Summer Sidequests and an MIT Rabbit Hole

Quick context: I know it's been a while. Last time I posted, finals were coming up and I said I'd update you guys soon. "Soon" turned into a whole summer. This one is a short check-in before the next round of projects lands here.

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Where I've Been

Finals came and went. Then summer hit, and I got pulled into a few sidequests. Not the main storyline, but the kind of detours that end up mattering more than you expect.

Since getting back, my head has been full of projects I want to build. The list is doing that thing again where it grows faster than I can cross items off. Of course, I'll be sharing them here as they come together.

But before any of that, there's something else eating up my evenings.

The MIT Course

I'm currently working through an MIT course on Blockchain and the Design of Financial Systems.

So far, it's been littered with econ jargon. Honestly? I'm okay with that. I'm a bit of an econ geek, so wading through the terminology isn't a chore - it's half the fun.

The lecturer isn't that technical. You won't see them walking through EVM opcodes or debugging a smart contract on screen. But they clearly have a strong grasp of the technical literature, and that turns out to be a really useful lens. Most of the blockchain content I've consumed over the years comes from builders explaining how things work. This course flips that. It's asking why financial systems are designed the way they are, and where blockchain actually fits into that picture - or doesn't.

Why This One Matters

None of this is for credit. It's completely extracurricular.

But at the same time, it feels like a culmination of two things I've been circling for years: economics and computer science. If you've read my crypto journey post, you know I came into this space through the money side first - getting paid in ETH at a car show, NFTs, getting burned on memecoins, funds stuck in FTX. The technical side came later, once I realized I needed to understand what was happening under the hood.

This course sits right at the intersection. The economics explains why these systems need to exist. The computer science explains how to build them. For the first time, it feels like those two interests aren't separate tracks - they're the same track.

What's Next

More coursework. More notes. And hopefully, soon, some of those projects finally making it out of my head and onto GitHub.

I'll update you guys as things take shape. Probably with code this time.

Back from the sidequests. Back on the main quest.

# Econ + CS = the same track
class Summer:
    def __init__(self):
        self.sidequests_completed = True
        self.projects_queued = "growing"
        self.current_course = "Blockchain and the Design of Financial Systems"
        self.for_credit = False

    def intersection(self, economics, computer_science):
        # The economics explains the why
        # The computer science explains the how
        return economics + computer_science

    def resume(self):
        return "main_quest"