Free online courseBlockchain and money

Course Description

Make smarter investment decisions in a world where money is becoming programmable. This free online course connects the mechanics of blockchain with how real financial systems work, helping you move beyond hype and develop a practical framework for evaluating crypto assets, payment networks, and token-based projects. You will learn how digital ledgers changed what can be tracked and transferred, why early forms of digital cash struggled, and what makes modern blockchains different from traditional databases.

From there, the course builds a clear mental model of how blockchains reach agreement, what tradeoffs show up in real networks, and why questions like security, scalability, and decentralization are intertwined. You will also explore smart contracts and decentralized applications as a new way to create financial products and services, while recognizing technical limitations, attack surfaces, and operational risks that can affect users and investors.

Because investing is shaped as much by institutions as by technology, you will examine the role of public policy, compliance, and oversight in crypto finance, including why regulations tend to focus on market integrity, consumer protection, and financial stability. You will contrast permissionless systems with permissioned designs used by firms, then connect those models to problems found in legacy finance such as post-trade clearing and settlement, trade finance frictions, and identity constraints.

The course also strengthens your ability to assess use cases with discipline: where blockchain adds credible value, where it is unnecessary, and what economic incentives keep networks functioning. You will consider how payments scale in practice, how exchanges and token issuance influence secondary and primary markets, and why central banks are exploring multiple paths toward digital currency. By the end, you should be able to speak confidently about the roles of money, the structure of crypto markets, and the key questions to ask before committing capital or building a strategy in this rapidly evolving investment landscape.