The Blockchain technology and the world of Web3 as seen through the lens of “conventional” SysDesign
Slides: https://tinyurl.com/sdm-blockchain-slides
The links to the amazing blockchain demo by Anders Brownworth:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
• https://andersbrownworth.com/blockchain/blockchain
• https://github.com/anders94/blockchain-demo
A lot more reading material is in the slides.
Errata sheet:
⒈ In hindsight, I may have introduced the idea of ZK-proofs from the wrong end.
#NoWar is obligatory these days.
0:00 Intro
0:45 Disclaimers
3:30 Outline
5:11 History: Diffie-Hellman-Merkle, PGP, tons of links
14:10 History: Cypherpunks, David Chaum, the ideals of freedom
23:13 History recap: giving credit where credit is due
30:24 The Blockchain
31:13 Web3 Deployment
42:00 How could you best help the younger self build Bitcoin if you go back in time?
46:05 Byzantine Consensus, the Two Generals Problem
52:13 Byzantine Consensus: most of the “classic” SysDesign principles hold true
57:37 Live Demo, kudos to Anders Brownworth
1:02:52 Q: Does the Proof of Work solve the Byzantine / adversarial attacks problem on top of solving the strong consistency problem? Spoiler: Yes
1:06:00 Q: Can hash collisions be an attack vector?
1:15:15 Intermediate recap
1:18:35 Blockchain security: 50%+1, forking
1:20:10 Beyond Bitcoin
1:22:20 L1/L2 chains
1:26:16 Smart Contracts and Vitalik
1:31:06 Proof of Stake / Proof of Authority
1:35:45 The Final Part
1:36:05 ZK-proofs (Note: I’m explaining them from the wrong end! Still correct, but not exactly how ZK-proofs are understood in the world of blockchains)
1:42:00 Burning Tokens
1:45:56 ASIC- and GPU-resistance
1:51:06 Topics consciously avoided
1:55:03 “Definitively positive” blockchain applications
2:00:27 Q: Need to sign transactions, otherwise 50%+1 is too effective. Yes (and sorry, Anders, for mispronouncing your name here!)
2:03:06 Q: The correct framing for the Two Generals Problem.
2:05:29 Q: Can blockchains help simplify large-scale computations?