Descriptif

Instructor: Julien Prat (CNRS, CREST, Polytechnique)

The financial industry was until recently a very concentrated sector. This is becoming less and less true as a wave of innovations greatly lowers the barriers to entry and intensifies the degree of competition among providers of financial services. Disruptive technologies are being implemented at an increasing pace, leading to major changes in the realms of payments, lending and borrowing, insurance, wealth management, venture capital. To understand this revolution, one needs to have a good grasp of technological innovations as well as of the economics of the financial sector. This course will introduce students to both dimensions, allowing them to identify how financial services can be improved with new approaches. The course will put a strong emphasis on the blockchain protocol because of its disruptive potential, hopefully preparing the audience for the next wave of innovations. We will adopt a hands-on approach with the objective of enabling students to monitor transactions over the blockchain and to write simple “smart contracts” in Python.

On completion of this course, students should understand:

 The main trends in the Fintech industry and their technological underpinnings;

 How cryptographic functions make it possible to secure transactions over a public network;

 Why the blockchain technology can replace third-party certification;

 What are the main differences between the most prominent blockchain structures;

 How the market for cryptocurrencies operates, and critically assess its functions and vulnerabilities;

 How to write a “smart contract” in Python/Ethereum;

 How to identify the conditions under which smart and self-executing contracts can generate some value-added