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Start   >  Master's & postgraduate courses  >  Education  >  Continuing education master's degree in Blockchain Technologies
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  • Presentation
  • Training Content
  • Learning methodology
  • Teaching team
  • Associates entities
  • Career opportunities
  • Request information or admission

Presentation

Information 2023-2024 edition
The 2023-2024 edition of the continuing education master's degree has already begun. Shortly we will publish updated information about the new edition of this programme.
Edition
6th Edition
Credits
60 ECTS (360 teaching hours)
Delivery
Blended learning
Online phase: 18 October 2023 to 6 March 2024. The foundations of blockchain technologies and their main practical implementations will be addressed in this first phase of the master's degree course.

Face-to-face phase: from 7 March to 25 October 2024. In the second phase, the knowledge to required master blockchain technologies is completed, and classes are also taught by a greater diversity of professors who provide different perspectives on the multiple aspects of blockchain technology. Finally, students undertake the master's degree final project in this phase, involving a real case with blockchain technology.

This program can also be taken online
Language of instruction
Spanish
Fee
€8,900
Payment of enrolment fee options

The enrolment fee can be paid:
- In a single payment to be paid within the deadline specified in the letter of admission to the programme.
- In two instalments:

  • 60% of the amount payable, to be paid within the deadline specified in the letter of admission to the programme.
  • Remaining 40% to be paid up to 90 days at the latest after the starting date of the programme.
- In four instalments, splitting the payment by direct debit:
  • 40% of the amount payable, to be paid within the deadline specified in the letter of admission to the programme.
  • The remaining 60% will be divided into 3 direct debit payments, which will be distributed equidistantly between the beginning and end of classes.
  • The student must have and be the holder of a bank account with IBAN ESXX
Notes 0,7% campaign

Registration open until the beginning of the course or until end of vacancies.
Next course
October of 2024
Timetable
Monday: 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Wednesday: 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Thursday: 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Taught at
Tech Talent Center
C/ de Badajoz, 73-77
Barcelona
Why this continuing education master's degree?
Blockchain technologies are enabling the exchange of information and valuable assets between entities without prior trust and without the need of third trusted parties or intermediaries. These technologies are attracting great interest and are one of the main vehicles for technological innovation nowadays.

The model shift promoted by blockchain technologies is generating numerous business opportunities and job offers for specialists. Blockchain technology experts are the leading next-generation job offerings. Among the multitude use cases of blockchain in the business world we can highlight asset tokenization, fintech, proptech, insurtech, e-health, eGovernment, supply chain and social services stand out, among others. Currently, both the public sector and a multitude of companies are integrating blockchain into their business processes, which is why they are requesting managers, architects, programmers, developers and technicians.

The UPC School promotes this master in Blockchain Technologies with a practical orientation and that is aimed at professionals who wish to understand, manage and develop applications with blockchain-based technologies. Taught by renowned professionals, the master includes in-depth training in distributed network technologies, blockchain projects and cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger, R3 's Corda, etc.), development of decentralized applications (DApps), security, cryptography and business and legal aspects.

Promoted by:
  • Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Departament d'Enginyeria Telematica (ENTEL)
Aims
  • Understand the operation of blockchain systems in their main variants.
  • Being able to design and audit smart contracts.
  • Reach an adequate level for the development and deployment of distributed applications (DApps) in web and mobile versions.
  • Know the structures and protocols necessary to create secure DApps.
  • Apply cryptographic techniques to blockchain applications, including but not limited to digital signatures, multi-signatures, ring signatures, blind signatures, threshold cryptography, homomorphic cryptography, and Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP).
  • Have a business vision, know the trends and legal aspects about blockchain technologies.
Who is it for?
  • Profiles from the field of information and communication technologies that want to manage and develop projects with blockchain technologies.
  • Application developers.
  • System administrators or people who carry out similar functions.

Students must have a laptop for class sessions, which allows virtual machines to run with some fluidity.

Training Content

List of subjects
9 ECTS 57h
Online
Fundamentals of Blockchain Technologies
  • Introduction to cryptography and security
    • Security services: confidentiality, privacy, integrity, authentication and authorization.
    • Symmetric cryptography.
    • Security definitions.
    • Key management.
    • Cryptographic protocols.
    • Asymmetric cryptography.
    • Hash functions.
    • Digital signatures.
    • Hybrid cryptography.
    • Quantum computers and cryptography.
    • Merkle trees.
    • Post-quantum signatures.
    • Ring signatures.
    • End-to-end security.
    • Principles of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.
    • Proxies.
    • Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
    • Password management.
  • Centralized digital currencies
    • The problem of double spending.
    • Blind signatures.
    • Anonymous payment systems with centralized ledger.
  • Decentralization
    • Introduction and decentralization motivation.
    • State replication versus state machine replication.
    • Consensus protocols.
    • Fail-stop and Byzantine systems.
    • Synchronous and asynchronous networks.
    • The Reliable, Replicated, Redundant, And Fault-Tolerant (RAFT) algorithm.
    • The Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerant (PBFT) algorithm.
  • Blockchain and Proof of Work (PoW)
    • Sybil attacks and consensus with Proof of Work (PoW).
    • The blockchain.
    • Verifying transactions.
    • Attacks to PoW.
    • Mining pools.
    • Mining with Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).
    • Governance and forks.
  • Proof of Stake (PoS)
    • Staking principles.
    • Types of PoS networks.
    • Stake distribution.
    • Chain-based PoS and Byzantine-based PoS.
    • Block timing.
    • The nothing at stake problem.
    • Bonded PoS.
    • Slashing.
    • PoS Pools.
    • Delegated PoS.
    • Grinding attacks.
  • Coin-based Ledgers
    • Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs).
    • Introduction to Bitcoin.
    • Bitcoin’s script.
    • Wallets and Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallets.
  • Balance-based ledgers
    • Basic principles of balance-based ledgers.
    • Attacks and countermeasures to balance-based ledgers.
    • Introduction to Ethereum.
    • Simulation of an Ethereum blockchain.
  • Smart contracts
    • Introduction to programming smart contracts.
    • Basic game theory applied to smart contracts.
    • Study of use cases: remote purchase, tokenization, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
  • Business networks
    • Hyperledger.
    • Finality in consensus.
    • Privacy.
    • Permissioning of blockchain networks.
    • Legal compliance.
  • Privacy in ledgers
    • Motivations.
    • De-anonymization.
    • Money fungibility.
    • Circuit-based Zero Knowledge Proofs.
    • The Zcash protocol.
4 ECTS 27h
Online
Network Infrastructure
  • Virtualization and networks
  • Virtualization of operating systems: hardware emulation, paravirtualization and virtual containers.
  • TCP/IP networks.
  • Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
  • Network virtualization.
  • Docker
    • Architecture.
    • Images and containers.
    • The life cycle of a container.
    • Layers of an image.
    • Interactive access.
    • Docker-file.
    • Volumes.
    • Networks.
    • Microservice architectures.
    • Deploying a service with Docker.
  • Development and operations
    • DevOps basics.
    • Version control with Git.
  • Backends and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
    • Need for APIs.
    • REpresentational State Transfer (REST).
    • Remote Procedure Calls (RPC).
    • Backends.
  • Peer-to-Peer Networks (P2P)
    • Overlays Peer-to-Peer.
    • Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs).
    • Kademlia.
    • Distributed storage.
5 ECTS 33h
Online
Tools for Creating DApps
  • Introduction to JavaScript
    • Object orientation.
    • Functions and functional programming.
    • Nodejs and package management.
    • Asynchronous programming: callbacks, promises and async/await.
    • Creation of a blockchain-like virtual machine with Javascript.
  • Frontend development of a decentralized application (Dapp)
    • Basic principles of React.
    • JSX and components.
    • State management.
    • Consumption of APIs.
    • React hooks.
    • Access to smart contracts from React.
  • Create a virtual machine
5 ECTS 36h
Online
Smart Contracts
  • Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
    • Storage, memory, calldata and stack.
    • Internal and external calls.
    • The Application Binary Interface (ABI).
  • Smart contracts with solidity
    • Layout of solidity.
    • Copying values and referencing values.
    • Type conversions.
    • Control structures.
    • Contracts.
    • Inheritance and interfaces.
    • Calls, jumps and visibility.
    • ABI’s methods.
    • Functions.
    • Libraries.
    • Gas.
    • Error control.
7 ECTS 45h
Face-to-face
Ethereum
    • Ethereum Basics
    • Transactions and blocks in Ethereum.
    • The Patricia tree.
    • Ethash mining, Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG) and uncles.
  • The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
    • Ether, gas and gasprize.
    • Events and bloom filters.
    • Basic Opcodes.
    • Evolution to Web Assembly (WASM).
  • Developing DApps
    • Interaction with smart contracts from DApps with Web3.
    • Metamask.
    • Event management.
    • Contract testing.
    • Development with Truffle.
    • Transaction signatures and meta-transactions.
    • Off-chain services: Swarm, IPFS and Whisper.
  • DevOps blockchain
    • The Geth client.
    • The Parity client.
  • Applications
    • Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).
    • DApps (social networks, prediction markets, identity, etc.).
    • The Ethereum Request for Comments (ERCs).
    • Study of ERCs: ERC-20, ERC-223, ERC-721, ERC-777.
    • Digital identity.
  • Scalability
    • Ethereum 2.0 and sharding.
4 ECTS 27h
Face-to-face
Blockchain Technologies Applied to Processes and Businesses
  • Blockchain strategic decisions
  • Blockchain applications and use cases
    • Payments and micropayments.
    • Asset tokenization: fungible and non-fungible tokens.
    • Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs): utility and security tokens.
    • Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).
    • Fintech: crypto exchanges, decentralized exchanges, stable coins and the one big mesh.
    • Industry 4.0.
    • Shared economy 2.0.
    • Data markets.
    • Logistics.
    • Smart cities.
    • Banking applications.
    • Digital identity.
    • Governance.
    • Liquid democracy.
    • Mediation and conflict resolution.
    • Energy.
    • Health.
    • Automotive.
  • Business models for blockchain projects
  • Calls for projects
    • European declaration for the promotion of blockchain technologies.
  • State of the art of standardization
    • ISO, ITU, ETSI, CEN/CENELEC and UNE.
  • Who's who in the blockchain sector
    • Actors.
    • Alastria.
  • Legal aspects
    • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
3 ECTS 15h
Face-to-face
Bitcoin
  • Overview of the Bitcoin system
    • Blockchain and Bitcoin technology.
    • Overview of Bitcoin technology.
    • Accounts, keys and addresses.
  • Bitcoin transactions
    • Basic definitions.
    • Bitcoin transaction format.
    • Bitcoin scripting language.
    • Transaction repositories.
  • Bitcoin blocks
    • Bitcoin block structure.
    • The Bitcoin blockchain.
    • Mining process.
  • The Bitcoin P2P network
    • Network properties.
    • Network and connection discovery.
    • Data transmission mechanisms.
  • Bitcoin second layer solutions
    • Micropayment channels.
    • Lightning network.
4 ECTS 24h
Face-to-face
Security
  • Security in smart contracts
  • Vulnerability analysis.
  • Audits.
  • Good practices.
  • Security protocols
  • Authentication protocols.
  • Password management.
  • Authorization with OAuth2.
  • Decentralized IDentifiers (DIDs).
  • Frontend security
  • Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF).
  • Cross-site Scripting (XSS).
  • Cross-origin Requests (CORS).
  • JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).
  • Security in web storage and application to crypto wallets.
8 ECTS 51h
Face-to-face
Cryptography
  • Modular arithmetics
    • Congruences.
    • Euler's theorem.
    • Euclid's algorithm.
    • Fast modular exponentiation.
  • Modern public (asymmetric) key cryptography
    • Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA).
    • Diffie-Hellman.
    • Elgamal.
  • Elliptic curves
    • Definition and properties of elliptic curves.
    • Bilinear pairings.
  • Signatures on elliptical curves
    • Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA).
    • Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS).
  • Complexity
    • Types of problems.
    • NP-complete problems.
  • Provable security
    • Attacker models.
    • Security tests.
  • Other cryptographic paradigms
    • Homomorphic cryptography.
    • Threshold cryptography.
    • Identity and attribute-based cryptography.
  • Digital signatures with additional properties
    • Blind signatures.
    • Ring signatures.
    • Zero knowledge signatures.
    • Proxy signatures.
    • Group signatures.
    • Re-encryption and key exchange schemes.
  • Zero knowledge proofs
    • The Schnorr protocol, the simulator and the extractor.
    • Commitments.
    • Fiat-Shamir heuristics.
    • Non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs (NIZKs).
    • Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARKs).
    • Bullet Proofs.
    • STARKs.
    • PLONK.
    • Circuits for privacy-aware applications.
  • Quantum computing and cryptography
    • Basic elements of quantum mechanics: the qubit, generalized quantum measurements, entanglement and logic gates.
    • Teleportation.
    • Dense coding.
    • Bell inequalities.
    • Quantum computing protocols: Deutsch-Josza, Grover and Shor.
    • Quantum key distribution.
5 ECTS 33h
Face-to-face
Altcoins and other Blockchain Projects
  • The Hyperledger ecosystem
  • Description of Hyperledger projects.
  • Hyperledger Fabric
  • Consensus, cryptographic mechanisms and network typology.
  • How to create an Hyperledger Fabric network.
  • Chaincode.
  • Software Development Kits (SDKs).
  • R3 Corda
  • The network and the ledger.
  • Identities.
  • State and contracts.
  • Transactions, flows and consensus algorithm.
  • Notaries.
  • Temporary windows and oracles.
  • Hyperledger Besu
  • Permissioning.
  • Privacy.
  • Parity
  • Substrate.
  • Polkadot.
  • Ardor
  • General description.
  • Wallet.
  • Tokens.
  • Tendermint
  • Consensus.
  • Blocks.
  • The Aragon project
  • The Status project
6 ECTS 12h
Face-to-face
Final Master's Project
Development of a blockchain-based project.
Degree
Continuing education master's degree issued by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Issued by virtue of the provisions of art. 7.1 of Organic Law 2/2023 of 22 March, concerning the University System, and art. 36 of Royal Decree 822/2021 of 28 September, which establishes the organisation of university education and the procedure for ensuring its quality. A prior official university qualification is necessary to obtain it. Otherwise, the student will receive a certificate of completion of the course issued by the Fundació Politècnica de Catalunya. Lifelong learning studies at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya are approved by the University's Governing Council on an annual basis. (See details appearing on the certificate).
Range of modules
The continuing education master's degree programme is organized into the following modules. If you don't wish to take the entire continuing education master's degree you can sign on one or several modules.
Continuing education master's degree:
relation Continuing education courses:

Learning methodology

The teaching methodology of the programme facilitates the student's learning and the achievement of the necessary competences.

The proposed methodology is designed so that the student can reach the necessary technical level and develop a broad social network in the blockchain ecosystem that will allow for professional opportunities. Similarly, the type of sessions will also facilitate the student's work-life balance.

There will be two types of sessions:

  • Face-to-face (60%).
  • Live online (40%).

The methodology of the programme will allow students to follow the classes live online, with the same opportunity for participation as in the face-to-face sessions.

The programme makes available to students a series of technical resources for the good follow-up of the live online sessions. The platform used allows students to share their desktop screen with the teaching staff in order to resolve queries, carry out group work, etc. A Telegram group will also be created for students and teachers, for responding to any questions or doubts that may arise.

The programme is designed with a high level of teaching quality to generate student involvement based on good planning, an appropriate pace, and close supervision throughout the programme by the academic management team and teaching staff.



Learning tools
Participatory lectures
A presentation of the conceptual foundations of the content to be taught, promoting interaction with the students to guide them in their learning of the different contents and the development of the established competences.
Practical classroom sessions
Knowledge is applied to a real or hypothetical environment, where specific aspects are identified and worked on to facilitate understanding, with the support from teaching staff.
Case studies
Real or hypothetical situations are presented in which the students, in a completely participatory and practical way, examine the situation, consider the various hypotheses and share their own conclusions.
Tutorship
Students are given technical support in the preparation of the final project, according to their specialisation and the subject matter of the project.
Assessment criteria
Attendance
At least 80% attendance of teaching hours is required.
Level of participation
The student's active contribution to the various activities offered by the teaching team is assessed.
Solving exercises, questionnaires or exams
Individual tests aimed at assessing the degree of learning and the acquisition of competences.
Work out projects
Studies on a specific topic, by individuals or groups, in which the quality and depth of the work is assessed, among other factors.
Completion and presentation of the final project
Individual or group projects in which the contents taught in the programme are applied. The project can be based on real cases and include the identification of a problem, the design of the solution, its implementation or a business plan. The project will be presented and defended in public.
Work placements & employment service
Students can access job offers in their field of specialisation on the My_Tech_Space virtual campus. Applications made from this site will be treated confidentially. Hundreds of offers of the UPC School of Professional & Executive Development employment service appear annually. The offers range from formal contracts to work placement agreements.
Virtual campus
The students on this continuing education master's degree will have access to the My_ Tech_Space virtual campus - an effective platform for work and communication between the course's students, lecturers, directors and coordinators. My_Tech_Space provides the documentation for each training session before it starts, and enables students to work as a team, consult lecturers, check notes, etc.

Teaching team

Academic management
  • Muñoz Tapia, Jose Luis
    Muñoz Tapia, Jose Luis
    info
    View profile in futur.upc / View profile in Linkedin
    PhD in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and professor in the Department of Telematics Engineering at the UPC. His research work is focused on the field of network security, cryptography and the development of secure applications. In this area, he is co-author of dozens of articles in journals and conferences.
Teaching staff
  • Aragonès Sabaté, Pau
    info
    View profile in Linkedin
    Graduate in Telecommunication Sciences and Technologies from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), master in Telecommunications Engineering from La Salle and DevOps Blockchain engineer. He is currently part of the Global Blockchain Center of Competence at Allianz, where he promotes the application of several cases of ideal use of Blockchain technology in the insurance sector, specializing in Hyperledger Fabric and R3 Corda platforms. He has previously participated in ideal use cases for the banking sector in the form of consortia to apply blockchain technology for various entities.
  • Fernández Duran, Pablo
    info
    View profile in futur.upc / View profile in Linkedin
    Holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Holds an Advanced Studies Diploma from the UPC. Currently a lecturer at the Image Processing and Multimedia Technology Center (CITM) on Mobiles and Web Technologies Development. The author of Minidosis.org.
  • Massanet, Adrià
    info

    BCompSc with over 20 years experience within the areas of security, cryptography and digital identity software development. He has developed software and solutions from coding low-level drivers to designing requirements for building security software and operations for trustee systems as also reviewing designs and implementations for threat mitigation. Now focused on Ethereum and decentralized systems.
  • Muñoz Tapia, Jose Luis
    info
    View profile in futur.upc / View profile in Linkedin
    PhD in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and professor in the Department of Telematics Engineering at the UPC. His research work is focused on the field of network security, cryptography and the development of secure applications. In this area, he is co-author of dozens of articles in journals and conferences.
  • Muñoz Tapia, Ramon
    info

    Graduated in Physics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and got my PhD from the University of Barcelona (UB). He was a Fleming and Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Durham and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Granada (UGR). He is currently Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics at the UAB. He is one of the founders of the Quantum Information Group (GIQ) at the UAB and author of about seventy publications in international journals. He has been invited to carry out research at many international centers.

Associates entities

Collaborating partners

Career opportunities

  • Blockchain project and innovation manager for sectors such as asset tokenization, fintech, e-Heath, eGoverment, insurance, supply chain and social services.
  • Solutions designer for public and enterprise Blockchain ecosystems.
  • Solutions specialist for integrated Blockchain-IoT.
  • Developer and auditor of smart contracts.
  • Front-end developer (web and mobile) for Blockchain and secure applications.
  • DevOps and sysadmin specialized in Blockchain networks.
  • Cryptographically secure designer and developer of applications.
  • Specialist in distributed data storage solutions with privacy and legal compliance.

Request information or admission

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How to start admission
To start the enrolment process for this programme you must complete and send the form that you will find at the bottom of these lines.

Next you will receive a welcome email detailing the three steps necessary to formalize the enrolment procedure:

1. Complete and confirm your personal details.

2. Validate your curriculum vitae and attach any additional required documentation, whenever this is necessary for admission.

3. Pay €110 in concept of the registration fee for the programme. This fee will be discounted from the total enrolment fee and will only be returned when a student isn't admitted on a programme.

Once the fee has been paid and we have all your documentation, we will assess your candidacy and, if you are admitted on the course, we will send you a letter of acceptance. This document will provide you with all the necessary information to formalize the enrolment process for the programme.




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