🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of Feb. 13
Hello Defiers! Happy weekend! This week, as the markets plunged on war fear and storms lashed the U.S. and the Canadian government clamped down on the financial accounts of protestors, we totally geeked out. Sometimes there’s just nothing better than roll...
Hello Defiers! Happy weekend!
This week, as the markets plunged on war fear and storms lashed the U.S. and the Canadian government clamped down on the financial accounts of protestors, we totally geeked out. Sometimes there’s just nothing better than rolling up your sleeves and diving into the mechanics of DeFi, right?
For starters, check out Camila Russo’s exclusive podcast with Vitalik Buterin, who, lest we forget, wrote the Ethereum white paper when he was just 19. Vitalik shares how Ethereum can “build a base layer for the global economy” without compromising decentralization.
Then check out Brady Dale’s deep dive on the looming demise of Fortress DAO, yet another Olympus fork that’s dissolving due to governance issues. It’s the kind of in-depth feature that The Defiant prides itself on. Sam Haig, meanwhile, continued his spot-on coverage of the Polkadot parachain auctions with a roundup on the latest cohort of winning projects and how they’re poised to build out the DOT ecosystem — an important sleeper story in DeFi. Sam also turned his eye to Hashflow, a DEX that’s offering protection against a little-known but fascinating problem in blockchain manipulation.
Not that we didn’t raise our heads and take note of what else is happening in the world… Owen Fernau unearthed a very cool market trend in his report on how the Cosmos ecosystem has quietly assumed the No. 2 position in DeFi in terms of TVL. He also penned a scoop on Michael Patryn, aka Sifu, the doxxed QuadrigaCX co-founder, launching the $SIFU token. And Robin Schmidt and his crew produced awesome videos on how to maximize stablecoin yield and the BNB chain and Gearbox Protocol.
Enjoy!
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⍺ DeFi Alpha Newsletter
This week:
20% Fixed Yield On ETH and BTC Using 88mph + Yield Farming on Metis
📬 Inbox Dump #43
Our Inbox Dump newsletter, which is exclusive to paid subscribers, is where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. Sometimes announcements here didn’t meet the bar to become a news story, sometimes they may have slipped through the cracks, or they came late and we haven’t had a chance to cover. We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.
Podcast
🎙 Vitalik Buterin on Building a Base Layer for the Global Economy Without Compromising on Decentralization
Vitalik Buterin wrote the Ethereum white paper when he was just 19. His aim was simple yet comprehensive, to create a ‘world computer’ that was designed to be a flexible base layer for all online applications without the need of any third party. Since its inception in 2015, Ethereum has become the most active and largest smart contracts platform, but has it achieved the ‘world computer’ goal?
Vitalik says yes and no. In this interview, it seemed like almost a given to Vitalik that Ethereum will achieve this goal. The bigger concern is not whether the network becomes a settlement layer and decentralized engine for smart contracts used globally, but how much value and impact applications running on top of it will bring.
The Tube
📺 The Defiant Weekly: BNB Chain - what were they thinking?
📺 Real Vision vs. The Defiant: IS NOW THE TIME FOR MASS ADOPTION OF CRYPTO?
📺 First Look: Leverage just got sexy | Gearbox Protocol
📺 Tuesday Tutorial: Maximising Stablecoin Yield - Safe or Degen?
📺 Quick Take: Crypto is a Clown Show
DeFi Saga
💥 Another Fork Bites the Dust: The Looming Fall of Fortress DAO and the Perils of Off-Chain Governance
Brady Dale goes deep into the travails of Fortress DAO, a small project with outsized implications for DAO governance and the Olympus DAO ecosystem.
Fortress DAO is doomed. The question is how it dies. The crux of the matter is that this particular decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) isn’t really decentralized at all, and its investors are paying the price for getting in on a governance token, FORT, that has power in rhetoric only.
Fortress is an also-ran fork of Olympus DAO running on the Avalanche blockchain with a mere $14M in its treasury (a shadow of the more than $500M+ still backing Olympus’s OHM), but feelings are running very high right now over what should happen with that money.
The problem is that the $14M isn’t really in its treasury anyway. It’s in a separate project, one that was funded by the Fortress DAO treasury, but is now completely in control of its chief technical officer, Avraham Eisenberg, who has shown no interest in giving it back.
Community members that spoke to The Defiant predicted the matter could very well find its way to court. But for now, code is very much law and that particular law is not on the Fortress DAO community’s side.
DeFi Primer
🎮 The Ultimate Beginners Guide To The Axie Infinity Game and Marketplace
In this primer, Kurt Ivy unpacks Axie Infinity’s gameplay, use of NFTs, and tokenomics.
The Axie Infinity game is one of the biggest and most well-known Web 3.0 platforms, built on a blockchain and making use of Non-Fungible Tokens (‘NFTs’). The use of the Axie Infinity ecosystem has skyrocketed in recent times.
The platform actually provided residents of the Philippines with a means of earning an income due to job displacement from the Covid-19 pandemic. They earned so much that the government declared that revenue generated from this platform was subject to income tax.
With nearly three million daily active players and $3.6 billion traded through its in-house NFT marketplace (as per its official webpage), it’s worth looking into Axie Infinity for the gameplay andthe potential return on investment.
Axie Infinity is a Play-To-Earn game, built on a distributed ledger (aka a blockchain), where Axies are represented as NFTs, which are stored on a blockchain. Axies can be sold through the in-house peer-to-peer marketplace. The Axie game is built on the Ethereum blockchain, and the Axies are priced in ETH, the native cryptocurrency for Ethereum.
DeFi How To Guide
🏡 Buying Real World Assets By Leveraging Crypto
In which guest writer Shahar Abrams goes shopping with crypto.
This article was sourced via PubDAO, a decentralized newswire.
A lot of people say crypto has no “real-world use cases”. “What can you buy with it?” someone will ask, at which point the other person will shrug back “JPEGs on the internet?”
The truth is, you can use crypto to buy anything you wantin the material world. You can even enjoy the same tax perks used by the wealthy when they buy things, by borrowing against your assets instead of selling them.
In this article, I’m going to show you how you canuse all sorts of crypto assets to make real-world purchases while staying invested, minimizing your tax bill and generating cash flow. Does it really work? Yes, it does, and I’ll show you how.
Friday
News
- Cosmos Ecosystem Quietly Surges to $17B in TVL in Challenge to Ethereum Layer 2sThis was supposed to be the Cosmos’ ecosystem banner year. And in a way, it already is. By itself Terra, a blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK (software development kit), is the No. 3 ranking chain in total value locked (TVL) terms at $17.32B as of Feb. 16, according to DeFi Llama.
- Winners in Second Round of Polkadot Parachains Poised to Add Mojo to Expanding DOT EcosystemBidding for Polkadot’s tenth parachain lease auction has begun, with teams competing for an early seat at the table in building out Polkadot’s burgeoning ecosystem.
- DEX Takes Aim at Protecting Blockchains from Manipulation and ‘Slippage’Hashflow, a decentralized exchange offering protection from MEV, has launched on Ethereum’s leading Layer 2, Arbitrum.
- What’s Sifu Up To? Eponymous Token May Foreshadow New Project The former CFO of Frog Nation, a Daniele Sesta-led network of DeFi projects, has now launched a token. The ticker? $SIFU.
Links
- Sequoia Capital is launching a $500-600 million crypto fund to invest in tokens: The Block
- The Graph Backers Launch $205M Ecosystem Fund to Provide Grants to Dapp Builders: CoinDesk
- Circle valued at $9 billion under revamped SPAC deal terms: The Block
- Terra, CEO Do Kwon Ordered to Comply With SEC Subpoena Related to Mirror Protocol Investigation: CoinDesk
- You're not going to want to miss @saraareynolds' keynote at Opening Ceremonies tonight on how we can build Web3 to create sustainable, transformative impact: Uniswap
- Stop by the Infinity Stage tomorrow at 1:40pm to see Facu Ameal talk about "How to Become a Mighty Strategist" : Yearn Finance
Thursday
News
- Upstart’s Vampire Attack on OpenSea Fizzles After Technical Issues and Criticism OpenSea, the Leading NFT marketplace, is again under vampire attack, this time from new rival, x2y2. But the assault quickly stalled after a number of technical glitches halted an airdrop and triggered accusations that the project was manipulating the price of its token.
- Stablecoin Supply’s Steady Rise Shows ‘Increased Belief’ in Digital Assets Despite Market RoutAnyone paying attention to crypto in the last three months knows it has been anything but calm. There’s been jaw-dropping doxes and nine-figure hacks, all while the market has lost a staggering $1T in value since November.
- Influential Policy Body Warns that DeFi May Shake Stability of Global Financial SystemThe TradFi eestablishment has taken a long, hard look at DeFi. And it does not like what it sees. The Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that helps shape policy in the world’s biggest nations, said yesterday that DeFi protocols could undermine confidence in the global financial system.
Links
- Canada Sanctions 34 Crypto Wallets Tied to Trucker 'Freedom Convoy': CoinDesk
- Coalition of US crypto firms unveils travel rule compliance platform, TRUST: The Block
- THE NEXT MEGA-TRADE HAS BEGUN: Pantera Capital
- Castle Island Ventures announces new $250 million fund for web3 investments: The Block
- The source of funds for the winning bid in Melania Trump’s first NFT auction appears to be the creators of the project themselves: Bloomberg
- Ok, my last post prompted me to do a survey. I have no vested interest (not promoting any alternative but listening).Your Discord experience: Raoul Pal
Wednesday
News
- LooksRare Team Reaps $31M Windfall as Token Plunges 70% From All-Time HighLooksRare’s rise has been so meteoric that in just a few weeks its trading volume has outpaced mighty OpenSea. Now it appears the LooksRare team transferred roughly 10,500 wrapped ETH (wETH), worth more than $31M, to personal wallets, according to Zodd, who works for the NFT exchange.
- Reversal in NFT Market Triggers Plunge in Ethereum Burn RateDeclining activity in the NFT markets led to a plunge in Ethereum’s burn rate in February, according to Ultrasound Money, a data aggregator tracking activity on the Ethereum network.
- How to Guide: Buying Real World Assets By Leveraging CryptoA lot of people say crypto has no “real-world use cases”. “What can you buy with it?” someone will ask, at which point the other person will shrug back “JPEGs on the internet?”
Links
- A DAO that funds students to attend crypto events loses half its budget to risky management: The Block
- ARK Analysts call $1M BTC, $180K ETH | Bullish Crypto Price Predictions: Bankless
- SEC Enforcement Against Wonderland Could Mean Trouble for DeFi: CoinDesk
- Why Larry David was the perfect 'anti-sponsor' of FTX's Super Bowl ad, according to Jeff Schaffer: The Block
- Hey #LUNAtics, let’s prepare for the upcoming launch of @SuberraProtocol, Recurring Payments Protocol for Web 3.0 built on @terra_money: Terra Daily
- Looks like a dope community-run celebration - stoked for the new mega!: Bored Ape Yacht Club
Tuesday
News
- SEC Says BlockFi Misrepresented Risk to Crypto Depositors In $100M OrderThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that crypto lender BlockFi inaccurately described the level of risk its depositors were exposed to, in an order explaining a $100M settlement between BlockFi and federal and state securities regulators.
- U.K. Seizes NFTs in Fraud Probe as Authorities Hunt for Illicit Digital Assets In a move that demonstrates how digital assets are being targeted in legal cases, British authorities have seized three NFTs linked to a criminal fraud investigation, according to a Feb. 14 report in the BBC.
- Why Startup Founders Should Check In With Their Investors About ComplianceThere are over 4,000 words in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s rule describing all the documentation that a registered investment advisor needs to maintain.
Links
- Federal Judge Releases 'Razzlekhan,' Orders Other Bitfinex Hack Laundering Suspect to Remain in Jail: CoinDesk
- Coinbase plans to add 2,000 employees across Product, Engineering and Design in 2022: Coinbase
- “Dude, what’s the Danksharding situation?” Workshop: Ethereum Foundation
- NFT house sells for $654k in historic auction — Tampa condo up next: Tampa Bay Times
- We are heading to @EthereumDenver this week and hosting a pop-up event on Thursday the 17th from 5-9: Art Blocks
- Yearn intern’s 📱 is blowing up with questions about the APYs listed on Yearn’s Fantom vaults: Yearn Finance
💜Community Love💜
Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!
youtube.comVitalik Buterin: Ethereum Will Most Likely Be Mainstream and the Most Secure Base LayerThis week on The Defiant podcast we chat with Vitalik Buterin, someone within this space that needs no introduction, but let’s give you one anyway. Vitalik w...9:44 AM ∙ Feb 18, 202212Likes2Retweets
youtu.beCrypto is a Clown ShowThe last few weeks have really put that to the test. Russia apparently moving to recognise crypto as a form of currency all while massing hundreds of thousan...9:34 PM ∙ Feb 14, 202212Likes3Retweets
thedefiant.ioBuying Real World Assets By Leveraging Crypto - The DefiantThis DeFi user bought his dream home with an overcollateralized loan against his crypto asset.2:27 AM ∙ Feb 17, 202226Likes10Retweets
Shahar @ShaharAbramsI had an amazing experience using @MIM_Spell to buy my DREAM PIANO 🤩 @danielesesta 🙏 All in a few button clicks and while STILL earning yield in defi I wrote an article on how it works which was just published in @the_defiant (through @pub_DAO)! 👇 thedefiant.io/dream-home-def…
thedefiant.ioBuying Real World Assets By Leveraging Crypto - The DefiantThis DeFi user bought his dream home with an overcollateralized loan against his crypto asset.8:16 PM ∙ Feb 16, 202287Likes22Retweets
Shahar @ShaharAbramsI had an amazing experience using @mim_spell to buy my DREAM PIANO 🤩 @danielesesta 🙏 All in a few button clicks and while STILL earning yield in defi I wrote an article on how it works which was just published in @The_Defiant (through @pub_DAO)! 👇 https://t.co/dwn2LFtRTb8:39 PM ∙ Feb 16, 202212Likes3Retweets
thedefiant.ioWhat the History of Democracy Can Teach Us About Blockchain Governance - The DefiantDAOs can reshape society by bringing democratic control to important economic and social activities previously governed through more hierarchical means. But as many people have pointed out, DAOs have not yet achieved their goal of true decentralization.11:44 AM ∙ Feb 15, 20229Likes2Retweets
thedefiant.ioWhat the History of Democracy Can Teach Us About Blockchain Governance - The DefiantDAOs can reshape society by bringing democratic control to important economic and social activities previously governed through more hierarchical means. But as many people have pointed out, DAOs have not yet achieved their goal of true decentralization.5:40 AM ∙ Feb 14, 202210Likes7Retweets
Giveth @GivethioIn case you missed it: @thegrifft talks with @CamiRusso of @DefiantNews about replacing monopolistic government services with competing #RegenEconomies 🤯 Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=d_MClu…3:15 PM ∙ Feb 14, 202243Likes18Retweets
Linum Labs @LinumLabsIf you're looking for more on Lens Protocol, this video from @DefiantNews is really awesome🔥 youtube.com/watch?v=LG9uYo…
youtube.comLens Protocol - the Metaverse’s first true social layerLens Protocol is a new attempt at creating a decentralized Web3 social graph reimagining the way we connect through social networking. Rather than requiring ...9:26 AM ∙ Feb 11, 20227Likes1Retweet
TheCryptoMewtwo.eth @TheCryptoMewtwoTonight @CamiRusso, Chiefess at @DefiantNews & Author of The Infinite Machine, will be on the #BasedSpace! Set your reminder now so you don’t miss the alpha 👇 https://t.co/e7NNMfpu0U7:08 PM ∙ Feb 10, 202238Likes9Retweets
The Defiant @DefiantNews🎨Over 75% of #NFT revenues from Jan '20 to Sep '21 went to male artists, according to a report from @ArtTactic📊 55% of revenues were earned by just 16 creators. @izzyhowell__ says the time has come for web3 to make good on its promise of inclusivity👇 https://t.co/khc3g7UUGp7:31 PM ∙ Feb 9, 202225Likes6Retweets
not cryptocarstens @carstenscryptoOn my way to @EthereumDenver re read chapters 20 "The DAO Wars" and 21 "The Fork" of @CamiRusso The Infinite Machine they're SO good it always makes me feel as if I was there and reading I'm always at the edge of my seat. Can't wait to see the movie.7:45 PM ∙ Feb 16, 202216Likes3Retweets
AiirA | PƧYFΛM @AiiraMeridAA project about a book, a movie and a collection from 36 talented #NFT artists, but most of all about community and web 3 history… check out @ETHMovie and become a part of a wonderful machinery! discord.com/invite/ethmovie opensea.io/collection/the… theinfinitemachinemovie.com
4:39 PM ∙ Feb 16, 202288Likes57Retweets
1:32 PM ∙ Feb 16, 202221Likes2Retweets
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Brady Dale, Owen Fernau, Sanuel Haig and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader and Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt and Alp Gasimov. Podcast was led by Camila, edited by Alp.
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