15.S12 Blockchain and Money (Fall 2018, MIT OCW). Instructor: Prof. Gary Gensler. This course is for students wishing to explore blockchain technology's potential use - by entrepreneurs and incumbents - to change the world of money and finance. The course begins with a review of Bitcoin and an understanding of the commercial, technical, and public policy fundamentals of blockchain technology, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts. The class then continues on to current and potential blockchain applications in the financial sector.
(from ocw.mit.edu)
Lecture 03 - Blockchain Basics and Cryptography
In this lecture, Prof. Gensler, explains the basics of blockchain and covers Bitcoin design features, hash functions, blocker headers, Merkle trees, among other related topics.