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As blockchain evolves from an experimental technology to a foundation for real-world applications, tensions between performance, cost, and scalability have become increasingly apparent. While traditional monolithic blockchains helped launch the industry, they now reveal structural limitations when confronted with complex use cases and large user populations. Modular blockchains are not merely incremental technical improvements; they signal a fundamental shift in system architecture. By decoupling core functions—including execution, settlement, and data availability—modular blockchains are redefining how blockchain networks expand, interact, and advance. This course starts from this critical turning point, helping you understand the deep transformation underway in blockchain infrastructure.

Blockchains are powerful but limited by their isolation from the outside world. Smart contracts can only process on-chain data, yet most real-world applications, from finance and insurance to gaming and logistics, depend on external information. Programmable oracle networks solve this problem by securely delivering and processing off-chain data for use on-chain. They extend blockchain functionality, enabling decentralized applications to interact with markets, APIs, sensors, and even other blockchains in a trust-minimized way.

In the digital world, "identity" has long been viewed as a login tool, with little serious discussion about the power structures and trust mechanisms behind it. With the rise of Web3, decentralized finance (DeFi), and on-chain governance, identity has begun to evolve beyond a mere key to access systems—it now carries functions of credit, permissions, and value distribution. This course starts from this transformation, guiding you to re-examine the evolving role of identity in the digital society, and how decentralized identity serves as the critical foundation for reconstructing trust in Web3.