The courses are aimed at economists, lawyers, financial practitioners and regulators, entrepreneurs and software engineers. The course is aimed at non-experts who have no prior knowledge of economics or software engineering.

The course provides a non-technical overview of blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), from an economic point of view. You will learn the foundations for DLTs, and how economic incentives are leveraged in distributed consensus. You will be introduced to the economic incentives of different stakeholders in the ecosystem (miners, protocol and application designers, consumers, competitors, investors, regulators). You will learn how economic engineering plays a major role in the design of layer 2 technologies, such as side chains and smart contracts. You will explore how DLTs embed in the general economic landscape and what are some promising use cases, how theories of money apply (or don't) to cryptocurrencies and tokens, and how regulation is beginning to influence this space.

The finance focus of the first day covers financial aspects of DLTs: You will learn the market microstructure of cryptocurrency markets, the trading instrument and exchanges, as well as understanding risk exposures and volatility dynamics. You will learn how cryptocurrencies are priced in the market, how the financial industry treats this new asset class, how prices are subject to market manipulation, and how ICOs operate.

The law focus of the second day covers legal aspects of DLTs: You will learn how regulatory frameworks apply to blockchain and DLTs and selected topics such as cryptocurrencies, securities or transactions, what the current thinking and guidance of the regulators are on these new technologies, and how the issues of privacy and data protection, as expressed in the recent EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), apply to blockchains and DLTs.

The course is aimed at non-experts who have no prior knowledge of economics or software engineering.

• Introduction to distributed ledger technologies and blockchain
• Basics of game theory and cryptography
• Bitcoin
• Theories of money
• Proof-of-work, proof-of-stake and Nakamoto consensus
• Ethereum, smart contracts and layer 2
• Scalability trilemma
• Lightning network and side-chains
• The design of smart contracts

• Wallets and exchanges
• Market manipulation and price discovery
• Trading instruments and basic strategies
• Initial coin offerings
• Risk analysis and volatility

• All topics covered in the Economics and Finance
• Laws of Blockchain and DLT
• Blockchain and DLTs from a GDPR perspective