Skip to main content

ABCs of DeF(i)

The summer of 2020 is notable for a host of reasons. A pandemic. #BLM protests. USPS shenanigans. But within the blockchain/crypto space, the summer of 2020 will be remembered as "DeFi Summer." Short for "decentralized finance," DeFi refers to a system of automated financial arrangements stored and executed on a distributed ledger such as blockchain. One of my business faves, Mark Cuban, recently touted the potential for DeFi to explode in the next 10 years. I may be biased but I agree; DeFi has the potential to revolutionize finance.

Automation is Key
We know that blockchain can facilitate peer-to-peer transactions in a trustless environment, that transactions happen without the need for a third party intermediary, and that an immutable record of the transaction is stored on the ledger. In other words, transactions happen automatically and records of transactions are incapable of being changed. This is why bitcoin was created. This is blockchain 1.0. We also know that blockchain can be programmed to execute transactions automatically when predetermined conditions are met. This is the basis for smart contracts and what many consider to be blockchain 2.0.

Well, DeFi operates no differently than your basic smart contract--transactions execute automatically when predetermined conditions are met. With no need for middlemen to verify that conditions have been met, transactions occur more efficiently in terms of both cost and time. Instead of creating a smart contract to send eth to your niece every year on her birthday, you are creating smart contracts with more complicated if-then scenarios (think loans, investments, exchanges, betting, insurance). These complex financial transactions require a more complex or sophisticated code but the mechanics are the same. And they can occur without the red tape and roadblocks that tend to accompany traditional financial institutions. But then again, who needs a credit check when you have a collateralization ratio of 150%?

Be Careful
DeFi Summer came to be because of a rise in popularity of the practice known as "yield farming." Without nerding out too much, yield farming essentially involves a user lending a particular crypto asset to a decentralized application (or dapp) and receiving interest, returns or other incentives in return. A popular incentive that helped drive the yield farming buzz last summer was governance tokens. These tokens give their owners certain rights with respect to the dapp, and these governance tokens have their own value that can increase or decrease. DeFi Summer was driven, in part, by the massive rises in increase of some of the more popular governance tokens. But what goes up can also go down (quickly), hence the warning. In the digital currency ecosystem, speculation knows no bounds, bad actors run rampant, coding mistakes happen and, well, people can lose a lot of hard-earned/hard-mined crypto. And the law cannot always (or even oftentimes) make people anywhere close to whole. If a DeFi project is offering returns that are too good to be true, they probably are and you will be lucky if you don't lose your entire investment. Always #DYODD (do your own due diligence).

Read about the rise and fall of DeFi project, Yam Finance, here.

Competition is Real
DeFi projects are coming online (usually on the Ethereum network) at a rapid clip and the growth is certainly fueled by an increase in market cap across all DeFi projects in the past few months. There are projects that involve lending and exchanges and derivatives and assets and payments. There are (and will be) plenty of opportunities to dip your toe into the DeFi space. Take the following into consideration when evaluating a project (taken from Reddit):
  1. Total Value Locked/Fully-Diluted Market Cap
  2. Market Cap / Revenue
  3. % of Token Supply on Exchanges
  4. Unique Address Growth
  5. Token Balance Change on Exchanges
  6. Non-Speculative Usage
  7. Liquid Inflation Rate
  8. Community Support
  9. Virality (i.e., clear narrative, meme-ability)
  10. Attractiveness of liquidity mining program
  11. Audits/Management of technical risk
So now that you know a little more about DeFi, what are your thoughts? Do you believe in the promise? Or does it sound even less desirable than the costly fees and wait times we have with current traditional financial institutions?

Comments

  1. Merkur 15c Safety Razor - Barber Pole - Deccasino
    Merkur 15C หาเงินออนไลน์ Safety Razor - Merkur - deccasino 15C 1등 사이트 for Barber Pole is the perfect introduction to the Merkur 메이저 토토 사이트 Safety Razor. kadangpintar

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Before You Mint Your NFT

With NFT season taking a bit of a breather (kinda), I thought this would be the perfect time to lay out a few things to consider before minting an NFT.  If you missed the frenzy, well, welcome. "NFT" stands for non-fungible token and these digital tokens represent real world ownership and provenance of a particular asset. NFTs are minted (i.e., produced), stored and transacted (bought/sold/traded) on a distributed ledger like blockchain. Some NFTs represent ownership of tangible assets and some NFTs are digital/virtual assets  (yes, a digital piece of art was purchased for $69M). "Non-fungibility" is a scary word but it essentially means that the asset is unique, cannot be interchanged with another asset, and cannot be replicated. Think of NFTs as either collectibles, like artwork and trading cards, or title to tangible/real property, like real estate and cars.  So with all the excitement having simmered down a bit, below are a few things to think about before you

The Rundown on CBDCs

Everyday there is a news report about a country that is "exploring" or "studying" the possibility of developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). In the past few days, I've read articles about Rwanda, Israel and France looking to pilot programs with CBDCs. And yesterday, the Bank of International Settlements announced its backing of the development of CBDCs. With approximately 80% of central banks around the world taking a closer look at CBDCs, now is as good a time as any to learn more about them. What Are They? A central bank digital currency is exactly what it sounds like--a digital currency issued by a central bank. In the same way our central bank, the Federal Reserve, issues the U.S. dollar, it would similarly issue some official U.S. digital currency ('digital dollar'). This is pretty much where the simplicity of it all ends. Things get really hairy (really fast) when central banks have to figure out how CBDCs fit into a traditional financ

A Curious Crypto Caper Chronicle

The Hack Earlier this month, a hacker executed a massive crypto heist on PolyNetwork--a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. The hacker was able to steal more than $600 million in crypto from thousands of users on three separate PolyNetwork blockchains (Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum & Polygon) and involving more than a dozen cyptocurrencies. In other words, this hack was * major *. The PolyNetwork protocol operates on multiple blockchains and allows users to send/receive tokens across these different blockchains using various smart contracts (also known as "bridges"). The hacker exploited a vulnerability in one of these smart contracts which maintains significant amounts of crypto to maintain liquidity and this allowed him to overwrite instructions and redirect all crypto funds to himself. From there, the hacker attempted to move the stolen crypto into various liquidity pools.   The Blacklist The hacker was successful in moving some of the crypto. But shortly after the