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Decentralized Finance
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:39:12
Abstract
DLT is emerging for a disruption of our current financial infrastructure. As such, Blockchain Finance seeks to combine open-source, peer to peer building blocks into sophisticated products using blockchain technology, seeking to disintermediate and decentralize the traditional financial service industry. This lecture will combine insights on DLT with recent applications from finance.
Objective
At it’s core, Blockchain Finance aims to provide financial products and services on blockchain technologies. The combination of decentralized, smart-contract-based business logic solutions with a blockchain-based settlement layer facilitates the creation of financial services in a decentralized way. Traditional, functional roles of trusted third-party such as brokerage firms, banks, are replaced by smart contracts which fulfill the functions automatically. The goal if this lecture is to let you understand, - The building blocks of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) - Some basic applications like smart contracts, tokens, decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs) - Limitations and concepts for overcoming centralized financial systems - Recent advances on Central Bank Digital Currencies and other applications in DeFi - The business logic behind a decentralized applications (DApps) - How a DLT project is run within a larger organization and in the start-up context The lecture will cover also guest speakers from companies, start-ups, and agencies.
Content
The lecture will start with the fundamentals around blockchain technologies and smart contracts. Afterwards students learn about aspects and applications of blockchain finance, e.g. decentralised exchanges, tokenisations, digital currencies covering some theoretical and technological insights as well as insights on recent applications involving guest speakers from industry, start-ups, agencies. The focus of each session will be on the discussion part. You will be asked to prepare yourself (watch a video, read a paper, etc) for each session. Part 1: Intro to Blockchain, Focus on Exchanges, Transaction Ordering Part 2: Smart Contracts; Focus on Programming, Attacks Part 3: Decentralized Governance, DAOs and Applications Part 4: Central Bank Digital Currencies, recent advances, and approaches Part 5 & 6: DeFi applications, legal aspects, challenges, opportunities & risk in the corporate context The lecture is targeted to students across ETH with an interest in DLT. No specific coding experience is required. During the course you will follow step by step examples. For passing the course you will take online quizzes, selected exercises, and a short exam during the class.
Resources
Lecture Notes
There will be lecture slides to each section shared in advanced to each session.
Literature
Selected readings and books are presented in each session.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- BSC , MSC , NDS
- Frequency
- Yearly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture | Decentralized Finance |
|
2 h weekly |
Offered In
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Quantitative Finance Master (see Students in the Joint Degree Master's Programme "Quantitative Finance" must book UZH modules directly at the UZH. Those modules are not listed here.)
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MF (Mathematical Methods in Finance) (For possible additional course offerings see )
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