Blockchain Course: Free, Certified and In-Person
A blockchain course explains how a shared ledger, consensus and smart contracts work, and what banks and asset managers build with them. Some courses teach developers to write code, others teach finance staff to judge use cases. Free courses exist next to certificate programs with an exam. Events on the topic are in the calendar further down.
Free and self-paced blockchain courses
The European Commission's Digital Skills and Jobs Platform lists Blockchain Basics of the University at Buffalo on Coursera as a free course. Participants set up their own Ethereum node, run transactions and study the Bitcoin and Ethereum protocols, peer-to-peer networks and trust models; the platform rates it as advanced.
TechTarget lists shorter starts for non-developers: Blockchain: Foundations and Use Cases by ConsenSys Academy on Coursera at about nine hours, and IBM's Professional Certificate in Blockchain Essentials on edX, three to four hours a week for a month and built for beginners. Developer tracks such as the Buffalo specialization expect knowledge of a programming language.
Courses for finance professionals
Courses with a finance angle spend more time on tokenized securities, payments and DeFi than on code. The Corporate Finance Institute names Introduction to Blockchain for Financial Services on Coursera, the four-course DeFi specialization of Duke University and the Blockchain and Finance Professional Certification of the Blockchain Council, which ends with an exam.
For banks and savings banks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, EXPERT KEY, a knowledge partner of Finance Loop, runs web3 courses and workshops on site or remote, on blockchain, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies and DeFi.
Upcoming blockchain events
Finance Loop and blockchain education
The Finance Loop Academy lists the free Web3 Talents program: 20 weeks online, run by the TUM Blockchain Club, with a certificate at the end. Finance Loop's own bookable course is Bitcoin for Investors, a one-day masterclass in German on bitcoin as an asset class.
Finance Loop is a member of Bundesblock and a founding member of the Bitcoin Bundesverband, and it partners with blockchain conferences such as the Crypto Assets Conference in Frankfurt. Teams can ask for a private workshop in English or German.
Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty
Investment & Digital Assets
Is there a free blockchain course with a certificate?
Web3 Talents of the TUM Blockchain Club is free and ends with a certificate. Blockchain Basics of the University at Buffalo is listed as a free course on Coursera.
How long does a blockchain course take?
From about nine hours for the ConsenSys foundations course to a month for IBM's Blockchain Essentials and 20 weeks for Web3 Talents.
Do I need to code for a blockchain course?
Not for the beginner courses. ConsenSys Academy addresses developers and non-developers, and IBM's Blockchain Essentials needs no prior blockchain experience. The Buffalo specialization expects a programming language.
Which blockchain course fits a bank?
A course that covers use cases and rules: one of the finance courses named above, or a workshop for the whole team such as the web3 training of EXPERT KEY or a private workshop through the Finance Loop Academy.
Blockchain Courses and Finance Loop
Finance Loop lists the free Web3 Talents program of the TUM Blockchain Club in its academy and teaches bitcoin as an asset class in its own masterclass. Finance Loop is a member of Bundesblock and a founding member of the Bitcoin Bundesverband.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the adoption of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.