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

4.9
stars
479 ratings

About the Course

DeFi and the Future of Finance is a set of four courses that focus on decentralized finance. The second course is called DeFi Primitives. It is recommended that you take the first course, DeFi Infrastructure, before this course. In this course, we talk about transaction mechanics and introduce both fungible and non-fungible tokens – or NFTs. The course explores the important issue of custody (holding private keys). The course then explores supply adjustment which includes the minting and burning of tokens. The mechanics of bonding curves are introduced. The course then explores the role of direct as well as indirect incentives in the DeFi system. We then analyze swaps or decentralized exchange. We begin by contrasting DEX with centralized exchange (e.g., Coinbase or Binance). The course details the mechanics of Automated Market Makers and provides a number of detailed examples. There is a discussion of impermanent loss as well as (legal) front-running. We end the course by exploring both collateralized and flash loans....

Top reviews

AS

Jan 31, 2022

DeFi Primitives gives an excellent idea of the exciting new world we are heading to in decentralized finance. Also highlights the need to contain energy costs and carbon emissions as we go along.

SS

Dec 30, 2025

Really enjoyed this! Well taught and easy to follow, a great introduction. Thank you.

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76 - 81 of 81 Reviews for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Primitives

By SUKHASEUM A A

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Dec 29, 2025

Should you consider signing the certificates with your digital signature

By Temidayo A

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May 16, 2022

Very Educative course

By Lawton H

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Mar 12, 2022

Very informative.

By Ajay B

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Jul 9, 2022

Too technical. Ropsten network has changed now and one cannot get free coins. Course has not been updated

By STEX

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Jan 7, 2022

Utter rubbish of a class. Incoherent, disjointed. The presentations were wordy and slumber inducing. It is amazing how someone can manage to lose the inspiration and interests of a learner on such exciting and dynamic topic as DeFi. Don't waste your time and money. Just go to Binance and read their tutorials. They are much more put together, and they give you the raison d'etre of a topic/technology.

By Fadoua Z

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Sep 17, 2022

It's a shame that this course was presented by Coursera instead of the Infrastructure one first!

It made the learning difficult and incoherent because so many of the fundamentals were in the course Infrastructure!

This one I think is a patchwork of videos from the 4 main courses, therefore, there are some "glue" missing between the different components of the content.

:(