini and Rossi. Bitcoin: New Financial Order or Libertarian Dystopia? An answer from the Past: Free Banking in Scotland 1727-1845. A Critical Review of Decentralised Systems of Private Money Supply
- Laura Davidson and Walter Block. Bitcoin, the Regression Theorem, and the Emergence of a New Medium of Exchange
- Konrad Graf. Revisiting Conceptions of Commodity and Scarcity in Light of Bitcoin
Finance
- Marcia Stigum, Anthony Crescenzi. Stigum’s Money Market
- Perry Mehrling. Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System
CBDCs
- Saroj Bhattarai, Mohammad Davoodalhosseini, Zhenning Zhao. Central Bank Digital Currency and Transmission of Monetary Policy
- Alper Koparan. Central Bank Digital Currencies: A review of global trends in adoption, financial inclusion, and the role of country characteristics
- Marianne Bechara, Wouter Bossu, Amira Rasekh, Chia Yi Tan, Akihiro Yoshinaga. Private Law Aspects of Token-Based Central Bank Digital Currencies
- Raphael Auer, Giulio Cornelli and Jon Frost. Rise of the central bank digital currencies: drivers, approaches and technologies
- Toni Ahnert, Katrin Assenmacher, Peter Hoffmann, Agnese Leonello, Cyril Monnet, Davide Porcellacchia. The economics of central bank digital currency
- Fernando Navarrete Do we really need a digital euro: A solution to what problem exactly?
- European Central Bank. Report on a digital euro
- Miguel A. Fernández Ordóñez. Adiós a los bancos: Una visión distinta del dinero y la banca (2020)
Stablecoins
- Jiageng Liu, Igor Makarov, and Antoinette Schoar, “Anatomy of a Run: The Terra Luna Crash”, NBER Working Paper 31160 (2023), https://doi.org/10.3386/w31160.
- Ariah Klages-Mundt, Dominik Harz, Lewis Gudgeon, Jun-You Liu, Andreea Minca, “Stablecoins 2.0: Economic Foundations and Risk-based Models”
- Tobian Adrian et al. Understanding Stablecoins (2025). International Monetary Fund, ISBN 9798229024075
- Antonio Fatás. The economics of Fintech and Digital Currencies (2019). CEPR Press, Paris & London
Decentralized Finance
- CoinGecko. How To DeFi: Beginner
- CoinGecko. How To DeFi: Advanced
- Campbell R. Harvey. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): The Future of Finance Specialization. Coursera
- Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran, Joey Santoro. DeFi and the Future of Finance (2021). Wiley
- Shermin Voshmgir. Token Economy (2025). 3rd edition
Ethereum
- Ethereum development documentation
- Vitalik Buterin. 2014. Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform
- Gavin Wood. Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform, Yellow Paper
- Vitalik Buterin. Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains (2022)
- Camila Russo. The Infinite Machine (2020)
- ERC-20 Token Standard, de la EIP-20
- ERC-729 Non-Fungible Token Standard, de la EIP-721
Acronyms
- AMM Automated Marked Maker
- BIP Bitcoin Improvement Proposal
- CEX Centralized Exchange
- DEX Decentralized Exchange
- DApp Decentralized Application
- DeFi Decentralized Finance
- DAO Decentralized Autonomous Organization
- ECC Elliptic Curve Cryptography
- EOA Externally Owned Account
- EIP Ethereum Improvement Proposal
- ERC Ethereum Request for Comment
- KYC Know Your Customer
- MEV Miner Extractable Value
- NFT Non-Fungible Token
- PoW Proof of Work
- PoS Proof of Stake
- L1/2 Layer 1/2
- EVM Ethereum Virtual Machine
Hash computation
In order to compute a file SHA-256 hash, it can be done on the terminal directly:
- Windows:
Get-FileHash submission.pdf -Algorithm SHA256 - Mac OS or Linux:
shasum -a 256 submission.pdf
Please note that the smart contract deployed for the submission accepts bytes32, which is exactly the output of SHA-256 (256 bits = 32 bytes).
For inline hash computation:
printf text | shasum -a 256
Important addresses
All addresses are for the Sepolia network.
- Course instructor:
0xA7FbdF3eA11aE808e75c07fB01f7AcBEd4523Ffb - Assignment submission contract:
0x27058E33E1bb347dE75771B200dc490CF6F0dcA6
Tokens: