Recap: DeFi Week of Jan. 13 🦄

Hello Defiers! if you’re in the U.S., hope you’re having a great long weekend.

Summing up last week: Aave founder Stani Kulechov explains his platform’s most innovative features after its recent launch. All investments in my DeFi10 portfolio have now been placed; I share the lessons learned in the process. Value locked in DeFi platforms climbed to a new record. Open finance enabled the no-loss lottery, now it’s enabling the no-spend charity, with rTrees. Bancor BNTETH holders start earning trading fees after airdrop. An NBA player is selling security tokens; the next celebrity tokenized bond should be in DeFi… and more :)

Subscribe now

Interview

"People Aren't Earning Anything in Their Bank Accounts; Let's Bring Them to DeFi:" Aave's Stani Kulechov

Stani Kulechov, the founder and CEO of decentralized lending platform Aave, speaks about the series of innovations in last week’s mainnet launch. He explains the use cases and inner workings of “flash loans,” and the potential impact of fixed rate loans. He believes the DeFi narrative will change from value locked, to how this value is being used. He also talked about what’s next for Aave, with governance at the forefront in terms of product, while also a Series A round with VCs coming up down the line.

Op-ed

DeFi10 Part2: Becoming a Programmable Money Fund Manager

I’m running an experiment where I’m putting in an equal amount of money into 10 different decentralized finance protocols and tracking their performance throughout the year. Last week I invested in what will be the fund’s benchmark, MakerDAO’s DSR, and four other projects. This week, I invested in the other six. The experiment has helped clear a few myths, and spurred others to try DeFi too.

Tuesday

Dives

The Next Celebrity Bond Should be Truly Decentralized: Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie is selling a tokenized bond linked to his NBA contract. While Dinwiddie’s tokenized bond is a big step towards that goal, it’s not really very decentralized. Could this have been done in DeFi.

Sums

Bancor’s BNT Holders Start Earning Trading Fees: Those who held Bancor’s BNT on New Year's Eve have already received ETHBNT tokens in their wallets and started receiving a proportional share of trading fees from ETH-based transactions on the protocol.

Zero Collateral Makes Protocol Upgrades: Zero Collateral team, working on unsecured loans in an Ethereum testnet, took the community’s feedback (including from The Defiant here), and made changes to its platform, which is on testnet.

Bytes

A Day in The Life of an Asset Manager in The Summer of 2030: Mona El Isa

Introduction To Cryptocurrency: Haseeb Qureshi

Wednesday

Dives

Total Value in DeFi Climbs to New Record: Value in decentralized finance platforms approached $800 million, a record, amid a broader crypto rally, and as savers rushed to earn higher deposit rates.

As Climate Change Worries Rise, ETH Has Green Way Out: BlackRock’s Larry Fink sent a letter to his fellow CEOs sitting at the heads of the companies his firm invests about $7 trillion of client assets in. He said they should confront climate change, as not doing so will hurt shareholders in the long term. So what does that mean for crypto?:

Sums

Visa Bets on No-Card Transfers (DeFi Bets on No-Bank): Visa plans to buy Plaid, which connects end users’ bank accounts with fintech apps such as Venmo or Acorns, for $5.3 billion

New Charity System: Donate Without Spending Money: The team behind rDai, which lets users redirect interest earned on their Dai, have now built rTrees.

Token Sale Regulations in the U.S. Continue to Tighten: The SEC alerted users “to use caution” before investing in so-called “initial exchange offerings.”

Bytes

Liquidators, The Secret Whales Helping DeFi Function: Tom Schmidt

💜Community Love💜

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

Nathaniel Whittemore @nlwMy list (always in flux) @MartyBent OTC - @APompliano The Defiant - @CamiRusso Unqualified Opinions - @MessariCrypto @stratechery @coinmetrics Our Network - @spencernoon I love what @RyanSAdams is doing with guests on Bankless but haven't paid yet @MatiGreenspan2:32 PM ∙ Jan 15, 202026Likes5Retweets

Surgeon Of Death @Logic_AD@CamiRusso loving your newsletter (pivoting to the paid sub soon), & looking forward to “The Infinite Machine”. It’s amazing that you’re able to provide so much information dense content on a day to day basis, & extremely helpful for someone looking to work in Defi soon.3:26 PM ∙ Jan 17, 20206Likes1Retweet

Romain Figuereo @FigueOreo@nlw You pay for exclusive and quality content (something you can't easily find elsewhere, so synthesis, interviews, experimentation, etc...) In my case I want to stay updated but I don't have the time to do my own full research. @CamiRusso does a great job on the Defiant for DeFi10:36 AM ∙ Jan 16, 20203Likes1Retweet

CoinCodeCap @coincodecapTop 10 Ethereum Newsletters Week in Ethereum News (@evan_van_ness ) Ethhub @ethhub_io Bankless (@RyanSAdams) DeFi Weekly (@kermankohli) Eat The Blocks The Defiant (@CamiRusso) DeFi Tutorials (@NodarJ) Dose of DeFi My Two Gwei Kauri (@kauri_io) $ETH #ETH

blog.coincodecap.comTop Ethereum NewslettersSubscribe to the best Ethereum newsletters and get updated with the latest news, updates in the Ethereum and decentralized finance ecosystem.9:02 AM ∙ Jan 20, 202023Likes12Retweets

The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access at $10/month or $100/year, while free signups get only part of the content.

Subscribe now

Click here to pay with DAI.There’s a limited amount of OG Memberships at 70 Dai per annual subscription ($100/yr normal price).

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 cove