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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Blockchain Basics by University at Buffalo

4.6
stars
7,501 ratings

About the Course

This first course of the Blockchain specialization provides a broad overview of the essential concepts of blockchain technology – by initially exploring the Bitcoin protocol followed by the Ethereum protocol – to lay the foundation necessary for developing applications and programming. You will be equipped with the knowledge needed to create nodes on your personal Ethereum blockchain, create accounts, unlock accounts, mine, transact, transfer Ethers, and check balances. You will learn about the decentralized peer-to-peer network, an immutable distributed ledger and the trust model that defines a blockchain. This course enables you to explain basic components of a blockchain (transaction, block, block header, and the chain) its operations (verification, validation, and consensus model) underlying algorithms, and essentials of trust (hard fork and soft fork). Content includes the hashing and cryptography foundations indispensable to blockchain programming, which is the focus of two subsequent specialization courses, Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (Dapps). You will work on a virtual machine image, specifically created for this course, to build an Ethereum test chain and operate on the chain. This hands-on activity will help you understand the workings of a blockchain, its transactions, blocks and mining. Main concepts are delivered through videos, demos and hands-on exercises....

Top reviews

TT

Nov 18, 2018

This is an introductory course to Blockchain. The supplemented material (in other words self-study) is excellent and in my opinion is the only way to master the concepts and details of this discipline

SS

Jul 27, 2018

I find this course helpful to absolute beginner and for one who wants to grasp the basic concepts of Blockchain . The tutor tried to explain most part with simplicity and good and sufficient details.

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26 - 50 of 1,877 Reviews for Blockchain Basics

By Syed z j

•

Feb 5, 2022

Really learned a lot about the fundamentals of blockchain, being a software engineer looking into blockchain. It just got me up to speed with the underlying workflow of blockchain and more. loved it.

By Kaye S

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Apr 30, 2019

This is awful. In the final project, the miner never generated ether. Therefore, flunked. I understand it perfectly. I couldn't get the ethereum application to run correctly. I posted this issue to the forum and read other posts, followed the troubleshooting tips and still doesn't work. THERE IS NO WAY TO GET TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR THIS CLASS OR EVEN TALK TO A HUMAN BEING. if you aren't going to have contact information for technical issues, you are setting some students (like me) up to fail. That is shameful.

By amrut k

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Oct 3, 2018

limited to no support form the TA. The end assignment requirement was a high end computer which wasn't specified before. waste of effort.

By Johann W

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Oct 11, 2018

The program required for the final assignement will not run

By Prashant B

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Jun 24, 2020

Everything in the course was as simple as crisp as possible. Except for the assignment!!

By Thomas N

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Jul 13, 2021

The content was good, but the links for supplemental content need to be reviewed and updated- a few are not available anymore. Also, the final project is buggy. The first account on each node would not activate, and the ethereum was added to the first account on the first node, so I was unable to send a transaction. That's why I got 90% on the final- it didn't work.

By Chris R

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Jan 21, 2021

Many broken and outdated links and resources.

By yash s

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Oct 24, 2018

Week 4 assignment's environment setting is a very tedious task. try to make it user friendly.

By RedBall D

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Dec 21, 2021

The final project was not properly structured.

By Chittimadugula S S R

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Jul 8, 2020

It's a very good basics course for the beginners and enthusiasts to move ahead in their career towards the Blockchain specialization

By Callum T

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Jul 6, 2021

As expected. Basics covered. Final assignment requires a VM which in some cases causes issues. Overall, a useful course.

By Robert M

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Mar 5, 2019

A really great course, interesting material that was well presented. Totally recommended.

By Sachin G

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May 10, 2019

Easy Explantion and All tasks went with ease due simple lessons

By Shreyansh K S

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Jul 24, 2022

Beginne friendly and highly informative. Many links were broken/not working, they need to be modified or removed.

By Philip H

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May 22, 2021

This course was "ok" in my opinion. Its really a shame that Coursera does not have quality checks running to ensure course material provided in their courses are up to date. Throughout the entire specialization, many links where non-functional since resources where not available anymore. Nonetheless, the course provides a solid foundation for learning more about blockchain technology, in my view.

By Mandil L

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Jul 7, 2020

it is of great help but why is the course not updated?

By Chandra S S

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Jul 7, 2020

The course should have more Elaboration on Bitcoin

By Siddharth P

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Apr 26, 2021

Project is broken.

By Pete S

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Feb 8, 2023

There is decent content but some of the important stuff is dated like the computer requirements. Reality is you need a computer with much more resources then what is currently listed under 'Course Info' tab, it is also not trivial to setup the environment and there is no one to assist you, not the instructor nor the assistants because there aren't any. In addition, If you have an M1 or M2 Mac you will not be able to complete any of the projects because the project material and computer setup excludes these machines. This in turn means you will not be able to complete the certification that goes along with this course and the other 3 courses in the series. Do not subscribe if you have to pay if you have an M1 or M2 its not supported, this is not listed in the computer requirements.

Since the instructor does not reply in the forums and there aren't any assistants that do that I am aware of many students question's go unanswered, there is no one administering this course its self study, you need a computer with x86 architecture that can create virtual machine with 8gb of Ram ideally. Anyways there are more modern ways of setting up an environment for Ethereum, virtual machine on a home computer should be the last thing in my opinion. I had to unenroll because the project is impossible with Macs with Arm architecture.

By fabrizio f

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Nov 22, 2018

Should make more use of better visuals.

Videos are way too short and basically reading a reference text. Not sure what the benefit of taking this course is compared to buying an audiobook on the subject

Extremely dry for something that was actually created on very practical basis.

Hopefully it will improve in next courses

By Eric C

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Feb 12, 2021

Pros: This course does cover blockchain basics, and provides an okay structure for exploring the space.

Cons: The course content (lectures, quizzes, and assignments) are uninspired and rote - the professor doesn't understand how to educate. Far below the quality I expect from Coursera.

By Alexander M

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Jun 10, 2018

Question in stile `select the wrong ending for sentence` are super confusing and not widely used anymore in nowadays e-learning anymore.

By HEX C G Y B

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Jan 26, 2019

Boring, and quick, minimal information, doesn't actually teach how smart contracts work.

By Mohamed T M

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Jun 26, 2019

not clear enough content

By Yao C

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Jun 15, 2018

Bad presentation...