🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of Sept. 25
Hello Defiers! Sigh… This week we bid adieu to the indefatigable, incorrigible, and invulnerable Robin Schmidt. For the last two years, Robin and his crew have produced some of the weirdest, and most insightful, segments on DeFi on The Defiant’s YouTube ...
Hello Defiers!
Sigh… This week we bid adieu to the indefatigable, incorrigible, and invulnerable Robin Schmidt.
For the last two years, Robin and his crew have produced some of the weirdest, and most insightful, segments on DeFi on The Defiant’s YouTube channel. There was the one where Robin rapped a ballad about SushiSwap, and the one where a French Robin toured the NFT world in a grainy black & white montage. Who can forget his expedition to Longyearbyen, an island in the Arctic Circle, to discover why someone buried NFTs beneath the ice.
In tutorials and livestreams, Robin celebrated and showcased the best of crypto week in and week out. It’s no wonder The Defiant’s segments have recorded more than 5M views since Robin took the helm.
What impressed his viewers the most was Robin’s knack for getting to the heart of things. His Crypto is a Clown Circus segment, for instance, captured the “cognitive dissonance” roiling the industry earlier this year. “As ever, a solid take, Robin,” commented one viewer. Indeed.
Robin was early to twig onto the import of NFTs and the metaverse, and he dives into a new venture in that space, we wish him all the best…
Speaking of NFTs, be sure to read Aleksandar Gilbert’s fascinating report on the financial engineering behind the $1.3M deal to purchase a rare Mutant Ape. A collector used two NFTs as collateral to buy a third.
Owen Fernau caught up with Sifu, the controversial Defier who’s back with yet another new venture, a money market protocol. On the regulatory front, Tarang Khaitan covered a forum of top central bankers and reported on Fed Chair Powell’s nuanced approach to DeFi.
And while market news has a short shelf life, be sure to check out yyctrader’s cogent take on how crypto bounced in a week when the stock market took another beating as inflation and rate fears mount. Could Bitcoin, Ether and other digital assets finally be decoupling from equities? We’ll be watching this trend closely.
Rounding out the week we have another probing podcast. Cami Russo spoke with Ben Edgington of ConsenSys on what comes next for Ethereum after The Merge. It’s a must-listen for any Defier!
Enjoy!
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Podcast
🎙Listen to the exclusive interview with ConsenSys’ Ben Edgington:
This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak with Ben Edgington, the product owner of Teku, an Ethereum 2.0 enterprise client being developed at ConsenSys.
It’s been a week since Ethereum switched from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Ben has been heavily involved in the process. We start our conversation by taking a look at the aftermath of the Merge.
Ben comes from the traditional software world where companies have more efficient structures. He shares his thoughts on having a major update like The Merge go through without a hitch, especially in a space where working environments are less hierarchical.
One of the biggest criticisms of The Merge was that Ethereum under PoS would become centralized. Proof-of-stake enables individuals to delegate their ETH to entities that stake on their behalf, as running a node might be inconvenient or infeasible. We discuss how roughly half of the staked Ether is currently held by a handful of validators and what Ben thinks about this.
The Merge turned out to be a ‘sell the news’ event as the price of ETH continues to plummet after the upgrade. We talk about the potential reasons for recent market action including the absence of a common narrative to look forward to and the macro backdrop.
Finally, Ben shares his thoughts on the future of Ethereum and what comes next, now that the Merge is complete.
The Tube
📺 This IS the end 💥 The Defiant Bombshell!
📺 Tuesday Tutorial: Tinder for NFTs
📺 Quick Take: Pound Gets Rugged + Huge Week For Crypto Markets
📺 The Defiant Weekly: Biden's Crypto Guidelines: Bullish or Bearish?
Defiant Exclusive
🔌 More Than 80% of Ethereum Miners Pull the Plug After Merge
Ethereum Classic Hash Rate plunges 48% Since Shift to Proof of Stake
Samuel Haig breaks news on the struggles of PoW post-Merge.
Eight out of 10 Ethereum miners appear to have gone offline after The Merge, according to data from 2miners, a website tracking the hash rate of Proof of Work networks.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Defiant Profile
🎼 Turley’s Venture Fund Musters $10M For NFT Play
Entrepreneur Bets Music is Untapped Niche in NFT Market
Aleksandar Gilbert catches up with a leading NFT impresario and his latest spin in music…
In high school, Cooper Turley was flipping Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards for profit. His hustle has found several outlets since — journalist, DJ, trader, co-founder and investor.
Now, with $10M in hand — some of it his, some of it from millionaire crypto founders and investors — Turley has landed his next project: Changing the economics of making and enjoying music.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Deep Dive
🔓 Vasil Upgrade Could Finally Unlock DeFi on Cardano
$200M Fund Planned To Spur Development
In which Aleksandar Gilbert digs into the long-awaited next version of the PoS blockchain…
Cardano, the world’s fifth-largest blockchain by market capitalization, might be on the cusp of a DeFi revolution — if anyone still wants to build on it, that is.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Special Report
🦹♀️ It Only Took An Hour for MEV Bot to Lose $1.4M in Brazen Heist
‘We Got Careless’ Victim Tells Hacker in Bid to Recover Lost ETH
In which Samuel Haig reports on an extraordinary exploit in an arcane corner of DeFi…
An MEV bot operator made 800 ETH in a single transaction on Sept. 28, before losing a whopping 1,100 ETH just one hour later, according to Bert Miller, the product lead of Flashbots, an MEV research team.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
NFT Dive
🦍 Mysterious Collector Leverages Mutant Ape NFTs to Buy a Third in Wild $1.3M Deal
Nexo Handles Finance For Purchase of Ultra-Rare Mega Noise NFT
Aleksandar Gilbert delves into the latest permutations in NFT finance…
LEVERAGED PLAY Betting that Mega Mutant Apes are stronger together, one collector has made a risky leveraged play on the blue-chip NFT collection. Fragment, a three-person company “creating rich stories and worlds for the metaverse,” took out a 1,000 ETH loan, worth about $1.3M, on Tuesday to purchase Mega Noise, one of the rarest NFTs in the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection.
COLLATERAL The collateral? Two other Mega Mutant Apes that Fragment will lose should it fail to repay the loan within 90 days.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
DeFi Players
👀 Sifu Resurfaces with New Money Market Protocol
Controversial Entrepreneur Forks Lending Venture From Aave
In which Owen Fernau catches up with the newsmaker to learn about his latest venture…
Few DeFi players are as irrepressible as Sifu. Undeterred by his exposure in January as the co-founder of QuadrigaCX, the infamous crypto exchange that lost $190M in customer deposits in 2019, Sifu launched a token last February.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Friday
News
- Winklevoss Offers MakerDAO Deal But Christensen May Be UnderwhelmedMakerDAO, the leading DeFi protocol, is increasingly being tempted by tantalizing offers from major centralized players.
- Vasil Upgrade Could Finally Unlock DeFi on CardanoCardano, the world’s fifth-largest blockchain by market capitalization, might be on the cusp of a DeFi revolution — if anyone still wants to build on it, that is.
- Olympus Slashes OHM Inflation In Bid For SustainabilityOnce the poster child of the “DeFi 2.0” movement, Olympus DAO has had a rough year.
NFT Roundup
- Fidenza Creator Raises $17M In 30 Minutes For New NFT ProjectDo we dare think the NFT bear market is behind us? It’s tempting. While the NFT market as a whole continues to languish, discerning collectors are shelling out serious cash for projects with a pedigree.
DeFi Explainers
- What Is 1inch?How do you pick the best exchange rate for cryptocurrencies? On centralized exchanges (CEXs), the difference is often minimal because CEXes tend to have deep liquidity. But on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), which rely on network participants and fees, the exchange rate is meaningful.
Thursday
News
- Mysterious Collector Leverages Mutant Ape NFTs to Buy a Third in Wild $1.3M DealBetting that Mega Mutant Apes are stronger together, one collector has made a risky leveraged play on the blue-chip NFT collection.
- Chainlink to Launch Staking Service as Part of Flurry of ChangesChainlink plans to launch its long-awaited staking services in December, Sergey Nazarov, the project’s co-founder, announced Wednesday at the Smartcon 2022 conference in New York.
- SEC Turns the Screws Again With Crypto Market Manipulation CaseIn the latest of a spate of enforcement actions, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 28 accused Hydrogen Technology Corp., a fintech firm, and its former CEO, Michael Ross Kane, of unlawfully manipulating “crypto asset securities.”
Markets
- Crypto Outperforms Stocks In Brutal Week For Global MarketsMajor cryptocurrencies are showing signs of strength despite a surging dollar wreaking havoc on global stock markets and major currencies this week.
DeFi Explainers
- What is Bridging?By connecting different blockchain networks, cross-chain bridges are instrumental in making digital assets interchangeable. The most popular use of bridging is when Bitcoin is converted to Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), an ERC-20 token holding the same price as BTC but compatible with Ethereum.
Wednesday
Special Report
- It Only Took An Hour for MEV Bot to Lose $1.4M in Brazen HeistAn MEV bot operator made 800 ETH in a single transaction on Sept. 28, before losing a whopping 1,100 ETH just one hour later, according to Bert Miller, the product lead of Flashbots, an MEV research team.
News
- Turley’s Venture Fund Musters $10M For NFT PlayIn high school, Cooper Turley was flipping Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards for profit. His hustle has found several outlets since — journalist, DJ, trader, co-founder and investor.
- Cosmos Poised To Revamp ATOM TokenomicsCosmos, an ecosystem of interconnected blockchains whose ATOM token has surged 21% in the last 30 days, is planning to restructure its tokenomics to drive more value to ATOM and better secure its network of chains.
- Robinhood Web3 Wallet Goes Live On PolygonIn a move that could boost web3 adoption at a time of mounting doubts, Robinhood, the popular stock trading app, launched a beta version of its non-custodial wallet on the Polygon network on Sept. 27.
- Celsius CEO Mashinsky ResignsAlex Mashinsky, the CEO of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius, has resigned, the company announced Tuesday.
DeFi Regulation
- Powell Strikes Conciliatory Tone on DeFiJerome Powell may not be totally down with DeFi but he isn’t taking the hard line other regulators are pursuing in the latest crackdown on crypto.
DeFi Beginners
- What Is Chainlink?For blockchains to provide a secure and immutable record — a public ledger — they have to be self-contained. Otherwise, outsiders could compromise it and hurt the value of the digital assets they support. This isolation prevents blockchains from being flexible.
Tuesday
News
- EXCLUSIVE: More Than 80% of Ethereum Miners Pull the Plug After MergeEight out of 10 Ethereum miners appear to have gone offline after The Merge, according to data from 2miners, a website tracking the hash rate of Proof of Work networks.
- Sifu Resurfaces with New Money Market ProtocolFew DeFi players are as irrepressible as Sifu. Undeterred by his exposure in January as the co-founder of QuadrigaCX, the infamous crypto exchange that lost $190M in customer deposits in 2019, Sifu launched a token last February.
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- Academic Proposal to Make Ethereum Transactions Reversible Divides DeFi CommunityResearchers at Stanford University have designed variations of Ethereum’s popular ERC-20 and ERC-721 token standards to enable reversible transactions. But the Ethereum community is largely panning the work.
DeFi Explainers
- What Is ENS?Ethereum Name Service is a blockchain equivalent to Domain Name System (DNS) that assigns addresses on the internet. ENS translates cumbersome Ethereum addresses comprising random numbers and letters into memorable names.
💜Community Love💜
Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!
SuperMassive (🐡🎏📦) @IamSuperMassiveAfter more than two years creating the quirkiest content in crypto I'm saying sayonara to @DefiantNews Big thanks to @CamiRusso for giving me the chance to explore this space through some genuinely weird creative lenses.8:50 PM ∙ Sep 29, 2022458Likes17Retweets
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DeFi Dad ⟠ defidad.eth 🦇🔊🐼 @DeFi_Dad😊 With new substacks promising “institutional” research on DeFi by grifters who know nothing about it, a quick reminder to subscribe to @DefiantNews. ✊ DeFi-dedicated journalists since 2019, most content is free: thedefiant.io 😏 Plus a few more trusted resources…
thedefiant.ioDeFi News | Your trusted guide to DeFi, Ethereum & Web 3.0 - The DefiantThe latest DeFi, Ethereum, and Web3 news from The Defiant. In-depth DeFi guides and analysis to help you find the important developments in DeFi.5:59 AM ∙ Sep 29, 202266Likes20Retweets
Camila Russo @CamiRussoHappy book pub day @VitalikButerin !! Thanks so much for the advance copy and for inviting me to write a blurb 👉 If you’re in crypto, after a successful merge and with Ethereum running on PoS, it’s the exact right time to add this to your reading list: proofofstake.gitcoin.co
1:56 AM ∙ Sep 28, 2022179Likes18Retweets
Solow 🐽 @solowcripto6. THE DEFIANT Además de escribir el mejor libro jamás escrito sobre la historia de Ethereum, @CamiRusso fundó @DefiantNews. Podcast, newsletter, entrevistas, videos y mucho más: hay suscripciones para los 3 primeros. El bear market es para estudiar 📚3:32 PM ∙ Aug 18, 202214Likes4Retweets
The Defiant @DefiantNewsWe're urgently hiring a Data Engineer to help us build The Defiant Terminal 🧙♂️ If you're a self-proclaimed data wizard who loves to work with the blockchain, this is the role for you 👇 angel.co/l/2wyNhL7:48 PM ∙ Aug 17, 202223Likes10Retweets
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Aleksandar Gilbert, Samuel 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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