Recap: DeFi Week of April 27 🦄

Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend :)

Summing up the past week: UMA issued tokens on Uniswap, in the first ever Initial DEX Offering. Compound’s community governance is underway, accepting its first user-generated update. The LAO, which is aiming to build a more open model for venture investment, started accepting members. Bancor disclosed details of its V2, and Instadapp launched DeFi Smart Accounts. Zerion’s Evgeny Yurtaev wrote an op-ed on how an SDK for DeFi can help Money Legos better fit together. Emin Gun Sirer explained the inner working of AVA, the blockchain he’s building, and how it’s bringing some friendly competition to Ethereum. And there’s more!

🐦Reminder to follow @DefiantNews on Twitter if you haven’t!

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Interview

"Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event; They're Like an Asteroid in the Sky:" Emin Gun Sirer

This week’s interview and podcast is with Emin Gun Sirer, Cornell University computer science professor who has been deeply involved in the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities from the very early days. After years scrutinizing existing blockchains, he’s back at making one himself with AVA, whose testnet launched two weeks ago. He explains the inner workings of this network, the first built over the Avalanche protocol, and how it can process several thousands of transactions per second at latencies of under one second. He also talks about his plans to release a subnetwork called Athereum shortly after the AVA mainnet launches in July. Athereum will be almost identical to Ethereum. If this sounds like Ethereum’s old friend wants to bring on some serious competition to the second-biggest chain, that’s because he is.

🎙Listen to the interview first hand on this week’s podcast.

Op-Ed

Money Legos Aren't Always Easy to Play With

“Money legos” has become one of the most popular memes in decentralized finance, because it describes how applications can all integrate and work together, stacked and snapped into place in the way users find most useful. Except, it doesn’t exactly work that way right now, says Evgeny Yurtaev, cofounder of DeFi portfolio manager Zerion. Instead of legos, DeFi is more like a puzzle, where each developer brings their own pieces to the table, and though they look alike and are meant to build the same picture, these pieces don’t really fit together. Yurtaev proposes a standard to connect all these pieces so that DeFi can live up to its promise and potential, and truly be money legos.

Wednesday

Dives

• UMA Issues Tokens in First Ever Initial DEX Offering: UMA Protocol, an Ethereum-based platform for issuing and trading synthetic assets, is launching a token sale via a decentralized exchange, the first time this fundraising mechanism has been attempted.
• Bancor Upgrade Aims to Tackle Main Flaws of AMMs: Decentralized exchange Bancor released details of its second major version, aiming to tackle flaws which have plagued DeFi’s automated market makers.

Bytes

• MakerDAO is Shutting Down Single Collateral Dai
• Instadapp Launches DeFi Smart Accounts

Tuesday

Dives

• Compound’s Community-Led Governance Gains Steam: Compound Finance received the first user-generated proposal on its new governance system.
• The LAO Venture Fund Launches: The LAO, which was crated by the team behind OpenLaw, wants to launch a new model for venture investing with an open organization that up to 100 investors can join and participate through token-based governance.

Sums

• Futureswap Shuts Down After Trading Volume Surges: Futureswap, an Ethereum-based trading platform, shut down an Alpha version of its platform on Saturday after amassing over $17 million of trading volume in three days.
• Polkadot to Launch with Ethereum-Compatible Platform: Blockchain infrastructure company PureStake said its building Moonbeam, a smart contract platform which will be compatible with the Ethereum blockchain.
• DFINITY Cofounder Launches $20 Million Venture Firm: DFINITY co-founder Cedric Waldburger launched Tomahawk.VC, a $20 million venture fund focusing on “global-first companies.”

Bytes

• Lendf.Me Distributes Recovered Stolen Funds to Users
• Post-Mortem: Hegic Unlock Function Bug or Three DeFi Development Mistakes That I Feel Sorry About
• Everest Creates a Crunchbase for Web3 Companies

💜Community Love💜

Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!

Kieran Daniels | kieran.eth @kierankyle"I think that it's time for (traditional) finance to be disrupted... it still works today like it worked for our parents and grandparents." - @CamiRusso

Camila Russo @CamiRussoJoin my session at @DystopiaLabs starting right now! Will the Great Lockdown lead to a new wave of crypto believers? https://t.co/Xv6YrdR5lY6:26 PM ∙ May 2, 20205Likes1Retweet

Kevin Sekniqi @kevinsekniqiCool article by @CamiRusso featuring @el33th4xor

thedefiant.substack.com“Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event; They’re Like an Asteroid in the Sky:” Emin Gun SirerSirer is betting his blockchain AVA has the best chance yet at becoming the world’s new financial layer.8:30 PM ∙ May 1, 202031Likes5Retweets

cristobalpereira.eth @cristpereirag- @criptohispanos with @criptobastardo and @abeltran83 - @btcenespanol with @joaquinmoreno - @DefiantNews with @CamiRusso https://t.co/HrpuWYmQiy

Big Cheds @BigChedsTop 3 favorite crypto podcasts/shows?10:03 PM ∙ Apr 30, 20208Likes4Retweets

Merlin Egalité @MerlinEgaliteVery interesting interview of Emin Gün Sirer @el33th4xor from @DefiantNews ! 🤩 thedefiant.substack.com/p/blockchains-…

thedefiant.substack.com“Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event; They’re Like an Asteroid in the Sky:” Emin Gun SirerSirer is betting his blockchain AVA has the best chance yet at becoming the world’s new financial layer.9:13 AM ∙ May 2, 20203Likes1Retweet

moneylegos.eth @needmorelegosMorning reading list, almost everyday: @BitcoinMktJrnl newsletter, @BanklessHQ newsletter, @DefiantNews newsletter, @Delphi_Digital newsletter, @ArcaneResearch weekly newsletter. Yikes, my subscription fees are over the moon😅. Notable mentions: @spencernoon and @AndrewSteinwold

3:55 AM ∙ May 2, 2020

Staking Rewards @StakingRewardsData & Research @StakingRewards @defiprime @DefiRate @defipulse @DefiantNews Bridges @centrifuge @at_par_ @dirksebald @OpenLawOfficial @PolymathNetwork @harbor @ConsenSysCodefi12:38 PM ∙ May 1, 2020

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About the author: I’m Camila Russo, a financial journalist writing a book on Ethereum with Harper Collins. (Pre-order The Infinite Machine here). I was previously at Bloomberg News in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires covering markets. I’ve extensively covered crypto and finance, and now I’m diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.