Navigating Decentralized Finance: From Blockchain to Crypto Assets and Tokenization

Pascal Egloff · Ernesto Turnes · Stefan Neumann

Aug 2025 · Academic Press

About this ebook

Navigating Decentralized Finance: From Blockchain to Crypto Assets and Tokenization provides an in-depth overview of how blockchain and digital assets drive financial economics with a truly global approach. This comprehensive textbook covers blockchain technologies, infrastructure, applications, and regulatory and legal aspects, offering both a quick introduction for beginners and numerous, practical case studies to engage advanced students and working professionals. Here, after discussing blockchain fundamentals, experts consider blockchain contracts, scalability, CBDCs, tokenization, stablecoins, NFTs, decentralized finance (DeFi), and the metaverse, among other topics, with applications explored across the financial world.Each chapter adopts a consistent structure and pedagogy accompanied by over 120 illustrations across the book, as well as a blockchain glossary. An instructor website includes a complete set of lecture slides supporting undergraduate, graduate, certificate, and faculty across the globe. - Features clear, accessible explanations, connecting blockchain technology and infrastructure with business and financial applications - Showcases more than 120 unique graphics and practical case studies - Adopts a global, interdisciplinary perspective, incorporating technical, business, finance, IT, legal, regulation, and strategy aspects - Includes an instructor website with a complete set of lecture slides supporting undergraduate, graduate, certificate, and professional course faculty

About the author

Pascal Egloff is a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland (OST) in St.Gallen. In the Competence Centre for Banking and Finance, he leads research and service projects, teaches in the context of education and training and appears regularly as a speaker and panelist. His areas of expertise include blockchain, digital and crypto assets, and financial innovation. He is a member of the Swiss Fintech Innovations Association (SFTI) and president of the Digital Assets Switzerland (DAS) association. He is also a member of the Digital Assets Forum of the Swiss Bankers Association and an active member of the Swiss DLT community. He founded the Blockchain for Business Forum in 2018.Ernesto Turnes has been a lecturer since 2006 and professor of Banking and Finance since 2012 at the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland (OST) in St.Gallen, where he headed the Centre of Competence for Banking and Finance from 2012 to 2022. He has been head of the new Institute for Finance and Law (IFL) since 2023. In addition to teaching in the area of education and training, as well as numerous lectures and external seminars, he leads research and service projects at banks and asset managers. He is co-author of the textbooks «Unternehmensbewertung und Aktienanalyse», «Blockchain für die Praxis» and «Blockchain in der Finanzwelt». His areas of expertise include asset management, valuation of financial instruments and crypto/digital assets. Ernesto Turnes was Chairman of the Board of Directors of a Swiss asset management boutique for ten years and is a member of the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees of a large Swiss pension fund.Stefan Neumann is a lecturer in the Competence Center Banking and Finance at the Institute for Finance and Law. He specializes in digital assets and compliance issues. He has over 20 years of experience in banking, where he has held senior management positions and worked on various strategic projects in Switzerland and abroad. His focus was on compliance, anti-money laundering and most recently compliance risk & controls. Prior to this, he worked for global Big-5 consulting firms in Germany and Switzerland. Stefan holds a Master degree in Industrial Engineering and a PhD from the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany.