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

4.8
stars
1,575 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

XS

Feb 19, 2023

Good for beginners to understand some basic ideas and terminologies in cryptocurrency area, but there are some computer science mistakes in the videos, though they're minor.

FS

Jul 15, 2022

An excellent and much recommended course for beginners! Helped me understand the basics of blockchain technology and its operations. Definely enrolling for more courses from Mr. Campbell.

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276 - 300 of 361 Reviews for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Infrastructure

By Jose G

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Aug 17, 2022

Excelente.

By Laura V

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Dec 31, 2024

Excelente

By SUPRAJA K

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Nov 5, 2024

excellent

By Norman A

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Jul 1, 2023

Excellent

By XYZ s

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Jun 4, 2022

Great One

By Melvin C

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Apr 20, 2022

Fantastic

By Shanthanalakshmi M

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Apr 6, 2022

Very good

By Ben K

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Dec 9, 2021

Inspiring

By Bruno F

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Nov 26, 2021

MUITO BOM

By Ruben T

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Nov 19, 2024

amazing!

By Andres J S L

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Jun 27, 2024

Clear!!!

By Xavier c

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Oct 2, 2023

EXCELENT

By JOSE E L E

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Jan 17, 2023

GREAT !!

By David G

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Dec 13, 2025

amazing

By José A M M

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Mar 29, 2023

Amazing

By JONATHAN C

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Mar 25, 2023

great !

By hongliang y

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May 6, 2023

Great.

By PANAGIOTIS M

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Dec 22, 2025

nice

By Vvv P

•

Jan 8, 2023

good

By Nirav N

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Dec 31, 2022

Good

By Joshua H M

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Jun 2, 2022

Best

By Trop T

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Jan 14, 2026

There is a lot of content so this is a useful introduction to DeFi. It is worth having strong fundamental understanding of the blockchain to fully benefit. Overall, the lecturer spends little time explaining the concepts in detail, mostly just tells you what something is but skips the part explaining why a concept matter or the tech behind it.

By Michael H

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Jan 26, 2022

I expected a bit more technical depth to the course. But didn't realize that it was originally targeted to those with minimal pre-existing knowledge. I also watch the videos at 1.50X speed because the instructor goes a little slow for my taste. again, probably to cater to those new to the material.

By Oliver S

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Nov 10, 2022

A very good overview into the DeFi space. For some items, I wish there had been more detailed explanations. It is hard (at least for me) to envision concepts I have never heard about and how they are actually applied. I am sure that is yet to come in the subsequent courses.

By Patrickpro g

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Jun 29, 2025

Extremely foundational and deep-dive course, albeit it only talks about technical matters in non-technical metaphors. This is not a flaw whatsoever, just an annotation. Also, there are typos in a non-negligible amount of slides in the presentation. Overall great course.