DeFi Voyager

An update on recent progress in crypto projects, top threads, and recommended articles.

The X Crypto Brief #10 - 20.09.2023

Andrey Didovskiy

💎 Digital Asset Investor 🧙‍♂️ Crypto Content Wizard Laser focused on bringing incredible applications to Life 🌟

, a SWOT analysis framework provides excellent insight for establishing a high-level understanding of the state of a project’s well-being through the lens of a birds-eye view.

It can help formulate decisions around which areas require more attention, set performance goals, and organize a foundational understanding of where a project is headed.

Rarely (if ever) used in crypto, it is time to apply this timeless method of evaluation to the digital asset space.

, a layer one from the 2017 generation of projects with a glorious history and some marvelous on-chain engineering around consensus

While I am always hounding down projects that have perpetual inflation, Tezos has seemingly done a good job balancing all of the intertwined economic forces; emissions at 4.4%, staking at 6.4% yield, burning adding roughly 1% reductions from circulation. Creating a real yield environment (denominated in XTZ) of roughly ~1.5–2.5%.

Something that was not brought up in this evaluation was the history of Tezos. Through a series of legal shenanigans and internal debacles, XTZ has been rung through so much politicking that the simple fact of it thriving today is worthy of accolades.

There has been serious effort put forth to realize this project, and novel technical angles found (namely, the synthesis of on-chain governance and liquid staking) that give Tezos a strong foundation to contend for a position in the leadership circle of smart contract platforms.

For those who appreciate good stories behind the projects they get involved with, Tezos certainly has one of the most entertaining ones.

I tried to be as harsh as possible while maintaining a bullish bias.

I am a fan of Tezos and want them to win; at least to achieve some kind of permanence in the industry.

Tezos has the qualitative potential to become a dominating force in crypto. Not quite suited for retail degenerates, Tezos has a more sophisticated presence.

Something about XTZ makes me feel as though becoming a network validator (called a Baker, which requires >6,000 XTZ tokens) will ultimately be looked back on as a truly marvelous 80 or 180 IQ play.

If you know something that I don’t or feel as though I might have missed anything worth noting, please do share, I would tremendously appreciate some feedback.

I hope this serves you well on your journey.

SWOT Analysis: Tezos (XTZ)

The X Crypto Brief #9 - 19.09.2023

What is L0 technology and Layer Zero as part of this technology; Chainlink's CCIP and comparison with Layer Zero; IBC Cosmos; comparison and difference of all these protocols.

Blockchain Bridges Part 2: Cross-Chain Communications - LayerZero, Chainlink CCIP, Cosmos IBC

The X Crypto Brief #7 - 17.09.2023

The X Crypto Brief #8 - 18.09.2023

The Tinkering Society

Insights from builders and thinkers on a mission to further develop the crypto ecosystem through protocol research and incubation.

RWAs have been pitched as one of those ideas to herald in the next bull run. But are they a fix-all and will the future truly be tokenized? With the bera market skimming away hype daily, now is the time to take an honest look at RWAs and understand why world domination shouldn’t be the endgame.

 describes how humans can smell the onset of rain when a bacteria called 

 is released into the air. There’s a similar effect in crypto where influencers are sniffing around for ‘narratives’ to champion. A faint scent appears from across the ether and it becomes a driver for hopium.

Bringing as many assets as possible on-chain has long been a prime Web3 goal. The concept is simple: tokenize any IRL asset with value and it enjoys all of the juicy blockchain benefits. Any market propped up around them becomes permissionless, borderless, and composable.

Ironically, one of the first RWA examples was Digix, a digital representation of gold. The single off-chain asset that Bitcoin is 

 also provided the foundation for crypto’s pilot run. It was a failure, but that didn’t end development. 

While RWAs face significant challenges, which will be discussed more in a moment, they also represent one of DeFi’s most glittering successes. Combined TVL for the market’s stablecoins sits at a lofty ~$125b at the time of writing (September 18, 2023).

'Securities Token Global Market Cap x Ethereum Market Cap' 

Alongside this, we’ve seen substantial growth in projects like 

. These act more like quasi-RWAs, where the protocols wrap tokenization around concepts around off-chain lending, securities, and yield, instead of physical assets like sneakers, trading cards, and gold.

As our off- and on-chain spaces increasingly collide, the hurdles now facing RWAs are becoming more and more obvious. Here is where RWAs are lacking and need to be improved.

Looking at something like real estate as an example, tokenization just isn’t a meaningful growth path right now.

Taking the time to understand the infrastructure around token management and the technology is a time-sink for normies. This really shows us that the issue around RWAs isn’t the assets themselves, but how we intend people to use them.

In this light, it makes sense to prioritize another narrative - account abstraction - over everything else. Forward-thinking protocols like Goldfinch 

 and have made it a central part of their mission.

This uncertainty around the tech extends into KYC, compliance, and regulation.

While the average degen is willing to skirt the fine line of risk around audits and regulation, bonafide industries outside of crypto aren’t going to play this fast and loose.

Again, we’re asking normies to completely reconfigure their understanding of ownership and the implications of concepts like immutability. Without some form of structure and clarity in place, DeFi won’t shake off its ‘wild west’ reputation.

There’s a fair amount of magical thinking around RWAs - tokenize any asset and the masses will flock. The reality is that DeFi liquidity is already fragmented enough to barely facilitate demand for the average shitcoin longer than a few weeks.

The goal becomes even harder when we compare the typical degen’s dopamine-driven pursuit for the next 100x meme coin against practical, everyday applications like a real estate firm managing its property portfolio on-chain.

Stable and secure liquidity will be a prerequisite for any industry looking to tokenize and integrate off-chain assets. Without it, everything stops.

Remove shills and blind decentralization totalitarianism, and the potential for RWAs is still clear. But it’s unlikely that even a fraction of the assets that degens pitch as use cases will ever make it.

Look at the evolution of accounting abstraction over time and we can see that each iteration is designed as an adjunct to the technology before it. In modern society, cash and paper ledgers initially sufficed, then plastic cards were introduced, and finally we have mobile banking.

“Crypto is a use case looking for a problem”

 - this comment recently popped up in a r/cryptocurrency discussion. It was intended as negative but, in actual fact, it feels like a positive when you frame it around RWAs. The true power of asset tokenization in this sense is its near-infinite capacity for flexibility.

RWAs have been painted as a next bull run driver. In reality, the infra framing them isn’t close to being effective. Are they a fix-all or are we glossing over obvious failures?

Petrichor

Due to the huge amount of attacks, please check out my old post, I've added new tips there! 

Please spend some time on your financial security. Stay safe!

https://t.co/xR3nNYVgdK

A curated list of 15 books about blockchain, investments, tech, and innovations by a16z ↓

Bookmark and RT for your future reference.

⊹ Virtual Society: The Metaverse and the New Frontiers of Human Experience by Herman Narula.

⊹ Algorithmic Game Theory edited by Noam Nisan,… https://t.co/CW4qHgs85j

[Thread Compilation] #4

Discover the top 25 must-read threads from this week in this carefully selected and curated compilation, just for you.

1️⃣ Perspectives
2️⃣ Useful Tool &amp; Strategies
3️⃣ Narratives &amp; Alphas
4️⃣ News &amp; Catalysts
5️⃣ Education
6️⃣ Others

🧵 (0/25) https://t.co/8qGzdXQuzJ

Weekly Sunday liquid staking update 🔟

A 🧵on all things liquid staking.

3.9 -&gt; 10.9

1/22 https://t.co/fUzIniN9jP

ToE's Weekly Highlights #41

DMH's spotlight, new concepts and narratives, guides & more!

Alpha issue #57

Let's see how this trio can solve issues like high costs & slow transfers pertaining to cross-border payments.

How Can Ripple, Stellar, And Chainlink Solve Cross-Border Payment Issues?

Over the past year, Chainlink has undergone a transformation, marked by the introduction of Chainlink Economics 2.0. This strategic shift has elevated Chainlink to a pivotal position within the web3 landscape, spanning critical layers such as LayerZero (interoperability), L1s, and L2s.

Chainlink - Analyst Insight | Revelo Intel

How Liquidity Impacts Market Crashes

A Position of F*ck You

Some Hard Truths About Crypto

SOL is up nearly 100% since FTX declared bankruptcy. And up 30% since Gensler labeled it a security. Some people love SOL. Others hate it. But today, we are going to score it. TOKEN TLDR

Token TLDR #2: Scoring Solana

The Relentless Rise of Stablecoins

What to learn from the worst rugs of all time

Top 10 Rug Pulls on Bankless

Monthly Community Report, August 2023

Genesis Incentives(4%) are allocated to community members that contribute the most to the early stages of Aark Digital. Genesis Incentives will be used for various purposes as below: *Trade Mining...

Aark Digital Tokenomics- Genesis of the New Chapter

The X Crypto Brief #6 - 16.09.2023

Trade crypto, forex and commodity with up to 1,000x leverage simply and safely from your wallet on Arbitrum.

HMX - Decentralized Perpetual Exchange

Trade crypto on the MUX protocol with zero price impact, up to 100x leverage and no counterparty risks.

Reputation Score allows you to assess and leverage your onchain reputation by minting it as an SBT.

LayerZero Reputation Score by Nomis

Multichain Reputation Score by Nomis

Premia Blue is a decentralized platform for trading DeFi options and earning yield.

Premia Blue

Interest rates are teetering 🤮

Inflation is persistent. Eurozone in peril 😱

7 must-know economic indicators👇🧵 https://t.co/VrG5ImLJ2o

#RWA has been gaining considerable attention recently.

In just a month, it has jumped from being the 10th largest sector to the 8th.

A thread with everything you need to know about #RWA. ⬇️

🧵(0/29) https://t.co/zG5OECSptW

Grinding is the only way to make it!

I've dedicated countless hours to spotting new projects and market inefficiencies. 💎

Here are 7 projects that have the potential for significant returns! 👇 🧵 https://t.co/QpeQ23qlEN

𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝘾𝙪𝙗𝙖𝙣 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙙 $𝟖𝟕𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙧𝙮𝙥𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙚𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙠 𝙬𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙩.

People think it's because of metamask.

Truth is, it's because of carelessness.

Here's how he could have simply avoided… https://t.co/R5kAlb4sKF

How the ecosystem around Curve has evolved: Curve Wars; L2 Convex; bribes and infrastructure around bribes; protocols to improve yield; comparing the trajectory of the Curve ecosystem with LSDFi.

The Saga of Curve Finance 2: Curve Ecosystem as a Template for LSDFi

FPIS Buyout, Convex Fee Changes, Frax Monthly Report, FPI + Base and more...

This Week in Frax - September 15, 2023

In this note, I'll give you some quick tips that will help you sleep better at night when using Telegram!

Telegram Security Best Practices

Velodrome is the undisputed liquidity hub of Optimism Mainnet, boasting 2x the TVL and 5x the tokens of every other major DEX combined. By combining the best of UniV2, Curve, and Convex into a single...

Velodrome Slipstream

Welcome Panoptimists to the first edition of the Panoptic Newsletter!

Panoptic Insights: September Newsletter | Panoptic

Stabilization in real estate prices MTD in September

Market Update: September 15th

Y2K could have earned 162 ETH ($260K) over the last nine months by optimizing their protocol owned liquidity ("POL"). This report presents the findings of the backtesting and research Sector Finance...

2x Your LP Value: Report on Automated Liquidity Management (Part I)

Analyses of new Convex proposals to readjust its fee structure

September 15, 2023: Locks, Stakes and Two Smoking Proposals 🔒🗳️

your go-to source for weekly fundamental updates

Artemis Weekly Wrap-up (9/15/2023)

Global changes in crypto happening right now!

More than 800 million active users are coming!

Will it turn the market around? 🧵👇 https://t.co/7yWlHQZnW0

Arbitrum Governance Update 🏛️

There's a proposal to distribute up to 75,000,000 ARB in incentives for Arbitrum protocols in the span of 4 months.

I just voted to support the distribution of up to 50M ARB through Jan 31 2024. 

Some thoughts on the proposal below: 👇

0️⃣ Summary… https://t.co/ObYOIaQqLy

DeFi 3.0 is The Biggest Crypto Narrative. 

Here, we've covered the top 10 DeFi 3.0 projects you should know about.

My Free September 2023 research report co-authored with @0xMughal  🧵 https://t.co/RlEJDzhOiL

so CVX becomes a LST

this highlights the desire to separate CVX lockers from stakers whilst introducing something similar to a dual token model

the major assumption is that voting as the only power is sufficient for vlCVX holders https://t.co/EFG0NiPPMU

☕️ Alpha-Packed: Friday 15 Sep ☕️

1. FTX approved to sell $-billion worth of cryptocurrencies,
2. SEC accuses Binance US of lack of transparency. Management slowly leaving company.
3. Ethereum Holesky testnet is launching today.
4. Ape token unlock over the weekend.
5.… https://t.co/OgVgNatjzx

Do you want to be really early?👀

Spot projects below 1k followers on twitter.🔎

Here are 10 projects below 450 followers that could be the next big thing👇 https://t.co/XPEE4J8UK3

How? I built a tool that can score any token out of 10, using variety of key metrics. Want to see it in action? Introducing a new series: Token TLDR

I turned excel into my personal financial advisor. Introducing TOKEN TLDR

Liquid Restaked Token (LRT) - A Playbook for the New Ponzitokenomics Era.

Early opportunities I've heard of, builders delivering alpha, timely releases coming soon, and state of things!

Andy's Alpha #16 - FriendTech Mania & Much More

🔎The big crypto unlock that no one mentions👀

Frax's relationship with real world assets has been a long and twisting path leading to the creation of the first Public Benefit Company for investing into US treasuries.

What we now know about Frax's RWA strategy for FXB and sFRAX

What should Christians do if an Anti-Christ rises up and institutes the Mark of the Best in our time? Cryptocurrencies could provide the answer for any end times scenario.

Cryptocurrencies And the End Times

Competition in DeFi is good. More competition means more efficient markets, innovation and increasingly optimized ecosystems for us to present to new users when the bull market rolls in. So this blog isn't about pitting protocols against each other - no sir. It's about examining distinguishing features of

The Perps Play-Offs: Synthetix vs. GMX

Recently, leading projects like Optimism, zkSync, Polygon, Arbitrum, and StarkNet, with ETH Layer 2 at the forefront, have each introduced their own Layer 2 stack solutions. These endeavors aim to...

Cosmos & Polkadot V.S. Layer 2 Stacks: Series 1 - An Examination of Underlying Technology

Get Ready for the Reset

Stablecoins Era is Here

🚀 Introducing major updates on Layerswap - from lower fees, new networks and tokens to enhanced UX, and much more. https://t.co/uUNvIhQRlQ

While the markets were relatively slow this past month, gTrade developments and protocol updates were anything but! August was a month of 'bear market building', which included the launch of...

gTrade August 2023 Recap

The X Crypto Brief #4 - 14.09.2023

The X Crypto Brief #5 - 15.09.2023

Sfermion's Collider

Curated news and updates from the world of web3 and gaming.

Curated news from the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more

Sfermion's Collider #38

papajams.eth

In the rapidly evolving digital frontier, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) stands out as a beacon of innovation, reshaping the foundation of online identity and domain management. To unpack its implications we converse with the founder of Namespace to catalogue its progression, and the transformative potential of ENS. This conversation provides an examination of ENS’ metamorphosis from digital asset to indispensable tools in the Web3 ecosystem, as well as insights into the broader implications for the future of decentralized domains. 

We saw ENS names as assets that were waiting to be priced in. As such, they were simply sitting in users’ wallets without any way to make an income for their owners, regardless of how good they might be. Their trading was based on the speculative future value of .eth becoming a global standard for all decentralized websites that would eventually natively resolve in all browsers. Therefore, with the introduction of NameWrapper, which would allow all subnames to be independent NFTs from their parent name, we saw an opportunity for these amazing ENS names to issue (mint, sell, rent) subnames and profit from it. That was the initial inspiration that kickstarted the journey but it ended up being so much more!

ENS names are way past being a decentralized domain name only. Although it is correct that the domain space is very important, it’s the only one. ENS names are your Web3 identity that you take with you anywhere you go in the world of Web3. But their primary function is to map your 0xA4k5…19KP3 address to a human-readable name like alice.eth. And the decentralized domain names with regard to decentralized websites are important because they embody the inherent values of blockchain tech: decentralized, permissionless, and censorship-resistant.

Beyond the primary vision for ENS, several unexpected yet fascinating use cases have surfaced over the years. ENS names have emerged as exclusive passes into elite and private spaces and communities, including the 999 club, 10k club, and other token-gated communities. The same goes for PFP communities such as ENS Maxis, frENS, .earth and so on. The innovation didn’t stop there; in the realm of subname management, we’ve witnessed over 3M subnames issues by Coinbase (

) using ENS protocol. And speaking of subnames, we have the introduction of unruggable, rentable, or forever subnames AND offchain gasless subnames that behave exactly the same as any other regular ENS names and subnames but are located offchain and don’t cost anything to mint.

Then we have decentralized websites, resistant to both rugging and censorship, now built on this platform, embodying the very ethos of blockchain technology. For both communities and individuals, name and subname management has never been more streamlined, offering a chance for customization and personal touch. One of the standout features has been the use of expiring subnames, serving as access codes or membership subscriptions. ENS has also evolved into an integral component for peer-to-peer onchain communication protocols, as well as a foundation for fully encrypted email service providers.

ENS protocol is governed by the ENS DAO. And ENS root key is controlled by the 7 influential and reputable individuals from the blockchain space. Karpatkey recently published a 

Dune Dashboard summarising ENS governance activity

 which contains very interesting stats and metrics that demonstrate the strength and level of decentralization for ENS DAO. The right person to speak to about governance-related activities would be people who are actively involved in that aspect of the DAO such as members of the Metagovernance Working Group.

🗳️ Meta-Governance

We are focused on the product build (UX/UI) quality first and foremost. As far as features go, we offer the ability for ENS name owners to customize the selling price for all subnames based on the length and charge differently for those. We offer a wide range of whitelisting abilities for communities. The ability for owners to reserve certain subnames from being minted by the public. The ability for everyone to register their web3 identity off of names or subnames. Right now we are working on composability and making our platform easily accessible to other developers, companies, and brands.

When we talk about ENS name prices, the pricing model is defined by the DAO and there are no current reasons or incentives to be changed. As far as I know. There is an ongoing initiative to launch 1-character ENS names:

Discussing 1 and 2 character .eth names With the release of the Name Wrapper, and given how long discussions on this topic are likely to take, this might be a good time to start a preliminary conversation about the prospect of releasing 1 and/or 2 character .eth names.

1 and 2 Character .eth Names

And when we talk about Namespace, our pricing model is based on the minting and trading fees that occur on our platform.

For them to natively resolve in browsers. When you type thecap.eth it only shows a search result for thecap, but if they were to natively resolve in browsers thecap.eth would open a page that is now only accessible if you append .limo at the end so it looks like this: 

. And scaling all .eth names past L1 and into L2 ecosystems so that anyone can mint them and manage them for much lower gas fees and get the benefits of sufficient decentralization that is inherited from L2s.

ENS currently can work (and works) as an extension of DNS. Therefore, all DNS names can (via ENS) become web3 identities and wallets. The next step is for .eth names to be included in traditional domain name registrars &DNS managers to make it easy for their users to import their existing DNS names into ENS.

To quote @gregskril: "With gasless DNSSEC (which is relatively close to release), domain registrars like GoDaddy and DNS managers like Cloudflare could theoretically make it a single click of a button for their users to import their existing DNS names into ENS, effectively

They are a core piece of the identity puzzle. And that is a much bigger topic of discussion. Because Identity is connected to your onchain activity and behaviour. Measured by your onchain reputation score with things such as Gitcoin passport. Attestation services and so on. You cannot have an ID without a name and ENS is a de facto naming system of web3 at the moment. And IDs spread across many different industries like defi, gaming, CEXes, etc.

Not sure how to answer this. Just building, testing, and iterating I guess. :) We definitely need more Web2 people joining Web3 especially to start businesses and bring all the knowledge in launching startup to the web3 space.

 but there are no regulatory framework for now nor the mental model on how to think about these. I know many people from our ecosystem have been talking about this topic but I’m the furthest from an expert in law and regulation as one can be so I’m not the right person for this question.

Currently, there is no competitor to ENS that embodies the decentralized ethos as well. That has as strong community support as ENS. That has as strong an ecosystem of projects building on top of it. That has as sophisticated a DAO as ENS does. I can go on and on. 

There are others like Unstoppable domains that have their own thing going on. There’s a Lens protocol with .lens names. Then there’s .btc for Bitcoiners and many other smaller ones. Also, there are other naming services that have forked ENS and are working fine I guess but have nowhere near as good partners and integrations as ENS.

Given the recent launch of CCIP by Chainlink it’s only a matter of time before all ENS names become cross-chain compatible even though they are right now when it comes to address resolution. ENS already integrated pretty much all other blockchains into it.

7 ways Chainlink CCIP will change the world

1/ Tokenized assets aka. RWAs (real-world assets)

Offchain assets → represented by tokens → seamlessly and securely exchanged across any blockchain https://t.co/CHBk0G62db

But my prediction is that someone will come & create an API system that will unify the majority and most of these naming system providers so that whenever someone wants to implement a naming system that supports every DID out there, can do it from one place & get all decentralized names/domains. Maybe us. 🤷‍♂️👀

Beyond limitless. There are around 200M websites and only 3M ENS names issued and only about 20k decentralized websites built so far with .eth domains. Domains only serve one purpose. But ENS names serve many!