Crypto:

Valuing Digital Assets (various topics)

This master's thesis will use various fundamental valuation principles to value digital assets. For instance, decentralized perpetual futures exchanges like Hyperliquid earn a large amount of fees. These fees are often used to purchase (and burn) the platform's tokens. This mechanism supports the token's price development akin to stock repurchases. Please contact Andre Guettler if you are interested. 

 

Prediction Markets 101

Prediction Markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have been one of the hottest new crypto-driven use cases since the latest US election. The thesis should give an introduction to this market, its main use cases, cross-platform arbitrage opportunities, and potential pitfalls. The empirical part should cover the main platforms (there are publicly available Dune dashboards). Please contact Andre Guettler if you are interested. 

 

Maximal Extractable Value

This thesis explores Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), the additional profit that can be extracted by strategically ordering, inserting, or censoring transactions in blockchain systems. You will analyze how MEV manifests on Ethereum and/or Solana, assess their technical architectures, validator incentives, and mitigation strategies. The work may include empirical data analysis of blockchain transactions, implementation of detection algorithms, or simulations to quantify MEV opportunities. Please contact  Alexander Wiedenmann  if you are interested.

 

Bitcoin Mining

This thesis focuses on a data-driven analysis of Bitcoin mining through block-level and network-level metrics. You will analyze Bitcoin Blockchain data to compute and study indicators such as network hashrate, mining difficulty, block time distribution, block weight, miner and pool market shares, miner revenue, etc. Please contact  Alexander Wiedenmann  if you are interested.

 

Perp Funding Rate Strategies

Directional perps investment strategies are notoriously risky at high leverage. Advanced traders use low-risk strategies instead. For instance, going long in BTC-USDT and short in BTC-USDC if funding rate gaps between these pairs are sufficiently large. Please contact Andre Guettler if you are interested.   

 

Asset Management:

This thesis will analyze the trading behaviors of collateralized loan obligation (CLO) managers. Using a unique dataset from our industry partner Infinigon Capital, you will work on a cutting-edge research question with real-world appeal. Please contact Andre Guettler if you are interested.