**CSE 190: Blockchain Security** [*Deian Stefan*](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~dstefan/) About ============================================================== This course focuses on the security of blockchain technologies. Students will be introduced to many parts of the blockchain infrastructure — from the design and implementation of consensus protocols, to the programming layers above them, and the DeFi applications handling billions of dollars — and explore the different ways these systems can—and have—failed under adversarial settings. We will study attacks against real systems, revisit the security and assumptions of widely deployed protocols and applications, and analyze the impact of attacks, scams, and thefts. Lectures: : Monday and Wednesday, 5:00--6:20pm, PCYNH 120 Staff: : **Instructor**: Deian Stefan : **Teaching Assistant**: Shun Kashiwa Office hours: : **Deian**: Monday, Wednesday 6:30pm, CYNH 120 -> CSE 3126 : **Shun**: By appointment Questions, discussion, and announcements: : [Piazza](https://piazza.com/ucsd/spring2026/cse190) Calendar and Readings ============================================================== Mon Mar 30 2026: Introduction - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-1.pdf) Wed Apr 1 2026: Background - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-2.pdf) - *Reading*: - [Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf), by Satoshi Nakamoto Mon Apr 6 2026: Bitcoin (part 1) - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-3.pdf) - *Reading*: - [Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf), by Satoshi Nakamoto - Block Chain, Transactions, P2P Network sections from [Bitcoin Developer Guide](https://developer.bitcoin.org/reference/) Wed Apr 8 2026: Bitcoin (part 2) - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-4.pdf) - *Reading*: - [Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable](https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243) by Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer Mon Apr 13 2026: Bitcoin (part 3) - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-5.pdf) - *Reading*: - [A Fistful of Bitcoins: Characterizing Payments Among Men with No Names](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~smeiklejohn/files/imc13.pdf) by Sarah Meiklejohn et al. - *Optional reading*: - [Mt. Gox: What We Still Don't Know 10 Years After the Collapse](https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/02/28/mt-gox-what-we-still-dont-know-10-years-after-the-collapse/) - [How to Peel a Million: Validating and Expanding Bitcoin Clusters](https://smeiklej.com/files/usenix22.pdf) by George Kappos et al. Wed Apr 15 2026: Bitcoin Consensus - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture6.pdf) Mon Apr 20 2026: Bitcoin and PoS Consensus - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-7.pdf) Wed Apr 22 2026: Ethereum (part 1) - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture-8.pdf) - *Reading*: - [Ethereum docs](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/) - [Beaconchain explainer](https://ethos.dev/beacon-chain) - *Optional*: - [Ethereum: A secure decentralised generalised transaction ledger -- EIP-150 revision](https://gavwood.com/paper.pdf) by Gavin Wood Mon Apr 27 2026: Ethereum (part 2) - [*Slides*](./slides/cse190-sp26-lecture9.pdf) - *Reading*: - [Solidity](https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/latest/) - [ERC-4337](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4337) Wed Apr 29 2026: Ethereum (part 3) - *Reading*: - [Solidity](https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/latest/) - [ERC-4337](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4337) Mon May 4 2026: DeFi: Stablecoins, lending protocols, swaps and DEXes (part 1) - *Reading*: - [Uniswap](https://uniswapv3book.com/) Wed May 6 2026: Review Mon May 11 2026: Midterm Wed May 13 2026: DeFi: Stablecoins, lending protocols, swaps and DEXes (part 2) - *Reading*: - [Attacking the DeFi Ecosystem with Flash Loans for Fun and Profit](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03810) by K. Qin et al. - [SoK: Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Attacks](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.13035.pdf) by Liyi Zhou et al. Mon May 18 2026: DeFi (part 3) - *Reading*: - [Attacking the DeFi Ecosystem with Flash Loans for Fun and Profit](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03810) by K. Qin et al. - [SoK: Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Attacks](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.13035.pdf) by Liyi Zhou et al. Wed May 20 2026: MEV, frontrunning - *Reading*: - [Flash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized Exchanges](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.05234.pdf) by Philip Daian et al. - [Quantifying Blockchain Extractable Value: How dark is the forest?](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.05511.pdf) by Kaihua Qin et al. - [How Tornado Cash Works](https://www.rareskills.io/post/how-does-tornado-cash-work) - *Optional*: - [Time to Brige: Measuring Block Construction Markets](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.16468.pdf) by Anton Wahrstätter et al. Mon May 25 2026: No class Wed May 27 2026: Cross-chain bridges - *Reading*: - [zkBridge: Trustless Cross-chain Bridges Made Practical](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3548606.3560652) by Tiancheng Xie et al. - [SoK: Security of Cross-chain Bridges: Attack Surfaces, Defenses, and Open Problems](https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.12573) by Zhang et al. Mon June 1 2026: Cross-chain bridges (part 2) Wed June 3 2026: Fun topics (tracing)