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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies by Princeton University

4.6
stars
2,970 ratings

About the Course

To really understand what is special about Bitcoin, we need to understand how it works at a technical level. We’ll address the important questions about Bitcoin, such as: How does Bitcoin work? What makes Bitcoin different? How secure are your Bitcoins? How anonymous are Bitcoin users? What determines the price of Bitcoins? Can cryptocurrencies be regulated? What might the future hold? After this course, you’ll know everything you need to be able to separate fact from fiction when reading claims about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. You’ll have the conceptual foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the Bitcoin network. And you’ll be able to integrate ideas from Bitcoin in your own projects. Course Lecturers: Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion....

Top reviews

NG

Dec 22, 2017

I've gained a strong knowledge of Bitcoin's architecture but wish this course was updated to include the developments of the last two years. A few lectures on alt-coins would have been useful as well.

MB

Mar 10, 2018

Great course, a very broad and in-depth overview of concepts surrounding cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular. Would be great to have an update of course; perhaps once the ICO craze is over? (-:

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51 - 75 of 695 Reviews for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

By Nguyá»…n V H

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Jun 30, 2021

Very good course

By Event P

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Jun 22, 2021

Awesome Learning

By Stebin S

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Apr 26, 2021

excellent course

By Anik B

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Nov 15, 2021

amazing course

By Bhanu P S

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Sep 11, 2021

good learning

By Padmanava D

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Aug 2, 2021

great course

By Bernhard L

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Jun 8, 2021

Excellent!

By Emre T

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Jul 28, 2021

helpful

By SOURISH P

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May 25, 2021

amazing

By Er.Kalpukuri R

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Apr 25, 2022

good

By Swastika D

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Jun 6, 2021

Good

By Tibor J

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Nov 16, 2021

The course is a good introduction to cryptocurrency technologies. Most of its material is still relevant today, despite the fact that it was recorded in 2014. I gave only 4 stars because of the auto-grader. Testing the code on a local computer is tedious with few resources available for guidance. There was also a bug in the grader at Assignment 2, which hasn't been fixed for some time.

By Antranik Z

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Sep 4, 2019

The theoretical content of the course is interesting and it gives an excellent overview of the cryptocurrency technologies through the example of bitcoin. The course also extend to alt coins and the discuss the possible challenge blockchains can help addressing beyond the purely cryptocurrency field which is interesting.

The programming assignment could however be improved. First they required a strong knowledge of java which can exclude some students. But the real issue is the lack of satisfactory explanations and guidance that sometimes make it impossible to fully resolve the practical, or even what is expected from the student.

Sometimes you can get the best mark while your code is either incorrect or not adressing the logic fully. Sometimes you run into technical limitations on the platform (memory limitation) which despite a good algorithm doesn't allow you to submit your answer. It then forces you to spend time on improving the quality of your code to save the memory used by your program (thus requiring strong java knowledge) which is time consuming and not the purpose of this course.

Overall I would advise to do the course. I would however strongly encourage Coursera/Princeton to review the assignments so that they can best help students in the understanding of the complex notions discussed in this course.

By Jonathan C

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Feb 14, 2017

It is difficult to complain too much about a free course, but I expected more from a course carrying the name Princeton. The videos were generally well done and interesting, but did contain factual errors almost every week.

Unfortunately the instructors were absent from the forums after a couple replies the first week. The homework assignments were disorganized, provided components contained errors, the grading system had problems and the requirements were often unclear. The assignments require Java programming experience (not mentioned in course description). Most importantly, the assignments in no way reflected what was taught in the course videos. They were of course related, but were implementing parts of a bitcoin node, but in a simplified manner. The textbook PDF is good.

It would have been nice to have assignments working with real bitcoin (or testnet) transactions, sigs, verification, hashing, etc.

Anyhow, I'm enthusiastic about this subject matter, so I'm just happy the course exists, but don't expect a glossy polished course... it's a rough ride.

Here is another Bitcoin course that looks good: https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/bitcoin-decentralized-technology

By Joe F

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May 1, 2022

Although far more technical than I anticipated, the course material was good and presented well. HOWEVER, in 2022,, it is very dated material, given it is seven (7) years old!! I stuck with it because the material was good - but I also anticipated (hoped) that there would be an update toward the end of the course - there was not.

I am not a programmer, and never intended to attempt the 3 programming assignments (an option indicated in the Professor's notes). However, I suspect anyone inclined toward programming would find this to be even more dated material. Perhaps a still relevant foundation, but needs an update to current!!

By Roman D

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Oct 20, 2018

The course covered a lot of things, but the programming assessments are very poor. In first the assessments the bonus task is basically not about blockchain, but rather about graphs. I would recommend adding to course more small coding assignments to get familiar with blockchain and bitcoin platform in a more practical way.

By David N

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Jan 27, 2017

Lectures were extremely good, but assignments and graders were very low quality and difficult to decipher requirements from. Professors and TAs were not active in the forums.

By Joseph N

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Oct 30, 2022

Only did the first week. The material is not bad but the assignment is a dumpster fire. You'll spend the vast majority of time trying to get the thing to run instead of focusing on the very minor task of developing the cryptographic solution.

Dont take this course. Instead just go here.

https://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu

All the assignments are here and all the videos - it is the source from which this course was created. Save yourself the headache and just skip coursera for this one.

By Jasmine V

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May 28, 2021

First off, I completed my first year in university in Computer Science. I don't shy away from code. I have good experience with Python and C# mostly. But the FIRST assignment is Java code based with the most poorly explained instructions and no code material leading up to it (in my quick flick through the material as soon as I saw the Java Assignment). Poor decision for such a good course.

By Gabriel D A

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Mar 3, 2018

Difficult to understand. Teachers were too stiff and not very warm to explain. Concepts were too technical and sometimes was difficult to understand the general ideas. Assignments were not very good explained and it was difficult to understand and the errors were not very helpful.

By Ramon B

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Mar 28, 2020

It states that you do not have to be a programmer to do this course, but the first week exam is to code. I have no clue what it is stating so i must unenroll from this course. I thought i would learn about cryptocurrencies and how the technology will impact future business.

By David H

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Oct 5, 2021

Coding projects are very frustrating. I finished all three but could not get the second graded because of a a bug in the grader code that has been around for 2-3 years (check the forums). Otherwise the course was good.

By Fedor S

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Mar 31, 2017

I think that it would be a good idea to improve the grader, release more informative assignment information (take a look at the Algorithms course for example) and lecture materials in pdf format.

By SRISTI D

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Oct 14, 2020

I Passed this course with 96% but did not achieve any certificate by doing this course. I request to provide me a certificate. please provide me the course certificate for this course

By Nicolás D

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Dec 6, 2020

The calification machine is broken. So in week 4 you cant get a good grade, so this course is unfinishable. NOT WORTH IT