Personally, I believe DeFi (Decentralized Finance) will revolutionize financial transactions, such as banking, lending, trading and investing, in the foreseeable future.
After over 10 years of booming of blockchain technology, the concept and application of cryptocurrency has been familiarized by people all over the world. Eventually it will find its right timing to fundamentally shift the existing paradigm.
The booming of DeFi has also created many new types of jobs. As DeFi is still very early in its development stage, many people come into this space by pivoting from their former jobs with diverse backgrounds.
DeFi is at the intersections of many disciplines, therefore understanding DeFi requires knowledge in a lot of different subjects, such as Computer Science, coding, Finance, investing, etc.
It is a very exciting time to join DeFi as pioneers in this brand new area, however, at the same time, no matter what role you plan to take in DeFi, developer, auditor, product manager, or writer, it requires you to keep learning new things which could sometimes be daunting.
As I've been learning in this new space, I found four certificates on Coursera that could be extremely useful and low cost for someone who wants to pivot to DeFi for a job, or simply wants to learn about it.
- Fintech: Foundations & Applications of Financial Technology Specialization from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business
This is a four-course specialization at beginner level. It takes about 4 months to complete if you study around 3–4 hours each week.
This is a good course for someone who is a true beginner and has no finance background. It starts from providing you an understanding of FinTech in CeFi (Centralized Finance) and provides you a broad scope of what's happening in Finance space.
The four courses under this specialization are: 1) FinTech: Foundations, Payments, and Regulations, 2) Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: An Introduction to Digital Currencies, 3) Lending, Crowdfunding, and Modern Investing and 4) Application of AI, InsurTech, and Real Estate Technology
Interestingly, U Penn also has an online certificate program named Fintech Revolution: Transformative Financial Services and Strategies. It is a 6-week online class and covers similar topics as the specialization above but with more depth. The cost of this online program is $2600. I recommend you to take the certificate on Coursera first to decide if you want to enroll in the more expensive one.
2. Blockchain Revolution Specialization from INSEAD
This specialization is a focus of blockchain technology for beginners. It covers terms such as miner, hash, nonce, consensus mechanism, public key cryptography, cryptoasset, smart contract, DApp, and self-sovereign identity. There are also blockchain use-cases within diverse industry, and business model decisions to assess feasibility.
It takes about 5 months to finish if you study around 4 hours a week. The four courses in this specialization include: 1) Introduction to Blockchain Technologies, 2) Transacting on the Blockchain, 3) Blockchain and Business: Applications and Implications, and 4) Blockchain Opportunity Analysis.
If you just want to get an overall understanding of blockchain and how it may change our lives I would highly recommend this specialization to you. Actually I would recommend everyone take these courses as blockchain has become an unavoidable topic in our daily life.
3. Blockchain Specialization from University at Buffalo
This specialization is a focus of blockchain technology for intermediate learners. This four-course specialization takes about 4 months to complete if you study around 4 hours a week. I would recommend you take the previous specializations, or at least the second one to start this one.
This specialization takes a deep dive into several important topics in DeFi, such as smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps). If you are someone who's considering pivoting to DeFi or blockchain industry, you may use this course to gauge if this is an area you would be interested in.
Of course, this specialization only touches the surface of DeFi. Nonetheless, it provide you a foundation of learning and you can research and deep dive in some of the concepts that intrigues you the most.
4. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): The Future of Finance Specialization from Duke University
Many people are introduced to the DeFi space by this specialization. I've seen a lot of learners give high remarks to it and I truly feel this is one of the best introductory certificates you can find online at low cost.
Although this specialization is tagged as for intermediate learners, it actually starts from very basic concepts and prepares you for in-depth concepts and discussions in later courses.
One of the best things about this specialization is that it covers a lot of grounds in DeFi space. The professor goes over them fairly quickly but it gives you a good idea of what is out there and what you need to understand.
The four courses included in this specialization are: 1) Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Infrastructure, 2) Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Primitives, 3) Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Deep Dive, and 4) Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Opportunities and Risks.