Introduction:

1. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): The Future of Finance Specialization comprising 4 courses is taught by Professor Campbell R. Harvey, Duke Fuqua School of Business through Coursera

2. The four courses in this specialization are as follows:

  1. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Infrastructure
  2. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Primitives
  3. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Deep Dive
  4. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Opportunities and Risks

3. DeFi and the Future of Finance by Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran, and Joey Santoro is an excellent book to understand the potential of DeFi

4. The following are the major topics discussed in the courses above:

Course 1: DeFi Infrastructure

i. History of DeFi:

a. What is DeFi?
b. The Value of Money
c. Centralized Finance (CeFi) and Centralized Decentralized Finance
d. Introduction to Cryptocurrency

ii. DeFi Foundations:

a. Blockchain
b. Hashing
c. Cryptocurrency
d. Smart Contracts, Gas, Oracles
e. Stablecoins
f. dApps

iii. Problems DeFi solves:

a. Inefficiency
b. Limited Access
c. Opacity
d. Centralized Control
e. Lack of Interoperability

Course 2: DeFi Primitives

i. Mechanics:

a. Transaction Mechanics 
b. Fungible Tokens: ERC-20 Protocol
c. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT): ERC-721 Protocol

ii. Supply and Ownership:

a. Custody
b. Supply Adjustment
c. Incentives

iii. Loans and Swaps:

a. Swaps:

1. Centralized Exchange
2. Decentralized Exchange
3. Automated Market Maker Makers: Example: **Constant-function market maker (CFMM)** such as Uniswap

b. Collateralized and Flash Loans:

1. Collateralized Loans
2. Flash Loans

iv. Joining the World of DeFi:

a. MetaMask Wallet

b. Blockchain Tech:

1. Hashes and Keys
2. Addresses
3. Signatures and Transaction Mechanics
4. Consensus
5. Incentives, Latency, Data, Computing Power
6. Cross-chain, Immutability, Oracles, Privacy

Course 3: DeFi Deep Dive

i. Credit and Lending:

a. MakerDAO
b. Compound
c. Aave

ii. Decentralized Exchanges:

a. Uniswap
b. Balancer and Rehypothecation

iii. Derivatives:

a. Yield Protocol
b. dYdX
c. Synthetix

iv. Tokenization:

a. Set Protocol
b. Wrapped Bitcoin

Course 4: DeFi Opportunities and Risks

i. Smart Contract Risk:

a. Types of Exploits

b. Case Studies:

  1. DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization): Ethereum Hard Fork into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic
  2. Dforce: A known vulnerability in the ERC777 standard was exploited for stealing USD 25 Million worth of Ethereum
  3. Yearn.finance: A 161 step complex exploit.

ii. Attacks and Risks:

a. Attacks:

  1. Governance Attack
  2. DNS Attack
  3. Oracle Attack

b. Risks:

  1. DEX (Decentralized Exchange) Attack
  2. Custodial Risk

iii. Scaling Risk:

a. Alternative Consensus
b. Vertical and Horizontal Scaling
c. Layer2
d. Rollups

iv. Other Risks and Opportunities:

a. Regulatory Risk
b. Environmental Risk
c. CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) Competition
d. Investing in DeFi