Recap: DeFi Week of Nov. 11 🦄

Nov 17, 2019

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

Summing up last week: This week 0x’s cofounder Will Warren dove into the upgrade to the platform and his vision for a tokenized future. Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework Ventures, outlined his investment thesis for Synthetix. CoinMetrics found ERC20s are on fire, Opyn wants to build tokenized options, ENS names are going for $100,000s, and Ethereans basked in the afterglow of ETHWaterloo.

Column:

Balance Sheet as a Business Model for DeFi Platforms

Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework Ventures, which led Synthetix’s recent $3.8 million round, dives into his investment thesis fro Synthetix and outline what’s next for the platform. Vance says both Synthetix’s and MakerDAO’s business models consist on monetizing their balance sheets. The difference between the platforms’ token economics will lead MakerDAO to become a digital central bank and Synthetix to become a decentralized BitMex. Vance lists the four steps the platform plans to take to get there. First up is Synthetix’s plans to incorporate non-SNX collateral, so users will be able to stake ETH to mint synthetic assets.

Interview:

"We Believe the World is Going to Become More and More Tokenized:" 0x's Will Warren

0x’s ZRX token holders approved a proposal to upgrade the 0x decentralized exchange protocol, whose relayers are among the top five dexes transacting the most volume. 0x co-founder Will Warren explains what the change will entail; how it tries to better answer the question “does your protocol really need a token?” and improve liquidity and prices for its users. He also talks about his larger vision for a future where millions of assets will be tokenized and traded on Ethereum. Before doing all of that, he lays down the basics of decentralized exchanges so that we can all be dex-perts.

Thursday

Defying the Biggest Market in Traditional Finance: An options market has yet to develop in decentralized finance, even though they’d provide much needed investor protection against the high risk involved in transacting in this cutting edge market. This is what the team at Opyn wants to fix, but it’s doing it in a DeFi way, with options contracts minted as ERC20 tokens.
Tokens are Cool Again: Ethereum tokens are having a renaissance. Actually, more than that, there’s been no better time for Ethereum tokens, according to on-chain data found by CoinMetrics.
How to Profit From San Francisco’s Poop Problem: There’s now an ERC20 token on the Rinkeby testnet that tracks the frequency of poop sightings as reported by San Francisco's SF311. UMA cofounder Hart Lambur took developers Daniel Que and Tyson Battistella’s idea and issued the token using the platform’s synthetic token builder.
Synthetix is Now The Second Biggest DeFi Project: Total valued locked in synthetic assets platform Synthetix on Tuesday crossed $100 million, surpassing Compound Finance as the second DeFi platform with most value locked after MakerDAO, according to DeFi Pulse.

Monday: ETHWaterloo Edition

The first hackathon was in Waterloo in 2017 and there have been 14 different events –and a crypto boom and bust– since. Two years later, Ethereans are back where it all started The 65 projects submitted over the weekend brought total hackathon projects to more than 1,000. Unlike past events, there wasn’t such a big focus on DeFi, save notable exceptions. It was all about smart wallets, messaging and games.

💜Community Love💜

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

Fitzner Blockchain @FitznerBlockchn

Sunday Reads 📚 >The Sovereign Individual Investment Thesis by @PhilJBonello bit.ly/35baMto >The Block Genesis Research Report @TheBlock__ bit.ly/2Kwt7Jn > Balance Sheet as a Business Model for DeFi Platforms by @CamiRusso bit.ly/2CTe8Fi

Balance Sheet as a Business Model for DeFi PlatformsHello defiers and happy Friday! Synthetix, a platform to mint and trade synthetic assets, this week climbed the DeFi ranks to have the most value locked in dollar terms after MakerDAO. Its growth has been explosive, with value locked surging by 60x since February to over $100 million. Today Vance Sp…bit.ly

Medio Demarco @mediodelphi

Great post by @hiFramework comparing @MakerDAO & @synthetix_io Banking services have been programmed into open finance primitives (Maker=lending,Synthetix=derivs). Their tkns accrue value from fees, govern* their apps & ultimately backstop risk. Excited to watch their evolution

Camila Russo @CamiRusso

One interesting/overlooked aspect of @iam__vance's write up is that @synthetix_io plans to start accepting non-SNX collateral (collateral is used to mint synthetic assets). It could soon become another ETH-eating-machine 🤖 https://t.co/eLV7VkXE6G

Ash Egan @AshAEgan

Crypto Friday 5: things I'm using, loving, reading... + 3 day countdown to @MakerDAO MCD + @hal2001's SF 💩 sighting coin + @willwarren89 / @CamiRusso interview + @equilibrium_co announces Sprawl Network + An analysis of @UniswapExchange markets Links ⬇️

Nico-Pâtissier-Dexwallet @dimarconicola

@synthetix_io is the best project in DeFi and this is the best article to understand how it works and its potential impact @CamiRusso

찌 G 跻じ ⚡️ 🔑 @DegenSpartan

3 must-reads: @TheBlock__ 205 page genesis report for data driven analysis docdroid.net/PmhYYcn/genesi… @CoinSharesCo Crypto Trends Report for the current crypto narrative coinsharesgroup.com/research/2019-… @hiFramework @CamiRusso the thesis for @synthetix_io $SNX

Richard @ricburton

@CamiRusso Cheers Camilla. It’s been fantastic to see you burrow down the crypto rabbit hole to try and figure it all out. Your newsletter is just 👌w

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