Most explanations of cryptocurrencies focus on 

Quant finance looks at crypto very differently.

Let’s break down how cryptocurrencies work—

1. Crypto Is a State Machine, Not “Digital Gold”

Each block updates the state according to 

Given the same previous state and the same transactions, every node reaches the same new state.

2. The Ledger: UTXO vs Account-Based Models

3. Consensus: Distributed Optimization Under Adversarial Conditions

4. Why Crypto “Doesn’t Run on Trust”

5. Fixed Supply and Monetary Policy as Code

6. Transaction Fees as a Market-Clearing Mechanism

7. Market Microstructure of Crypto Markets

Crypto markets are ideal for quant research because:

8. Volatility, Fat Tails, and Non-Gaussian Returns

natural laboratory for tail-risk modeling

9. On-Chain Data: A Quant’s Dream Dataset

Unlike traditional finance, crypto exposes:

10. Smart Contracts as Financial Primitives