Foundations of Financial Technology
Introduces emerging area of Financial Technology (FinTech) within decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchains. Topics: blockchain fundamentals: major (permissionless) blockchain protocols, permissioned blockchains, and their applications; DeFi fundamentals: Layer-2 primitives (AMMs, lending, liquidity staking, MEV, etc) and stablecoins; markets and trading: market microstructure and on-chain data analytics; and emerging applications: institutional DeFi, real-world asset tokenizations (RWAs), and AI integration. Emphasis on both mathematical foundations and empirical designs.
Topics
- blockchain fundamentals: major (permissionless) blockchain protocols
- permissioned blockchains
- and their applications
- DeFi fundamentals: Layer-2 primitives (AMMs
- lending
- liquidity staking
- etc) and stablecoins
- markets and trading: market microstructure and on-chain data analytics
- and emerging applications: institutional DeFi
- real-world asset tokenizations (RWAs)
- and AI integration
Topics explicitly listed in official catalogue description
Prerequisites & course information
Prerequisites: Students should have a good background in calculus, probability and linear algebra. Some basic prior knowledge on finance will be helpful (but not necessary).
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027