Course detail

Blockchain Systems and Consensus Protocols

FIT-BSDAcad. year: 2025/2026

This course provides a comprehensive theoretical and practical introduction to the design and implementation of blockchain systems, applications, and the consensus protocols that underpin them. We will explore the core principles of distributed ledger technology, delve into the cryptographic building blocks, and analyze various consensus mechanisms used to achieve agreement in a trustless environment. The course will cover topics from the foundational concepts of Bitcoin and Ethereum to more advanced subjects like scalability solutions, privacy-preserving techniques, and the future of decentralized systems.

Doctoral state exam - topics:

  1. Properties of centralized and decentralized systems
  2. Types and generations of consensus protocols
  3. Smart contracts languages, expressiveness, vulnerabilitites, security
  4. Authentication schemes, threshold multisignatures, privacy, web3 vs. web2 usability
  5. Anonymity and Privacy, mixing services, zero-knowledge proofs, privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies
  6. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications and security
  7. Scalability and interoperability challenges
  8. Decentralized e-voting
  9. Decentralized identity management
  10. Blockchain-based zk-SNARK and SNARK applications and principles

Language of instruction

Czech, English

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

doc. Ing. Ivan Homoliak, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Intelligent Systems (UITS)

Aims

  • Design and deploy novel decentralized applications (DAPPs) and smart contracts, focusing on architectural patterns and secure coding practices.
  • Evaluate and modify existing consensus protocols and design new ones to meet specific performance and security requirements.
  • Analyze the security and privacy vulnerabilities of blockchain systems and apply advanced cryptographic and algorithmic techniques to mitigate them.
  • Demonstrate a deep understanding of core blockchain principles, including peer-to-peer networking, cryptographic primitives, and data integrity.
  • Construct a fully functional, small-scale decentralized application from the ground up, integrating a custom consensus protocol.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Submission of the project on time, exam. During the course, it is necessary to submit the project (or draft of the article) and pass the exam. Teaching is performed as lectures or controlled self-study; the missed classes need to be replaced by self-study.

Study aids

  1. I. Homoliak, S. Venugopalan, D. Reijsbergen, Q. Hum, R. Schumi and P. Szalachowski, "The Security Reference Architecture for Blockchains: Toward a Standardized Model for Studying Vulnerabilities, Threats, and Defenses," in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 341-390, Firstquarter 2021, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2020.3033665.
  2. Douceur, John R. "The sybil attack." International workshop on peer-to-peer systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2002.
  3. Cachin, C., & Vukolić, M. (2017). Blockchain consensus protocols in the wild. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.01873.
  4. Miers, I., Garman, C., Green, M., & Rubin, A. D. (2013, May). Zerocoin: Anonymous distributed ecash from bitcoin. In 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (pp. 397-411). IEEE.
    Solidity Documentation, https://solidity.readthedocs.io/
  5. Sapirshtein, A., Sompolinsky, Y., & Zohar, A. (2016, February). Optimal selfish mining strategies in bitcoin. In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 515-532). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
  6. Luu, L., Narayanan, V., Zheng, C., Baweja, K., Gilbert, S., & Saxena, P. (2016, October). A secure sharding protocol for open blockchains. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 17-30).

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Cachin, C., & Vukolić, M. (2017). Blockchain consensus protocols in the wild. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.01873.
Douceur, John R. "The sybil attack." International workshop on peer-to-peer systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2002.
I. Homoliak, S. Venugopalan, D. Reijsbergen, Q. Hum, R. Schumi and P. Szalachowski, "The Security Reference Architecture for Blockchains: Toward a Standardized Model for Studying Vulnerabilities, Threats, and Defenses," in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 341-390, Firstquarter 2021, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2020.3033665.
Luu, L., Narayanan, V., Zheng, C., Baweja, K., Gilbert, S., & Saxena, P. (2016, October). A secure sharding protocol for open blockchains. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 17-30).
Miers, I., Garman, C., Green, M., & Rubin, A. D. (2013, May). Zerocoin: Anonymous distributed ecash from bitcoin. In 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (pp. 397-411). IEEE.
Sapirshtein, A., Sompolinsky, Y., & Zohar, A. (2016, February). Optimal selfish mining strategies in bitcoin. In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 515-532). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Solidity Documentation, https://solidity.readthedocs.io/

Recommended reading

Not applicable.

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme DIT-EN Doctoral 0 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme DIT-EN Doctoral 0 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme DIT Doctoral 0 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme DIT Doctoral 0 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

39 hod., optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Ing. Ivan Homoliak, Ph.D.

Syllabus

  1. Introduction to decenralized and distributed systems, cryptographic foundations
  2. The blockchain concepts: ledgers, blocks, and chains, transactions and Merkle trees
  3. Traditional consenus protocols in distributed computing
  4. Consensus protocols I: Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Resource (PoR)
  5. Consensus protocols II: Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Proof-of-Authority (PoA)
  6. Smart contracts and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), vulnerabilities, secure coding practices
  7. Categories of blockchain applications and their security models
  8. Authentication schemes, cryptocurrency wallets, web3
  9. Scalability and interoperability challenges
  10. Privacy and Anonymity in Blockchains
  11. Blockchain-based zk-SNARK and SNARK applications and principles
  12. Decentralized e-voting and identity management
  13. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications and security

Project

10 hod., optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Ing. Ivan Homoliak, Ph.D.