Recap: DeFi Week of Nov. 4 🦄

Hello defiers, hope you’re having a great weekend!

Summing up this past week: DeFi reached the major milestone of 100 million Dai issued, a sign the ecosystem keeps growing. There’s a marketing DAO and more Gods Unchained cards than CryptoKitties. As always, many new applications and updates with Dolomite for margin trading, DeFiZap to automate investments and RealT putting up shares of a house on Uniswap. It’s Ethereum hackathon time this weekend in Waterloo, Canada. ETHWaterloo is where these events got started two years ago, which makes it extra special.

Interview With Vitalik

I interviewed Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin on stage at ETHWaterloo’s opening ceremony about the network’s growth since the first ETHWaterloo in 2017. He said he’s excited about innovation in DeFi, but hopes it’s not the last wave of Ethereum applications, and that use-cases around identity should start to take off. Still, when looking at what Ethereum can accomplish in the next decade, he said decentralized finance is likely to be one of the sectors to have the largest impact. Vitalik went on “Bitcoin heretic” mode and advocated for proof of stake and a flexible issuance model, arguing that proof of work and Bitcoin’s 21 million cap probably can’t guarantee network security over time. But you should watch the full interview, and hear among other things, what he’d tell 2017 Vitalik. Link is here.

News & Views

Friday

There’s Now 100 Million Dai and Room for More: The amount of Dai issued surpassed the system’s self-imposed debt ceiling of 100 million on Wednesday, a sign the decentralized stablecoin continues to attract users. MKR holders voted to raise the limit to 120 million to allow for more growth.

Ethereans Launch MarketingDAO More than 50 Ethereum community members created a decentralized autonomous organization, based on MolochDAO, to manage Ethereum marketing.

Gods Unchained NFTs Surpass CryptoKitties: Here’s another nail on the coffin for the myth that the only killer use-case for Ethereum was CryptoKitties. Gods Unchained, a virtual cards game based on the network, has now issued more tokens than CryptoKitties has.

Thursday: Spanish Edition

Libérate: Así Puedes Pasar de Pesos a Cripto: Guía de cómo comprar cripto y entrar a las finanzas descentralizadas.

El Cepo Volvió a Argentina, Pero Esta Vez Hay Dai: Por qué Dai puede ser mas útil que bitcoin y que el dñolar blue. Traducción de mi post de la semana pasada.

Wednesday

MakerDAO is Eating Up All the ETH: Borrowers are increasingly pulling ether from other platforms and putting it as collateral on MakerDAO instead.

What Happens to DeFi Value Prop When Rates Drop? This year, the big selling point of DeFi has been: Earn double-digit interest on a dollar-linked asset, no matter where you are. But with DeFi rates sliding as liquidity increases, that value proposition becomes weaker.

Traders Made $400,000 in One Month on dYdX: Traders liquidating under-collateralized loans on decentralized exchange dYdX made about $400,000 just in September, according to Ganesh Swami of data analytics firm Covalent.

Tuesday

Tokenized Real Estate is Coming to DeFi: Imagine being able to IPO your house and have it sell as quickly as trading shares on the open market. RealT is tokenizing a home in Detroit and putting the tokens up on Uniswap.

Microsoft Launching an Ethereum Token Mint: Software giant Microsoft is launching Azure Blockchain Tokens, which will let anyone design, issue and manage digital tokens, Forbes reported.

MakerDAO’s Largest CDP Holders are Whales and OGs: MakerDAO smart contract’s annual revenue exceeds $12 million, from borrowers paying stability fees on their collateralized debt positions. So who exactly are they?

Monday

Events Are the Best Kindle for Crypto Fire: Data analytics firm Splunk’s .conf19 conference is the latest example, as they got over 10,000 attendees to use digital tokens in two days –that’s more users than what MakerDAO gets in one week.

Ether Technicals Signal Pullback is Due: A few key technical indicators signal it might need to take a breather.

Dolomite to Launch Margin Trading With Limit Orders: The decentralized margin trading space is getting a new player. Dolomite is launching this Friday, joining other leveraged trading platforms dYdX, Fulcrum and DDEX. It wants to differentiate itself with limit orders.

Another Tool to Automate DeFi Investment: DeFiZap allows users to spread incoming deposits across pre-sets allocations into different DeFi platforms. Doing so through so-called “Zaps” costs less than individually transacting on each one.

💜Community Love💜

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

BB ✍🏻 @BryceBladon@jperkinsx My personal favourites: - @nlw - @tonysheng's Stuffed Blocks - @CamiRusso's The Defiant Following for at least a year: - @tokendaily - @MessariCrypto - @ProofOfWorkNews - @riabhutoria - @myles_snider - @APompliano - @DiarNewsletter - @TheBlock__4:36 PM ∙ Nov 4, 201910Likes1Retweet

Nodar.DeFiZap.eth @NodarJDeFiZap in Camila’s The Defiant 👀 thedefiant.substack.com/p/event-organi… My 3 favorite DeFi newsletters @ethhub_io @RyanSAdams @CamiRusso covering our work today 🤯 someone pinch me, i must be dreaming. https://t.co/8gkoasEkss

Camila Russo @CamiRusso@NodarJ @ensdomains yep, covered in today's Defiant :)8:01 AM ∙ Nov 5, 201914Likes2Retweets

Carlindo Sousa (carlindo.eth) @carlindosousaAnother great article by @CamiRusso check it out.

thedefiant.substack.comCan DeFi Compete With Banks if Rates Keep Dropping?Hello defiers! This is what’s going on in DeFi, Dai borrowers taking their ETH to MakerDAO after rate cut This is how DeFi can compete with fintech as rates keep sliding dYdX loan liquidators made $400,000 of profit in one month If you’re getting this, that means you’re on the free signups list, whe…2:31 PM ∙ Nov 6, 2019

Théophile ☕ Multis @teawaterwireme ha gustado leer la última newsletter de @CamiRusso en castellano ¿mi nueva palabra favorita? ✌️CRIPTOMONEDAS✌️4:28 PM ∙ Nov 7, 20196Likes1Retweet

Thibaut 🕹️ Multis @fujisaha@spencernoon Trying to stick to this simple routine before jumping on deeper stuff: 1. 30-min read (crypto/tech stuff like @CamiRusso or @RyanSAdams or HN) 2. Daily standup communicated team-wide 3. 30-min mail session to handle urgent PST mails 4. 15-min twitter session3:16 PM ∙ Nov 7, 2019

Max Zab @TheMaxZab@ensdomains @VitalikButerin @ethwaterloo2 Gotta give credit to @CamiRusso kicking it up many notches in the crypto world!3:17 AM ∙ Nov 9, 2019

Don’t be late to all these news. Subscribe to read the full posts and to get the latest and most interesting developments in the decentralized finance space.

Subscribe now