Some of the protocols/dapps mentioned in the article that are great entry points into DeFi:<p>- <a href="https://uniswap.org/" rel="nofollow">https://uniswap.org/</a><p>- <a href="https://aave.com/" rel="nofollow">https://aave.com/</a><p>- <a href="https://makerdao.com/" rel="nofollow">https://makerdao.com/</a><p>- <a href="https://yearn.finance/" rel="nofollow">https://yearn.finance/</a>
This is a really clearly written overview of DeFi, well worth reading over morning coffee no matter if you are new to the space or a veteran.<p>Shameless plug: I work on the design of one of the protocols mentioned in the paper - <a href="https://enzyme.finance" rel="nofollow">https://enzyme.finance</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/enzymefinance" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/enzymefinance</a> - it makes running on-chain funds and strategies very easy. You can create an investment track record, manage outside capital in a trustless and transparent way, create your own active or custom index funds in 2 mins.<p>We are looking for a frontend dev, and a smart contract dev - DM on Twitter if interested
Where this is going to get really wild: tokenized securities backing the blockchain equivalent of an ETF.<p>Imagine you program a smart contract which is the frontend of a algorithmic trading system.<p>That future <i>is</i> coming.
Apologies if this is a bit of an ELI5 request, but after many years I <i>still</i> don't understand the real-world uses of smart contracts. There was this post on HN a couple years ago, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19225857" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19225857</a>, and I still don't understand how any of those issues are addressed.<p>Specifically what I'm struggling to understand is that most (all?) real-world contracts require some information about the real world: The price of corn (or corn futures), whether the rental apartment was as described, whether the sneakers were authentic, etc. But whenever you need this real world information, at some point you need an oracle, or a consensus of oracles, and at that point I don't really see the point of using blockchain as you have to trust the oracles.<p>Would really appreciate if anybody could provide some info or links that explain how this problem is handled or solved. More importantly, would appreciate a single example of an actual smart contract that responds to events that happen in the real world.
I like the idea of making things more "seamless", but what troubles me is how cavalier people are willing to disregard existing knowledge about how to make working markets.
For example, CLOBs are not a bad thing and re-inventing price discovery mechanisms is a dangerous thing (I am aware of all the issues in real world markets, but still). Some of these things have many 100s of years of evolutionary refinement in them. As another example, atomic settlement is also not a cure all, as it might up the liquidity requirements (i.e. have cash ready before entering into transactions, which is not how the current world works and it is not clear that this would be better world).
The other overlooked item is role of real world law and legal actions, so there is an inherent mechanism to legislate when trust breaks down and that will supersede whatever a smart contract might say.
Some points on transparency are also somewhat outdated, regulators now collect vast amounts of data to understand what happened on certain events, where exposures are, how market structure changes and so forth.
This seems to be a great ‘intro to defi’ read.<p>Can someone with knowledge of defi point out any deficiencies or inaccuracies here? Are there better ‘intro to defi’ papers that newcomers should read?
If I wanted to know everything about how these systems worked, where would I begin? Is there anything comprehensive that'd take a while to digest?
The blockchain that wins will become a global and immutable log for all commercial events. Smart contracts and tokens are but building blocks in a fully on-chain financial system.<p><a href="https://tokenized.com/docs/intro/preface" rel="nofollow">https://tokenized.com/docs/intro/preface</a>
Shameless self-plug on how DeFi can be done more robustly using functional programming constructs: <a href="https://vishakh.medium.com/bringing-true-composability-and-robustness-to-decentralized-finance-bbd6945ca03a" rel="nofollow">https://vishakh.medium.com/bringing-true-composability-and-r...</a>.
If anyone is interested in a DEX ecosystem which can scale for real (unlike the ones presented in this article) check out <a href="https://ldex.trading/" rel="nofollow">https://ldex.trading/</a> - It's still early so only 1 market for now.<p>It scales by allowing each market to have separate infrastructure and it executes trades chain-to-chain. It's a natural way to shard the ecosystem based on markets. The degree of decentralization can vary based on the market.
CURRENT GAS PRICES:<p>1 MATIC GWEI on the MATIC PoS Ethereum sidechain! Rapidly growing liquidity on Quickswap, MATIC PoS Universe 1 has Gas Limits of 30,000,000 GWEI. Restart your higher frequency strategies there!<p>15 BNB GWEI on the Binance Smart Chain EVM! Rapidly growing liquidity on PancakeSwap and Julswap<p>These gas prices are equivalent to cents, compared to the hundreds of dollars in gas needed on Ethereum mainnet<p>The newer AMMs have land grabs for farmers!
It seems that for years now whenever people try to justify the usefulness of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and smart contracts there are always 10 different, jargonic, and barely-understandable answers. There is no shortage of excuses given for why they haven't busted banks, credit cards, and payment apps.<p>For years decentralized technologies have been pushed as the future for the internet and yet they <i>still</i> aren't used by anybody outside hardcore enthusiast communities, while bringing ruin to many others as volatile 'investments'. Goes to show that the problem is in the technology itself, no matter how you present it. Unless it is changed to reflect people's actual needs (i.e: reject the ideology of decentralization for convenience and easy payments) it will never gain traction.
This is a great summary, and HNers who knee-jerk hate crypto and say it's worthless should especially give it a read. It's becoming clearer that more and more finance is going to move to blockchain rails. IMO this is the future, and yes I have put my money where my mouth is on that opinion.