About the course
What is Blockchain? What is its history and characteristics?
Our expert, Francesco Piras, will walk you through everything you have to know about Blockchain. We will go through its history and characteristics, the benefits and drawbacks as well as analysing the ledgers and distributed ledgers and consensus mechanisms.
Join us on this short course to learn the basics, history, mechanisms, and specific applications of blockchain in 30 minutes.
Difficulty: Foundation
Duration: 30mins
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With this online course, you will:
- Understand the basic concept behind blockchain and how it is different from traditional financial systems.
- Analyse the potential benefits and drawbacks of using blockchain technology in various industries and applications.
- Explain the importance of immutability and decentralisation in a blockchain system, and how they contribute to the security of the network.
- Evaluate the potential use cases for blockchain technology and identify scenarios where it may be the most appropriate solution.
Skills
FinTech
Technology
Blockchain
Consensus Mechanisms
Regulation
The expert you’ll be learning from
Francesco Piras
Co-Founder of BrightNode
Francesco has been an Entrepreneur and Advisor in the Blockchain & Crypto industry since 2014. He co-founded BrightNode, a professional business consulting firm based in Switzerland with a vast global network, focused on blockchain projects. Francesco worked as a mentor and evaluator in European projects in the blockchain field. In 2018 he obtained the certification for “Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application” at the MIT Sloan School of Management (USA). In 2006 he worked for Google as Quality Rater. Francesco has twenty-five years of experience in the Tech sector as a Co-founder or C-level in Business Development and Marketing & Sales for several software companies.
Course Content
Francesco Piras, is the co-founder of BrightNode, a Swiss company that provides tokenomics and Web3 consulting services. He has been an entrepreneur in the blockchain industry since 2014 and has almost 25 years of experience in the tech sector.
In this chapter, we will analyse the importance of a common definition of blockchain and recommends using the MIT definition, which defines blockchain as a shared ledger where transactions are permanently recorded by appending blocks. The blockchain is an historical record of all transactions, and the name “blockchain” comes from the chain of blocks that store several transactions.
We will go over the history of blockchain technology and its key milestones, starting with the invention of a cryptographically protected chain of blocks in 1991, followed by the creation of decentralised digital money by Nick Szabo in 1998. The most significant milestone was the invention of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, which solved the problem of double spending and introduced the concept of peer-to-peer digital money systems.
In this chapter, we will discuss the four main characteristics of a blockchain: immutability, decentralisation, smart contracts, and cryptography.
In this chapter, Francesco discusses the concept of blockchain and its purpose to create a system where participants can send money directly to each other without involving an intermediary. This requires a different configuration involving two elements: the ledger and the consensus mechanism.
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FAQ
CFTE’s brand new online learning platform! THINK produces and delivers dozens of bite-sized courses which will allow you to get a good understanding and be constantly updated about everything concerning Fintech!
Disruptive technologies and innovations don’t come on their own. They bring significant transformations and challenges both in terms of culture, people, jobs, environment and governance. Therefore we believe these topics can’t be separated from one another.
The courses offered on THINK have slightly different approaches to the topics. You’ll find evergreen foundational-level courses which will help you get a good understanding without any prior knowledge, but you’ll also find courses that explore the players in the respective ecosystems, courses that explore the regulations of a certain field and even courses that dive deep into specific companies’ way of operating!
THINK is meant for all those professionals who want to be kept up to date with the latest developments in these fields, but don’t necessarily have the time to go through countless articles or newspapers.
Technology is deeply transforming the way financial institutions do business and manage operations. Understanding these shifts will allow you to benefit from them, and not miss out on any potential opportunities for you and your organisation.
Users and customers nowadays are more aware than ever about the environmental and social impact of their choices, as a consequence companies are putting more attention on these topics even at the cost of reduced financial performances.
Digital Assets, Blockchain, Decentralisation and Web3 are still in a very early stage. They may reshape and revolutionise our current business models, therefore we believe it’s worth paying special attention to the innovations they bring to the table.
Understanding how technology works, its potential and its limitations is essential to properly embrace it and leverage it. Even non-technical professionals need to get a comprehensive understanding of these tools, as they will have an increasingly important role in our lives.
