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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Infrastructure by Duke University

4.8
stars
1,600 ratings

About the Course

Decentralized Finance: The Future of Finance is a set of four courses taught by Campbell R. Harvey (Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research) that focus on decentralized finance (DeFi). In this first course, we begin by exploring the origins of DeFi and take a broad historical view from the earliest barter economies, such as the first peer-to-peer exchanges of bartering, to present day. The course also looks at historical examples of money having value even though it is not officially backed. We then focus on the key infrastructure components: blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts, oracles, stablecoins and decentralized applications (or dApps). This includes discussion of the mechanics of the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains including cryptographic hashing. Next, we focus on the specific problems that DeFi is designed to solve: inefficiency (costly, slow, and insecure today), limited access (1.7 billion are unbanked), opacity (we need to trust regulators to monitor banks and the regulators have mixed records), centralized control (financial system is oligopolistic imposing higher fees than we would have in a competitive market) and lack of interoperability (it is difficult to move funds from one financial institution to another today). The course closes by exploring many of the myths about the crypto space....

Top reviews

NS

May 28, 2022

I personally would prefer a little bit more challenging tests and more of practical work.However, I really enjoyed the course and are planning to continue.

GC

Mar 14, 2022

v​ery high level, very short course m​aybe could have more support material to go deeper into some topics but i guess we will do that on part 2 , 3 and 4

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226 - 250 of 369 Reviews for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Infrastructure

By Arpan M

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Oct 2, 2022

Great introduction to the space.

By A K

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Jan 18, 2022

Gives an excellent review of DeFi

By Marcelo E S d l G

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Apr 13, 2026

great user friendly explanations

By Fabricio F

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Aug 19, 2025

Good basic knowledge about DeFi.

By Jason C

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Apr 26, 2022

very clear and comfortably paced

By Chenyang Z

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Mar 19, 2022

very convincing and enlightening

By Ali J

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May 30, 2023

Great and full of information!

By Sumit G

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Sep 11, 2022

Great learning,good Experiance

By sujit c

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Dec 22, 2021

Understandable Course material

By Victor H O S

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Sep 11, 2024

Excelent teacher. Thank you!

By Jad B

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Dec 29, 2021

Simply excellent. Thank you.

By Ahmed M

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Nov 30, 2025

Great introductory course!!

By Raul A F

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Jul 18, 2023

Interesting and easy going!

By Yelena L

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Feb 1, 2023

Great course and instructor

By Serkan K

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Aug 26, 2022

Great introduction to DeFi.

By Byron B

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Aug 22, 2022

Excellent a great teacher..

By Prasannakarthik S

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Jan 6, 2022

A good foundation for DeFi.

By Ryan D

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Dec 31, 2021

Excellent overview of DeFi!

By Mattia R

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Feb 6, 2026

Great introduction to Defi

By Ray H A L

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Jul 4, 2023

Interesting learning time.

By Felipe C

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Mar 20, 2022

Best course of DeFi ever.

By Nicolas L F

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May 13, 2022

A very complete course !

By JASON S

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Dec 20, 2021

succinct and informative

By Indupur R

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May 17, 2022

Absolutely fantastic !!

By Andres S

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Apr 6, 2022

Este profe es un crack