Blockchain and Money
Gary Gensler's MIT Sloan course examines how blockchain technology and distributed ledgers could reshape money and finance. Lectures begin with Bitcoin's mechanics and mining, then build toward the commercial, technical, and public policy fundamentals of blockchain systems, smart contracts, and distributed ledger governance. Later sessions apply this foundation to real financial use cases, including payments, clearing and settlement, capital markets, and central bank digital currencies, with attention to regulatory questions facing incumbents and startups alike. Materials include full video lectures, lecture notes, and assignments published through MIT OpenCourseWare under a Creative Commons license, free to access with no certificate offered. The course assumes some grounding in finance and suits students or professionals wanting a rigorous, policy-aware grounding in blockchain rather than a hype-driven overview.