Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend.

Summing up: The week started off with a sell-off in the cryptocurrency market, which prompted liquidations in DeFi to jump to the third-highest ever, while short positions on ETH climbed near the highest since 2019. There was also drama going on at one of Ethereum’s longest-standing teams, Aragon, which faced over a dozen of resignations.

We shone a light on rebasing tokens, aka elastic finance, with an op-ed by AmpleSenseDAO, our Defiant Weekly video, and a DeFi101 explainer. DeFi rockstar Andre Cronje penned part 2 of his post “Building in DeFi Sucks,” and we caught up with other DeFi founders, who said the pressure of building in open sourced systems is intense. Rumors about EIP-1559 being ready riled Ethereans up, as did the debate around social media’s power to deplatform individuals.

And there was even more :)

That was just one week. Subscribe to get the latest DeFi news and analysis straight to your inbox and you don’t miss a thing. Free-signups get partial content, paid subscribers get everything. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or click on the button below to subscribe with fiat ($100/yr, $10/mo).

📺 Check out the latest Defiant Weekly and hit subscribe on our YouTube

That was just one week. Subscribe to get the latest DeFi news and analysis straight to your inbox. Free-signups get partial content, paid subscribers get everything. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or click on the button below to subscribe with fiat/credit card (for $10/mo or $100/yr).

🙌 Together with Zerion, a simple interface to access and use decentralized finance, Neutrino, an algorithmic price-stable protocol that enables the creation of stablecoins tied to real-world assets, Value DeFi Protocol, a suite of DeFi products including the Value Liquid AMM, which allows anyone to create trading pools with flexible ratio pairs, and Cartesi, an optimistic roll-ups solution that aims to revolutionize smart contracts by allowing developers to code with mainstream software stacks, has just launched CTSI Reserve Mining.

Interview

"I'm Imagining a World Where Every Song Has an Investable Layer:" DJ 3LAU

In this week’s podcast, we interview Justin Blau, better known as 3LAU, one of the world’s top DJs, who is also at the forefront of the intersection between music and crypto. He became interested in blockchain technology because it can provide a means for fans to provably to own digital content, and for artists to better monetize their work. He believes this innovation has the potential to revolutionize the music industry.

🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

Op-Ed

Elastic Finance: Definition, Use Cases and Framework by AmpleSense DAO

The team at AmpleSense DAO, a community focused on improving understanding and adoption of elastic finance assets, wrote a piece that aims to explain how rebasing tokens work. The quick definition for these tokens is that instead of price volatility, they have supply volatility. Their token supply expands and contracts in response to market demand to maintain a pre-determined target price. Rebases magnify holders’ gains when the price is going up, but also magnify losses on the way down, which is why it can be a risky investment. Another common criticism they get is that they historically haven’t been able to hold their peg, which in theory would make them less useful than a stablecoin as a means of exchange. Amplesens provides a framework for evaluating them, and list the many use cases they see for these assets.

Thursday

Dives

• DeFi Founders Empathize With Cronje’s Rant Yearn Finance founder and prolific DeFi builder Andre Cronje posted a part two to his initial post “Building in #DeFi sucks.”

• Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 Is Ready. Or is it? Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, a long-awaited update to Ethereum’s core codebase, was rumored to be ready for deployment, according to a leaked Discord conversation on Twitter.

Markets

• LINK Supply Off Exchanges is Near 1-Year Low Chainlinlink has fallen out of favor in the last few months, possibly due to the parabolic run-up it enjoyed in mid-2020, but the worst may be over.

Bytes

• We Might Get a Blockchain Expert Heading the SEC President-elect Joe Biden will be appointing MIT professor Gary Gensler as chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Reuters reported. 

• Ledger Suffers Another Data Leak Ledger, which makes hardware wallets for digital assets, said it has been targeted by rogue Shopify team members who exported over 200 merchants’ customer databases in April and June of 2020.

Links

• FinCen Extends Self-Hosted Wallet Rule Comment Period

• Portugal. The Man Launches Cryptocurrency: Decrypt

Wednesday

Dives

• Aragon Facing Mass Departures and It’s Not Clear Why The Aragon community is facing mass resignations and nobody in the leadership team is being forthright as to what exactly is driving the exodus.

• Crypto Calls For Decentralization After Trump Ban While half of America likely cheered the deplatforming of Donald Trump, crypto was calling for decentralized social media.

Bytes

• CryptoPunk Sold for Record 140k ETH Last Week A 24x24 pixel image last week sold for 140 ETH, or $176k, the highest USD price on-record for a non-fungible token.

• Notional Comes out of Stealth With Fixed Lending Protocol Notional Finance has come out of stealth with $3M in liquidity following a closed beta over the past quarter. 

Links

• Building in defi sucks (part 2): Andrew Cronje

• Synthetix 2021: Kain Warwick

Tuesday

Markets

• DeFi Liquidations Spike Amid Market Slump Total liquidation volume jumped to $14.6M on Jan. 10, almost tripling from the previous day, according to data compiled by DeBank.

• Ethereum Short Positions at Highest Level Since 2019 Ether short positions on Bitfinex, a top-five spot exchange in terms of volume according to CoinMarketCap, are at the highest level since March 2019.

Dives

• $300M Whale Spotted in DeFi’s Turbulent Seas A wallet holding over 1% of the $20B total value locked in DeFi, has surfaced on crypto Twitter.

• Fei is the Latest Ethereum Stablecoin Fei released details of its plans to launch a decentralized stablecoin protocol in Q1. FEI is an algorithmic stablecoins which uses crypto collateral

Links

• ETH 2.0 Staking now live in Argent: Argent

• Wrapped Bitcoin ‘Burns’ Outpaced Minting for the First Time in December: CoinDesk

• Block.one CTO Daniel Larimer Announces Resignation: The Block

🧑‍💻 ✍️ Stories this week were written by Daniel Kahan, Owen Fernau, Cooper Turley and Christopher Attard, and edited by Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt and Alp Gasimov, with writing from DeFiDad.

💜Community Love💜

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

Mike Kriak @mkriak

As always, always on time and on point. Well done @DefiantNews : Elastic Finance: Definition, Use Cases and Framework by AmpleSense DAO by @CamiRusso Elastic Finance: Definition, Use Cases and Framework by AmpleSense DAOIt’s been called useless and likened to a ponzi scheme, while also hailed as the greatest crypto innovation since Bitcoin and Ethereum. Here’s your guide to Elastic finance.thedefiant.substack.com

January 11th 2021

5 Retweets19 Likes

David Prince @RiskObscurity

My favourite video on DeFi to date. Algorithmic Stablecoins are my new negligee #SexyYfronts #DeFi youtu.be/sQ9m9txjF4U Amazing @DefiantNews !!!Algorithmic Stablecoins: Sexy AF or A Load of Pants?While your regular crypto asset will fling you around like a ragdoll and reduce your life expectancy by double digits at least twice a month, stablecoins wra...youtu.be

January 16th 2021

2 Retweets7 Likes

Unagii @unagiidotcom

Who else does DeFi videos better than @DefiantNews? 🤔 Quality production ☑️ Informative ☑️ Engaging ☑️ Share this weekly Tuesday Tutorial with your new to DeFi friends as @DirSchmidt (tries) to breakdown common DeFi terms in 2mins 🔥 https://t.co/nJan4riWjj

The Defiant @DefiantNews

🔉Announcement🔊 We are proud to present the new series “2 Minute Tuesday Tutorials” on the @DefiantNews’ YouTube Channel, full of all them 💎s. Checkout Today’s Episode on “14 Buzzwords to Know in DeFi” https://t.co/wbmFFqPdBj https://t.co/PkM2goCbD5

January 15th 2021

4 Retweets10 Likes

L @LCStoryteller

@MeYourselfAndIt @carlsonaio 🔑 starters: -Discover crypto Twitter - Subscribe to @DefiantNews - Intern - Join virtual meetups I fell down the rabbit hole as an event producer with a blockchain org at @sxsw then switched into marketing at @Consensys 📚 consensys.net/blog/blockchai… by @masonnystromBreaking into Blockchain: How to Get a Full-Time Job in Crypto. | ConsenSysHow I got a job at ConsenSys and my advice to non-developers who are eager to start working full time in crypto.consensys.net

January 15th 2021

3 Likes

Ash Egan @AshAEgan

@BrendanOfEarth recommend: @BanklessHQ @DefiantNews @defipulse

January 12th 2021

4 Likes

Max Wegman @MaxWegman

very very helpful write-up for anyone trying to wrap their head around @BadgerDAO's $DIGG, @AmpleforthOrg's #AMPL, or other elastic defi assets.. with arguments for their many use cases :)

The Defiant @DefiantNews

It’s been hailed as one of the most exciting innovations in crypto since Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's also been called useless and compared to a Ponzi scheme. Here's your guide to the DeFi sector that's confounding investors: Elastic finance, by @AmpleSense https://t.co/jPSlDLVpUK

January 12th 2021

2 Likes

nir kabessa 🅨 @_kabessa

hats off to @DefiantNews for creating an awesome and informative resource for DeFi. Will be sharing with friends DeFi 101Share your videos with friends, family, and the worldyoutube.com

January 11th 2021

4 Retweets11 Likes

Brock Judge @Brockjudge

@backontrack25 That was a lot like the Roadmap for DeFi in 2015 when Ethereum was starting to deploy lol. IDK how else to say it without being rude but we are like light years past that Already. Maybe start here @DefiantNews Home - The Defiant - DeFi NewsThe essential information platform for the open economy.thedefiant.io

January 12th 2021

2 Likes

DeFi Frog @DeFiFrog

A strong framework for evaluating rebasing tokens written by a fellow @renprotocol community member @davoice321 in collaboration w/ @CamiRusso At @BadgerDAO, I’ve been emphasizing the need to educate on this topic amidst the hype of the hotly anticipated $DIGG launch. Read this!

The Defiant @DefiantNews

It’s been hailed as one of the most exciting innovations in crypto since Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's also been called useless and compared to a Ponzi scheme. Here's your guide to the DeFi sector that's confounding investors: Elastic finance, by @AmpleSense https://t.co/jPSlDLVpUK

January 12th 2021

1 Retweet14 Likes

Base Protocol @BaseProtocol

Great article on elastic finance as a whole. Written by our friends over at Amplsense Dao. $BASE $AMPL #Rebase

The Defiant @DefiantNews

It’s been hailed as one of the most exciting innovations in crypto since Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's also been called useless and compared to a Ponzi scheme. Here's your guide to the DeFi sector that's confounding investors: Elastic finance, by @AmpleSense https://t.co/jPSlDLVpUK

January 11th 2021

117 Retweets196 Likes

chi 🌕 @chizhao

good read on @DefiantNews if you want to understand elastic finance and the 'rebase' -- but man, just realized that @AmpleforthOrg has had 563 of those since June 14 2019 👀

The Defiant @DefiantNews

It’s been hailed as one of the most exciting innovations in crypto since Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's also been called useless and compared to a Ponzi scheme. Here's your guide to the DeFi sector that's confounding investors: Elastic finance, by @AmpleSense https://t.co/jPSlDLVpUK

January 11th 2021

3 Retweets16 Likes

Matcha 🍵 @matchaxyz

@DefiantNews produces some of the best content for DeFi newbies 👶🤑 Check out their recent overview of DEX Aggregators (like @matchaxyz) to learn about the magic of aggregation 🧙‍♂️ and why you're leaving money on the table trading anywhere else. 🍵🙏 youtube.com/watch?v=hSxf4j…How DEX Aggregators are the Search Engines of DeFi TradingNOTE: As you cruise along this series, you will notice how fast the DeFi space is; both in terms of execution and change. So if you happen to spot a discrepa...youtube.com

January 11th 2021

3 Retweets15 Likes

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, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($10/mo, $100/yr).