Crypto-assets and blockchains

Professor: Christophe Chouard, Associate Professor, Panthéon-Assas University, Aldis Capital Consultant

Objectives: The aim of the course is to discover new concepts such as Bitcoin, crypto-assets, and blockchains, and address the following questions: How do Blockchains work? What dislocations could happen in the near future in financial services and payment solutions?

Outline:

1. Introduction: What is a currency?

• Highlighting the notion of trust

2. The operation of Blockchains in details:

• The origins of the creation of Bitcoin
• Principles and objectives of Bitcoin ;
• Transaction Authentication
• Electronic signature by encryption, decryption authentication
• Private key, public key and account number
• Validation of transactions: how to prevent double spending?
• Block transaction registration
• The hashing (principle, operation, utilities) and the Merkle tree
• How to make impossible any modification of an old data?
• Validation of transaction blocks (mining) and block chaining

3. Bitcoin, an ideal currency?

• Does bitcoin have the characteristics of a currency?

4. The other blockchains :

• The similarities between Bitcoin and other blockchains ;
• Developments of new blockchains (private, sectoral)
• The smart contracts of Ethereum

5. Applications of the technology of Blockchains :

• Register of property (cadastre) of physical assets (real estate, gold, diamonds, etc.) ;
• Register of intellectual property, activity license, university degrees
• Tracing: who handled what, who (or what) went where?
• Settlement-delivery of financial assets (aftermarket): « trade is settlement » ;
• Payment without a trusted third party (alternative to Visa and to Paypal ?) ;
• The ICO and the stable coins » ;
• IoT and BFR financing: trade finance and supply-chain finance ;
• Private and sectoral initiatives in finance (PTDL, R3, B3i, etc.).

6. Issues:

• Risks
• Regulation (the points of view of the ESMA, the ECB and the ACPR)

Grading: A final exam at the end of the semester.