Introduction to Blockchain Applications in Finance - Training Week
I. Introduction to Blockchain applications in finance (ASE) II. History and Prospects of Digital Finance (UNA) III. Scientific Writing
Time & Location
03 Nov 2025, 09:00 – 07 Nov 2025, 17:00
Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Piața Romană 6, București 010374, Romania
About the event
The training week provides a comprehensive introduction to Blockchain Applications in Finance, covering both the fundamentals of blockchain technology and its practical applications in financial markets.
Participants will explore a broad set of topics, including cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenization of assets, NFTs, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Risk assessment methods such as spectral risk measures, stochastic dominance, regime-switching models, and Financial Risk Meter (FRM) will also be presented, alongside advanced lectures on AI and blockchain integration.
The program combines academic lectures, industry case studies, panel discussions, and hands-on project sessions. By the end of the week, participants will:
Understand blockchain fundamentals and financial applications.
Analyze risks and systemic implications of blockchain-based assets.
Explore opportunities and limitations of DeFi, NFTs, and digital assets.
Engage with reproducible research through Quantlet and Quantinar.
Begin developing doctoral projects to be presented at final sessions.
Modules and Credits
This training week is part of the MSCA Digital Finance Doctoral Program:
3–6 November: Foundation modules on blockchain, digital assets, and risk modeling (4 ECTS)
7 November: Research writing and publishing tutorials (1 ECTS)
30 January 2026: Final online group presentations
Prior Knowledge
Participants should have:
Basic understanding of finance, asset pricing, and risk measures
Programming experience in Python or R (data analysis, visualization, econometrics)
Knowledge of statistics, linear algebra, and time-series analysis
Time Schedule
Monday (03/11)
09:30 – 09:40 → Welcome & Introduction to MSCA Digital Finance Training Week – Daniel Traian Pele, Joerg Osterrieder
09:40 – 10:40 → Blockchain Technology – Wolfgang Karl Härdle
11:00 – 12:00 → No shortfall of ES estimators: Insights from cryptocurrency portfolios – Matúš Horváth
13:00 – 14:00 → Blockchain Business Models – Frederik Bernard
14:00 – 15:00 → Industry Lecture – Cosmin Curticăpean
15:20 – 17:00 → Project: description and coding – All
Tuesday (04/11)
09:40 – 10:40 → Do Investors Buy Innovation: Market Responses to Ethereum Development Milestones – Daniel Traian Pele
11:00 – 12:00 → Stochastic Dominance in the Crypto Market – Radu Lupu
13:00 – 14:00 → Transformer CoVaR – Weining Wang
14:00 – 15:00 → Stress testing CBDC adoption in a dual currency saving economy – Cătălin Dumitrescu
15:20 – 16:10 → Bayesian Estimation of Regime-Switching Bubbles with Time-Varying Probabilities – Petre Caraiani
16:10 – 17:00 → Project: description and coding – All
Wednesday (05/11)
09:40 – 10:40 → Blockchain Mechanism and Distributional Characteristics of Cryptos – Wolfgang Karl Härdle
11:00 – 12:00 → NFT and other Digital Assets – Wolfgang Karl Härdle
13:00 – 14:40 → Project: updates – All
15:00 – 16:00 → Rough Volatility and Correlated Jumps – Xiaorui Zuo
16:00 – 17:00 → Pricing Kernels and Risk Premia – Julian Winkle
Thursday (06/11)
09:00 – 10:00 → FRM for Cryptos – Daniel Traian Pele
10:00 – 11:00 → Blockchain Characteristics and Systematic Risk: A Neural Network Based Factor Model for Cryptocurrencies – Alla Petukhina
11:20 – 12:00 → Project Progress Presentations & Discussions – All
13:00 – 14:00 → Blockchain in Finance: Research, Tools, and Visualisation Techniques – Liana Stanca
14:00 – 15:00 → Uncovering Hidden Structures: Latent Factor Models for Cryptocurrencies – Rui Ren
15:20 – 16:20 → Transmission Dynamics in Crypto Markets: Comparing Volatility and Liquidity Spillover Networks – Barbara Bedowska Sojka
Friday (07/11)
08:30 – 10:30 → What Makes a Good Paper – Christina Sichtmann
11:00 – 12:30 → The Review Process – Christina Sichtmann
14:00 – 15:30 → Tutorial: Find Ideas and Develop a Vision – Christina Sichtmann
16:00 – 18:00 → Tutorial: Establish a Writing Habit – Christina Sichtmann
Final Presentations (30/01/2026)
13:00 - 16:00 → Final Group Presentations (Online)
Speakers
Wolfgang Karl Härdle IDA Institute Digital Assets, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Daniel Traian Pele IDA Institute Digital Assets, Bucharest University of Economic Studies; Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Romania;
Joerg Osterrieder Coordinator MSCA Digital Finance
Matúš Horváth Masaryk University Brno, Slovakia
Radu Lupu IDA Institute Digital Assets, Bucharest University of Economic Studies; Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Romania;
Weining Wang School of Economics. University of Bristol, UK; IDA Institute Digital Assets, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Petre Caraiani Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy; Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Barbara Bedowska Sojka University of Poznan, Poland
Christina Sichtmann Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Frederik Bernard University of Twente, Netherlands
Liana Stanca Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Cosmin Curticăpean LENDOX CFTE - Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship, Romania
Xiaorui Zuo National University of Singapore, Singapore
Julian Winkle Royalton Partners, Luxembourg
Rui Ren University of Augsburg, Germany