Alternative Investments

Alternative investments provide portfolio diversification beyond traditional stocks and bonds, with direct relevance to DeFi applications. This section covers the major categories of alternatives — features and structures, performance measurement, private capital, real assets, natural resources, hedge funds, and digital assets — each with distinct risk-return profiles and growing DeFi parallels.

Topics

Section Map

The alternative investments curriculum naturally divides into three pillars, each of which has on-chain counterparts in the DeFi ecosystem:

Pillar	Topics	DeFi Parallels
Structures & Performance	Features & Structures, Performance & Returns	Enzyme Finance, Yearn vaults, on-chain fee models
Private Markets & Real Assets	Private Capital, Real Estate & Infrastructure, Natural Resources	Maple Finance, RealT, Centrifuge, Paxos Gold, tokenized carbon credits
Strategies & Digital Native	Hedge Funds, Digital Assets	dHEDGE, Uniswap, Aave, liquid staking (Lido, Rocket Pool)

7 items under this folder.

May 22, 2026
Alternative Investment Features, Methods, and Structures
Alternative Investment Features, Methods, and Structures Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Describe features and categories of alternative investments Core Concept Alternative investments are investments other than ownership of traditional asset classes (public equity, fixed-income instruments, and ...
May 22, 2026
Alternative Investment Performance and Returns
Alternative Investment Performance and Returns Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Describe the performance appraisal of alternative investments Core Concept Performance appraisal of alternative investments involves measuring returns using specialized metrics like IRR and MOIC while adjusting for uniq...
May 22, 2026
Investments in Private Capital -- Equity and Debt
Investments in Private Capital: Equity and Debt Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Explain features of private equity and its investment characteristics Core Concept Private equity represents capital raised from sources other than public markets and traditional institutions, invested in the form of e...
May 22, 2026
Real Estate and Infrastructure
Real Estate and Infrastructure Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Explain features and characteristics of real estate Core Concept Real estate comprises land and buildings (developed land, commercial, industrial, and residential properties), representing 75% of global real estate as residential and 2...
May 22, 2026
Natural Resources
Natural Resources Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Explain features of raw land, timberland, and farmland and their investment characteristics Core Concept Natural resource land investments encompass raw (undeveloped) land, farmland (agricultural production), and timberland (sustainable forestry), ...
May 22, 2026
Hedge Funds
Hedge Funds Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Explain investment features of hedge funds and contrast them with other asset classes Core Concept Hedge funds are private pooled investment vehicles that use flexible mandates, leverage, derivatives, and both long/short positions across multiple asset c...
May 22, 2026
Introduction to Digital Assets
Introduction to Digital Assets Learning Objectives Coverage LO1: Describe financial applications of distributed ledger technology Core Concept Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is a database system shared across multiple network participants (nodes) that maintains synchronized records through cons...