Blockchain Technologies & Entrepreneurship

Catalog description

This course offers a concise, in-depth exploration of entrepreneurship in decentralized computing, focusing on the rapid advance of decentralized blockchain technology since Bitcoin's release in 2009. We'll examine relevant technological advancements and their market opportunities in finance, AI, social media, gaming, and open computing. Discussions will differentiate lasting innovations from transient trends, helping students sort real advances from headline-grabbing volatility, speculation, and fraud. The course features guest speakers from top blockchain startups and venture capital firms, fostering actionable real-world insights. Key topics include blockchain foundations, emerging trends in scalable infrastructure, AI, verifiable computation, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Real World Assets (RWA), decentralized governance (e.g. DAOs), and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN). The course will equip students with foundational knowledge for potential entrepreneurial ventures based on distributed computing.