Για το Ακ. Έτος 2025-2026, δείτε την ιστοσελίδα https://marabu.dev

Dear students,

We are delighted to announce Blockchain Foundations, a graduate-level
course offered in the context of the "Advanced Topics in Cryptography"
graduate course (ALMA and ECE/NTUA), coordinated by Prof. Nikos
Leonardos. The course will take place in the Spring 2026 term and is open for
anyone with the appropriate background and motivation to audit, including
undergraduate students. *The first lecture is on Monday, Feb 16th.*

This course explores three core questions:
 1) What are blockchains?
 2) How do they work?
 3) Why are they secure?

The course will be taught in English, and is heavy on both theory and
engineering. On the theory side, we rigorously study the security of
blockchains from the perspectives of cryptography and distributed
systems, including formal models and proofs. On the engineering side, students
complete a series of programming assignments in which they build their
own blockchain node for an educational blockchain protocol: a proof-of-work
UTXO-based cryptocurrency. Participants are free to use any programming
language of their choice.

While Blockchain Foundations is taught at the graduate level, the course
is open to any motivated participant. A strong programming background and
mathematical maturity are essential, and familiarity with computer
science fundamentals will be helpful.

This course avoids topics such as NFTs, smart contract programming, or
trading strategies. Instead, we focus on the foundations—the scientific
principles and engineering techniques that make blockchain systems work.
If you enjoy computer science theory, distributed systems, cryptography,
and hands-on systems building, you will find this course both challenging
and rewarding.