Ottawa Python: Cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts during the past few months, with several recent ICOs (initial coin offerings) raising over $100mil. The technology underpinning the majority of cryptocurrencies today is the "blockchain", an exciting innovation with many applications that has the potential to transform a wide range of industries. With all of the hype, however, it can be difficult for newcomers to separate the signal from the noise and understand what these new technologies are all about.

This talk will present a gentle introduction to cryptocurrencies, giving an overview of the concepts and motivations behind them, the history and current state of the industry, and the applications of smart contracts. We will then explore blockchains in more depth by building a toy cryptocurrency in Python from scratch.

Speaker Bio

Samuel Cormier-Iijima is a senior engineering manager at SurveyMonkey. He previously co-founded Fluidware, which grew to 80 employees before being acquired in 2014. He is passionate about computer science, cryptography, and the web, and has been working with Python and following developments in cryptocurrencies for over 10 years.