Certified Bitcoin Professional Practice Exam

Who should take the exam?

• Accountants and Financial Controllers
• Sales and Marketing Practitioners
• Educators, Professors, and Teachers
• Entrepreneurs
• IT Specialists
• Legal Professionals
• Customer Service Representatives
• Project Management Personnel
• Individuals who regularly utilize Bitcoin in their daily activities

Exam Details

• Exam Name: Certified Bitcoin Professional
• Exam Language: English
• Type of Questions: 75 Multiple Choice and True/False Questions
• Time: 20 minutes
• Passing Score: 70%

Course Outline

• Centralized Ledgers: Understand what a centralized ledger is and how money has been organized on centralized ledgers in the modern digital economy.
• Functions of Currency: Distinguish between functions of currencies such as unit of account, store of value, and medium of exchange.
• Distributed Consensus: Define “distributed consensus” and explain what makes bitcoin’s ledger different from centralized ledgers.
• History of Bitcoin: Read the bitcoin protocol white paper. Know about major events affecting bitcoin since its creation such as the failures of early exchanges (who and why) and the birth of alt-coins.
• Price Derivation: Understand how the price of bitcoin is derived.

• Terms and Definitions: Define and accurately use basic cryptographic terms such as cryptography, encryption algorithm, decryption algorithm, symmetric encryption algorithm, asymmetric encryption algorithm, cipher text, and plain text.
• Hash Functions: Explain the purpose of hash functions, how they are used in bitcoin, and how their inputs are related to their outputs.
• Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption: Distinguish between symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms. Understand the principles of asymmetric encryption and the impact it has on key exchange.
• Digital Signatures: Understand the basics of digital signatures, why and how they are used in bitcoin. Understand the relationship between digital signatures and asymmetric keys.

• Bitcoin Community: Understand how users, advocates, developers, businesses, and governments impact the Bitcoin Protocol. Explain what types of institutions are actively involved in promoting, maintaining, or lobbying on behalf of the industry.
• Bitcoin Addresses and Keys: Understand how bitcoin addresses and keys are generated. Explain the relationship between bitcoin addresses, public keys, and private keys; distinguish between them and describe the primary use of each. In terms of addresses and keys, describe how funds are accessed and transferred on the bitcoin network.
• Bitcoin Transactions: Describe a bitcoin transaction in terms of inputs and outputs. Explain why a simple bitcoin transaction is irreversible. Understand the basics of transaction fees including what role they play in the network.
• Bitcoin Blockchain Ledger: Explain how bitcoin’s blockchain functions as a public ledger. What information is public?
• bitcoin the Unit: Know and understand the denominations of bitcoin and their relation to one another (e.g. millibit, satoshi). Explain the difference between Bitcoin (capitalized B) and bitcoin. Recognize other commonly used symbols referring to bitcoin as a digital currency.
• Bitcoin the Network: Understand network basics such as how the network is connected and the importance of independent nodes in the structure. Explain common network attacks (such as DDoS) and how the network is secured from these types of attacks.
• Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP): What is a BIP? Explain the basic process of submitting, evaluating, and implementing a BIP. Review Github - Bitcoin Improvement Proposals
• Buying and Selling bitcoin: What are the different ways users can buy and sell bitcoin? What is a bitcoin exchange? Who uses bitcoin exchanges and why? Understand the risks of storing bitcoin on exchanges and identify best practices for storing bitcoin.
• Blockchain Explorers: What is a blockchain explorer? How can a blockchain explorer be used to trace payments?

• Purpose and Function: Explain the basic value that miners provide to the bitcoin network. How are new bitcoin created?
• Algorithm: In terms of the most current implementation of the Bitcoin mining algorithm, define and describe the following: difficulty adjustment, hashing algorithm, coinable transaction, coinbase transaction size, nonce, and block reward allocation. Describe how they have changed over time.
• Mining Pools: What is a mining pool? What is a centralized mining pool? What is a P2P pool? Compare and contrast. From the perspective of the network: what are the advantages and disadvantages of pools compared to single miners? From the perspective of a miner: what criteria should I consider when choosing a mining pool?
• Mining Hardware: What is the most popular hardware used today for bitcoin mining? Describe the differences between CPU, GPU, and ASIC hardware.
• Security and Centralization: Under what conditions is a 51% attack feasible? Explain what a potential attacker can and cannot do with a large proportion of network hashing power. Understand the relationship between mining pools, specialized hardware, and the likelihood of attacks.

• Wallet Types: What is a bitcoin wallet and how is it commonly used? Explain the characteristics of different types of wallets such as software, web, hot/cold, paper, brain, hardware, multi-sig, HD, HDM. Describe how to properly back-up each type of wallet and why back-up is important.
• Bitcoin Clients: Describe the difference between lightweight and full clients. What is Simplified Payment Validation (SPV) and how is it used in lightweight clients?
• BIP: 32: What is BIP 32 and what does it enable?
• BIP: 38: What is BIP 38 and how is it used on the network?
• Importing and Exporting: What is Wallet Import Format (WIF)? Describe why and how WIF is used.

• Bitcoin Merchants: Describe how merchants can begin accepting bitcoin for products and services.
• Bitcoin Payment Processors: What is a payment processor? What services do payment processors provide?