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> These days I read a lot of cross-disciplinary commentary on the crypto asset bubble, and what strikes me as particularly strange is the sheer level of disconn

> These days I read a lot of cross-disciplinary commentary on the crypto asset bubble, and what strikes me as particularly strange is the sheer level of disconnect between people’s lived experience of this mania. Rather than do an investigation or analysis of some of the broader trends and successful applications of crypto, this article proceeds to make sweeping accusations devoid of earnest research. Here's what I would suggest to the skeptics, to research and understand this space better and why it continues to keep on ticking in spite of the snarky commentary: Uniswap (xy = k) https://docs.uniswap.org/ https://docs.uniswap.org/ the constant product model that Uniswap introduced made automated money markets practical. It's an elegant solution to the problem of creating an on-chain marketplace with a sub-1000 line smart contract. Uniswap has since improved and introduced concentrated liquidity for better capital efficiency. The exchange does multiple billions in volume each day and the best part is: it's immutable. Curve (https://curve.readthedocs.io/exchange-overview.html https://curve.readthedocs.io/exchange-overview.html) While Uniswap is optimal for a long tail of asset swaps, Curve allowed for higher capital efficiency among stable base pairs (such as swaps between two stable coins like USDC and USDT). It achieves high capital efficiency for deeper trades with low slippage. It is decentralized and powered by a DAO. Gnosis Safe (https://gnosis-safe.io/ https://gnosis-safe.io/) Gnosis is one of the most battle tested asset management and multisig smart contract platforms. Each Gnosis Safe is highly configurable, allowing participants to set up any m of n multisig arrangement and even reinvest treasury funds. A multisig can be seen as a light DAO and allows for participants to manage funds in a transparent way across distances and jurisdictions. This helps with coordination and development. The whole world of DAOs is interesting in and of itself, with many different organizational structures being tested and iterated on. Aave https://aave.com/ https://aave.com/ Aave is a lending and borrowing platform that allows users to deposit and lend out their assets. The platform is kept solvent by oracles, which watch the price of the collateral backing the loans to liquidate them if they approach a danger zone. Currently holding nearly $30B in assets. Chainlink (https://chain.link/ https://chain.link/) An oracle platform that allows for off-chain data to be integrated with smart contracts in a maximally (but not entirely) decentralized way. This allows for anything from stock prices to weather reports to credit checks to verifiably random numbers to be integrated with smart contracts to influence their execution and state in a maximally autonomous and tamper-proof way. If you interact with the above protocols, you'll learn more than reading any op-ed thinkpiece. There really is something there there, the decentralized finance movement is burgeoning and it is qualitatively better than what options exist today. It's more powerful, more universal, more programmable, even more antifragile than the systems in place today. It will win in the long run. There are other movements too, with DAOs and NFTs. DAOs will reinvent all sorts of organizations and will make internet native communities self-funded and self-sustainable.

theamk 5y ago
How many people start their day and think: oh man, I have such a hard problem of "creating an on-chain marketplace with a sub-1000 line smart contract", I wish there were a product to solve this for me? If you want to show that blockchains are applicable to real world, you don't want to talk about implementation, but about UX. For example, you are a business and need money. Your choices are banks, VCs, and one of those distributed landing / borrowing platforms. For each, how many money can you expect to get? Under what (effective, averaged) interest rate? Whom do you need to conivince? Do you need to provide any documentation? Can you use your existing assets as collateral? An answer to this question will make a much more convincing argument in the long term usefulness of DeFi.
- kall 5y ago
  Quick answer to a possibly rhetorical question: You cannot get money from these lenders as a business, unless you have already created a crypto token as part of it.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Here's the benefits: Uncensorable. Permissionless. Democratic. 100% Availability (Ethereum has 100% uptime for 7 years). No $GME rug pulls like what we saw earlier this year. No Great Financial Crisis due to opaque liabilities (everything is traceable, auditable, open source, solvent, collateralized). Non-custodial. Yield generation. Programmable capital management. It provides superior capital access and coordination mechanisms for not just first world humans, who also see a benefit, but for all of internet-connected humanity. It provides access to a $2.4 trillion and rapidly growing economy. If you are a business and you need money in crypto and you don't live in a hostile jurisdiction like North Korea, Iran, or the United States, you can raise money on-chain. You can create a token with any emissions schedule, staking mechanics, profit sharing mechanisms, on-chain royalties, or whatever you can imagine as a programmer. And even if you're not a programmer, you can lean on tools that help to do that.
  - greyface- 5y ago
    > No $GME rug pulls like what we saw earlier this year. Not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum#The_DAO_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum#The_DAO_event Just like $GME, we have a handful of well-connected actors overriding the rules that typically govern the system, in response to a valid but unusual outcome that they don't like personally.

theamk 5y ago

How many people start their day and think: oh man, I have such a hard problem of "creating an on-chain marketplace with a sub-1000 line smart contract", I wish there were a product to solve this for me? If you want to show that blockchains are applicable to real world, you don't want to talk about implementation, but about UX. For example, you are a business and need money. Your choices are banks, VCs, and one of those distributed landing / borrowing platforms. For each, how many money can you expect to get? Under what (effective, averaged) interest rate? Whom do you need to conivince? Do you need to provide any documentation? Can you use your existing assets as collateral? An answer to this question will make a much more convincing argument in the long term usefulness of DeFi.

kall 5y ago
Quick answer to a possibly rhetorical question: You cannot get money from these lenders as a business, unless you have already created a crypto token as part of it.
chrisco255 5y ago
Here's the benefits: Uncensorable. Permissionless. Democratic. 100% Availability (Ethereum has 100% uptime for 7 years). No $GME rug pulls like what we saw earlier this year. No Great Financial Crisis due to opaque liabilities (everything is traceable, auditable, open source, solvent, collateralized). Non-custodial. Yield generation. Programmable capital management. It provides superior capital access and coordination mechanisms for not just first world humans, who also see a benefit, but for all of internet-connected humanity. It provides access to a $2.4 trillion and rapidly growing economy. If you are a business and you need money in crypto and you don't live in a hostile jurisdiction like North Korea, Iran, or the United States, you can raise money on-chain. You can create a token with any emissions schedule, staking mechanics, profit sharing mechanisms, on-chain royalties, or whatever you can imagine as a programmer. And even if you're not a programmer, you can lean on tools that help to do that.
- greyface- 5y ago
  > No $GME rug pulls like what we saw earlier this year. Not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum#The_DAO_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum#The_DAO_event Just like $GME, we have a handful of well-connected actors overriding the rules that typically govern the system, in response to a valid but unusual outcome that they don't like personally.