How Decentralized Finance Came to Be

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) can be rightfully considered a third revolution in the crypto space. If you wonder what the first two are, these are the invention of blockchain itself along with the technology’s firstborn, Bitcoin, and the inception of the smart contract technology. Just like blockchain provides the basis for smart contracts, the latter give rise to DeFi. It is often said that smart contracts are poised to revolutionize the ways both humans and organizations interact in their contractual relationships. In this sense, DeFi is the stage where these relationships are set to emerge and develop. With a bigger picture in mind, it is the world that the blockchain technology lays the foundation for, while smart contracts help to build it. Why we need DeFi, how it is possible, what makes it tick and click are the main themes of this article.
by StealthEX

But seriously, why do we need it?

As most financial services in existence today are provided by or involve third parties, for example, banks, exchanges, investment companies, insurance agencies etc, DeFi is an attempt to build an alternative environment, an ecosystem of applications offering the same set of services but now powered by public blockchain networks in a decentralized, transparent and permissionless way. By and large, the basic idea that guides DeFi is essentially the same ethos that drives innovation with crypto as such, but at an entirely different level.
Just like cryptocurrencies try to wrest the state supremacy over money from the hands of rogue governments and central banks, DeFi takes it further and aims higher. With DeFi, it is no longer a matter of creating a coin in an effort to replace fiat money, which mostly doesn’t work anyway. However, building a whole new domain of financial services available fairly and squarely to anyone, with full control over the assets but without corrupt governments and greedy intermediaries sticking around, may pan out better after all.
So, answering the question posed at the beginning of this section, we need DeFi for basically the same reasons we need cryptocurrencies. Or, put differently, if we need cryptocurrencies, an assumption that has been proved indisputable, it is inevitable as well that we will sooner or later become interested in decentralized financial services powered by these cryptocurrencies through smart contract blockchains. We can’t just create Bitcoin and say that’ll do. It is a natural development, a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in a sense.

How is it ever possible?

As mentioned in the introduction, DeFi emerges thanks to smart contract tech and decentralized applications (or simply dApps) running them. So how does it work in practice? To better understand the idea, let’s take a closer look at a relatively simple example of a decentralized crypto-backed stablecoin which can be created through a smart contract. Stablecoins are coins whose value is pegged to a stable asset such as a commodity like gold or a fiat currency like the US dollar.
There are a few different types of stablecoins that exist in the wild. For the purpose of this exposition, we are interested in crypto-backed stablecoins. Like stablecoins collateralized by fiat, these stablecoins use cryptocurrencies as collateral. However, the key difference is that a fiat-based stablecoin is pegged to the fiat currency which is backing it up. Kinda obvious. A crypto-backed stablecoin, on the other hand, is pegged to one asset, say, the American dollar, but backed up by a completely different one, for example, Ether. Things get tricky.
A crypto-collateralized stablecoin is possible through the magic and the beauty of the smart contract governing it. If the price of such a stablecoin rises above its peg, or parity, you can create more stablecoins and sell them at a premium. If the price of the stablecoin falls below parity, you can buy stablecoins and liquidate them at a discount. If the collateral itself crashes, undercollateralized stablecoins will be liquidated with their collateral now backing up fewer stablecoins. As a result, the price always gets pushed back to parity.
And all this rather complicated stuff is done on the blockchain in a decentralized and automatic fashion with no banks or other third parties involved. Consequently, more services are easily possible too. And quite a few at that.

Okay, what decentralized financial services are available?

Well, one such service we have just described above. Cryptocurrencies are infamous for being extremely volatile, and stablecoins are designed to deal with this issue. There are many stablecoins out there like Tether, TrueUSD, or Gemini Coin, but they are all based on trusting third parties. Easily one of the best known crypto-backed stablecoins is MakerDAO’s DAI, which is pegged against the US dollar with a basket of crypto-assets as collateral in a truly decentralized and trustless way, that is, a blockchain way.
Crypto-based stablecoins can be used on their own by offering a hedge against the price volatility of such popular cryptocurrencies as Ether or Bitcoin. Aside from that, they are also instrumental in other DeFi services, for example, in decentralized exchanges like IDEX or BiKi.com. With stablecoins, it becomes possible to create fiat trading pairs in addition to crypto ones in entirely decentralized, non-custodial trading environments as opposed to centralized exchanges like Bitfinex or Binance, which are vulnerable to high-profile hacks and personal data leaks.
Unlike MakerDAO, Ampleforth doesn’t strive to create a rock-solid stablecoin. Instead, it comes up with the notion of “adaptive money built on sound economics”, with its mission stretching out as far as to marry “the scarcity of Bitcoin with the elasticity of fiat”. It tries to go beyond the relatively simple concept of a stablecoin and brings forth the idea of elastic money supply that can expand and contract depending on market demands, as well as allow the creation of a valid form of collateral for DeFi based on that idea.
Obviously, DeFi is not just about stablecoins or the financial services using them. Blockchain-based borrowing and lending is another important DeFi arena. With platforms like Compound, dYdX, Dharma, you can deposit your crypto assets to either earn interest on them or use these assets as collateral for borrowing. Smart contracts automatically match borrowers and lenders, offering dynamic interest rates based on supply and demand. And with tools like LoanScan, you can also easily shop around for the best interest rates on the block.
These examples are far from exhaustive, of course, as the space is rapidly expanding and evolving. However, there are some fundamental issues that put grit into the wheels of the DeFi war machine.

So where’s the catch?

There are many advantages of DeFi, but to be of any practical use, it needs up-to-date information that would be reliable and authentic. Smart contracts that DeFi is based on are hopelessly on-chain, but the data they need for processing is mostly off-chain. Without a bridge to close this gap between a smart contract and its source of external information, smart contracts are entrapped in closed-off dungeons of their blockchains. To be sure, no crypto-based stablecoin is going to work correctly without a real-time price feed for the assets taken as its collateral and used for maintaining the peg.
To get around this roadblock, a concept of blockchain oracles has been suggested. But as the chain cannot be stronger than its weakest link, blockchain oracles seem to be that weak link in the field of DeFi and beyond as obtaining information in a verifiable way can be an intimidating task. What approaches dApps are taking to procure and verify sources of truth in the external world is the topic of our upcoming article about blockchain oracles. Stay with us and stay tuned!
And remember if you need to exchange your coins StealthEX is here for you. We provide a selection of more than 250 coins and constantly updating the list so that our customers will find a suitable option. Our service does not require registration and allows you to remain anonymous. Why don’t you check it out? Just go to StealthEX and follow these easy steps:
✔ Choose the pair and the amount for your exchange. For example ETH to BTC.
✔ Press the “Start exchange” button.
✔ Provide the recipient address to which the coins will be transferred.
✔ Move your cryptocurrency for the exchange.
✔ Receive your coins.
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The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Original article was posted on https://stealthex.io/blog/2020/08/04/decentralized-finance-defi/

A whirlwind tour of Defi, paying close attention to protocols that we’re leveraging at Genesis Block.
https://reddit.com/link/hrrt21/video/cvjh5rrh12b51/player
This is the third post of Crypto-Powered — a new series that examines what it means for Genesis Block to be a digital bank that’s powered by crypto, blockchain, and decentralized protocols.
Last week we explored how building on legacy finance is a fool’s errand. The future of money belongs to those who build with crypto and blockchain at their core. We also started down the crypto rabbit hole, introducing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi (decentralized finance). That post is required reading if you hope to glean any value from the rest of this series.
97% of all activity on Ethereum in the last quarter has been DeFi-related. The total value sitting inside DeFi protocols is roughly $2B — double what it was a month ago. The explosive growth cannot be ignored. All signs suggest that Ethereum & DeFi are a Match Made in Heaven, and both on their way to finding strong product/market fit.
So in this post, we’re doing a whirlwind tour of DeFi. We look at specific examples and use-cases already in the wild and seeing strong growth. And we pay close attention to protocols that Genesis Block is integrating with. Alright, let’s dive in.

Stablecoins

Stablecoins are exactly what they sound like: cryptocurrencies that are stable. They are not meant to be volatile (like Bitcoin). These assets attempt to peg their price to some external reference (eg. USD or Gold). A non-volatile crypto asset can be incredibly useful for things like merchant payments, cross-border transfers, or storing wealth — becoming your own bank but without the stress of constant price volatility.
There are major governments and central banks that are experimenting with or soon launching their own stablecoins like China with their digital yuan and the US Federal Reserve with their digital dollar. There are also major corporations working in this area like JP Morgan with their JPM Coin, and of course Facebook with their Libra Project.

Stablecoin activity has grown 800% in the last year, with $290B of transaction volume (funds moving on-chain).

The most popular USD-pegged stablecoins include:

1. Tether ($10B): It’s especially popular in Asia. It’s backed by USD in a bank account. But given their lack of transparency and past controversies, they generally aren’t trusted as much in the West.
2. USDC ($1B): This is the most reputable USD-backed stablecoin, at least in the West. It was created by Coinbase & Circle, both well-regarded crypto companies. They’ve been very open and transparent with their audits and bank records.
3. DAI ($189M): This is backed by other crypto assets — not USD in a bank account. This was arguably the first true DeFi protocol. The big benefit is that it’s more decentralized — it’s not controlled by any single organization. The downside is that the assets backing it can be volatile crypto assets (though it has mechanisms in place to mitigate that risk).

Other notable USD-backed stablecoins include PAX, TrueUSD, Binance USD, and Gemini Dollar.

tablecoins are playing an increasingly important role in the world of DeFi. In a way, they serve as common pipes & bridges between the various protocols.

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Lending & Borrowing

Three of the top five DeFi protocols relate to lending & borrowing. These popular lending protocols look very similar to traditional money markets. Users who want to earn interest/yield can deposit (lend) their funds into a pool of liquidity. Because it behaves similarly to traditional money markets, their funds are not locked, they can withdraw at any time. It’s highly liquid.
Borrowers can tap into this pool of liquidity and take out loans. Interest rates depend on the utilization rate of the pool — how much of the deposits in the pool have already been borrowed. Supply & demand. Thus, interest rates are variable and borrowers can pay their loans back at any time.

So, who decides how much a borrower can take? What’s the process like? Are there credit checks? How is credit-worthiness determined?

These protocols are decentralized, borderless, permissionless. The people participating in these markets are from all over the world. There is no simple way to verify identity or check credit history. So none of that happens.
Credit-worthiness is determined simply by how much crypto collateral the borrower puts into the protocol. For example, if a user wants to borrow $5k of USDC, then they’ll need to deposit $10k of BTC or ETH. The exact amount of collateral depends on the rules of the protocol — usually the more liquid the collateral asset, the more borrowing power the user can receive.
The most prominent lending protocols include Compound, Aave, Maker, and Atomic Loans. Recently, Compound has seen meteoric growth with the introduction of their COMP token — a token used to incentivize and reward participants of the protocol. There’s almost $1B in outstanding debt in the Compound protocol. Mainframe is also working on an exciting protocol in this area and the latest iteration of their white paper should be coming out soon.

There is very little economic risk to these protocols because all loans are overcollateralized.

I repeat, all loans are overcollateralized. If the value of the collateral depreciates significantly due to price volatility, there are sophisticated liquidation systems to ensure the loan always gets paid back.
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Investments

Buying, selling, and trading crypto assets is certainly one form of investing (though not for the faint of heart). But there are now DeFi protocols to facilitate making and managing traditional-style investments.
Through DeFi, you can invest in Gold. You can invest in stocks like Amazon and Apple. You can short Tesla. You can access the S&P 500. This is done through crypto-based synthetics — which gives users exposure to assets without needing to hold or own the underlying asset. This is all possible with protocols like UMA, Synthetix, or Market protocol.
Maybe your style of investing is more passive. With PoolTogether , you can participate in a no-loss lottery.
Maybe you’re an advanced trader and want to trade options or futures. You can do that with DeFi protocols like Convexity, Futureswap, and dYdX. Maybe you live on the wild side and trade on margin or leverage, you can do that with protocols like Fulcrum, Nuo, and DDEX. Or maybe you’re a degenerate gambler and want to bet against Trump in the upcoming election, you can do that on Augur.
And there are plenty of DeFi protocols to help with crypto investing. You could use Set Protocol if you need automated trading strategies. You could use Melonport if you’re an asset manager. You could use Balancer to automatically rebalance your portfolio.
With as little as $1, people all over the world can have access to the same investment opportunities and tools that used to be reserved for only the wealthy, or those lucky enough to be born in the right country.

You can start to imagine how services like Etrade, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, and even Robinhood could be massively disrupted by a crypto-native company that builds with these types of protocols at their foundation.

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Insurance

As mentioned in our previous post, there are near-infinite applications one can build on Ethereum. As a result, sometimes the code doesn’t work as expected. Bugs get through, it breaks. We’re still early in our industry. The tools, frameworks, and best practices are all still being established. Things can go wrong.
Sometimes the application just gets in a weird or bad state where funds can’t be recovered — like with what happened with Parity where $280M got frozen (yes, I lost some money in that). Sometimes, there are hackers who discover a vulnerability in the code and maliciously steal funds — like how dForce lost $25M a few months ago, or how The DAO lost $50M a few years ago. And sometimes the system works as designed, but the economic model behind it is flawed, so a clever user takes advantage of the system— like what recently happened with Balancer where they lost $500k.
There are a lot of risks when interacting with smart contracts and decentralized applications — especially for ones that haven’t stood the test of time. This is why insurance is such an important development in DeFi.

Insurance will be an essential component in helping this technology reach the masses.

Two protocols that are leading the way on DeFi insurance are Nexus Mutual and Opyn. Though they are both still just getting started, many people are already using them. And we’re excited to start working with them at Genesis Block.
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Exchanges & Liquidity

Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) were one of the first and most developed categories in DeFi. A DEX allows a user to easily exchange one crypto asset for another crypto asset — but without needing to sign up for an account, verify identity, etc. It’s all via decentralized protocols.
Within the first 5 months of 2020, the top 7 DEX already achieved the 2019 trading volume. That was $2.5B. DeFi is fueling a lot of this growth.
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There are many different flavors of DEX. Some of the early ones included 0x, IDEX, and EtherDelta — all of which had a traditional order book model where buyers are matched with sellers.
Another flavor is the pooled liquidity approach where the price is determined algorithmically based on how much liquidity there is and how much the user wants to buy. This is known as an AMM (Automated Market Maker) — Uniswap and Bancor were early leaders here. Though lately, Balancer has seen incredible growth due mostly to their strong incentives for participation — similar to Compound.
There are some DEXs that are more specialized — for example, Curve and mStable focus mostly only stablecoins. Because of the proliferation of these decentralized exchanges, there are now aggregators that combine and connect the liquidity of many sources. Those include Kyber, Totle, 1Inch, and Dex.ag.

These decentralized exchanges are becoming more and more connected to DeFi because they provide an opportunity for yield and earning interest.

Users can earn passive income by supplying liquidity to these markets. It usually comes in the form of sharing transaction fee revenue (Uniswap) or token rewards (Balancer).
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Payments

As it relates to making payments, much of the world is still stuck on plastic cards. We’re grateful to partner with Visa and launch the Genesis Block debit card… but we still don’t believe that's the future of payments. We see that as an important bridge between the past (legacy finance) and the future (crypto).
Our first post in this series shared more on why legacy finance is broken. We talked about the countless unnecessary middle-men on every card swipe (merchant, acquiring bank, processor, card network, issuing bank). We talked about the slow settlement times.
The future of payments will be much better. Yes, it’ll be from a mobile phone and the user experience will be similar to ApplePay (NFC) or WePay (QR Code).

But more importantly, the underlying assets being moved/exchanged will all be crypto — digital, permissionless, and open source.

Someone making a payment at the grocery store check-out line will be able to open up Genesis Block, use contactless tech or scan a QR code, and instantly pay for their goods. All using crypto. Likely a stablecoin. Settlement will be instant. All the middlemen getting their pound of flesh will be disintermediated. The merchant can make more and the user can spend less. Blockchain FTW!
Now let’s talk about a few projects working in this area. The xDai Burner Wallet experience was incredible at the ETHDenver event a few years ago, but that speed came at the expense of full decentralization (can it be censored or shut down?). Of course, Facebook’s Libra wants to become the new standard for global payments, but many are afraid to give Facebook that much control (newsflash: it isn’t very decentralized).
Bitcoin is decentralized… but it’s slow and volatile. There are strong projects like Lightning Network (Zap example) that are still trying to make it happen. Projects like Connext and OmiseGo are trying to help bring payments to Ethereum. The Flexa project is leveraging the gift card rails, which is a nice hack to leverage existing pipes. And if ETH 2.0 is as fast as they say it will be, then the future of payments could just be a stablecoin like DAI (a token on Ethereum).
In a way, being able to spend crypto on daily expenses is the holy grail of use-cases. It’s still early. It hasn’t yet been solved. But once we achieve this, then we can ultimately and finally say goodbye to the legacy banking & finance world. Employees can be paid in crypto. Employees can spend in crypto. It changes everything.

Legacy finance is hanging on by a thread, and it’s this use-case that they are still clinging to. Once solved, DeFi domination will be complete.

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Impact on Genesis Block

At Genesis Block, we’re excited to leverage these protocols and take this incredible technology to the world. Many of these protocols are already deeply integrated with our product. In fact, many are essential. The masses won’t know (or care about) what Tether, USDC, or DAI is. They think in dollars, euros, pounds and pesos. So while the user sees their local currency in the app, the underlying technology is all leveraging stablecoins. It’s all on “crypto rails.”
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When users deposit assets into their Genesis Block account, they expect to earn interest. They expect that money to grow. We leverage many of these low-risk lending/exchange DeFi protocols. We lend into decentralized money markets like Compound — where all loans are overcollateralized. Or we supply liquidity to AMM exchanges like Balancer. This allows us to earn interest and generate yield for our depositors. We’re the experts so our users don’t need to be.
We haven’t yet integrated with any of the insurance or investment protocols — but we certainly plan on it. Our infrastructure is built with blockchain technology at the heart and our system is extensible — we’re ready to add assets and protocols when we feel they are ready, safe, secure, and stable. Many of these protocols are still in the experimental phase. It’s still early.

At Genesis Block we’re excited to continue to be at the frontlines of this incredible, innovative, technological revolution called DeFi.

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None of these powerful DeFi protocols will be replacing Robinhood, SoFi, or Venmo anytime soon. They never will. They aren’t meant to! We’ve discussed this before, these are low-level protocols that need killer applications, like Genesis Block.
So now that we’ve gone a little deeper down the rabbit hole and we’ve done this whirlwind tour of DeFi, the natural next question is: why?

Why does any of it matter?

Most of these financial services that DeFi offers already exist in the real world. So why does it need to be on a blockchain? Why does it need to be decentralized? What new value is unlocked? Next post, we answer these important questions.
To look at more projects in DeFi, check out DeFi Prime, DeFi Pulse, or Consensys.
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Until one understands the basics of this tech, they won’t be able to grasp or appreciate the impact it has on our digital bank, Genesis Block.
https://reddit.com/link/ho4bif/video/n0euarkifu951/player
This is the second post of Crypto-Powered — a new series that examines what it means for Genesis Block to be a digital bank that’s powered by crypto, blockchain, and decentralized protocols.
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Our previous post set the stage for this series. We discussed the state of consumer finance and how the success of today’s high-flying fintech unicorns will be short-lived as long as they’re building on legacy finance — a weak foundation that is ripe for massive disruption.
Instead, the future of consumer finance belongs to those who are deeply familiar with blockchain tech & decentralized protocols, build on it as the foundation, and know how to take it to the world. Like Genesis Block.
Today we begin our journey down the crypto rabbit hole. This post will be an important introduction for those still learning about Bitcoin, Ethereum, or DeFi (Decentralized Finance). This post (and the next few) will go into greater detail about how this technology gives Genesis Block an edge, a superpower, and an unfair advantage. Let’s dive in…
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Bitcoin: The First Cryptocurrency

There are plenty of online resources to learn about Bitcoin (Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, Naval, Alex Gladstein, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon). I don’t wanna spend a lot of time on that here, but let’s do a quick overview for those still getting ramped up.
Cryptocurrency is the most popular use-case of blockchain technology today. And Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be invented.

Bitcoin is the most decentralized of all crypto assets today — no government, company, or third party can control or censor it.

Bitcoin has two primary features (as do most other cryptocurrencies):

1. Send Value You can send value to anyone, anywhere in the world. Nobody can intercept, delay or stop it — not even governments or financial institutions. Unlike with traditional money transfers or bank wires, there are no layers of middlemen. This results in a process that is much more cost-efficient. Some popular use-cases include remittances and cross-border payments.
2. Store Value With nothing but a smartphone, you can become your own bank and store your own funds. Nobody can seize your assets. The funds are digital and stored on a blockchain. Your money no longer needs to be stored at a bank, in a vault, or under your mattress. I covered a few inspiring use-cases in a previous post. They include banking the unbanked, protecting assets from government seizure, mitigating the risk of a bank run, and protection against hyperinflation (like what recently happened in Venezuela).

The fact that there are so few things one can do with Bitcoin is one of its greatest strengths.

Its design is simple, elegant, and focused. It has been 10+ years since Satoshi’s white paper and no one has been able to crack or hack the Bitcoin network. With a market cap of $170B, there is plenty of incentive to try.
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Public Awareness

A few negative moments in Bitcoin’s history include the collapse of Mt. Gox — which resulted in hundreds of millions of customer funds being stolen — as well as Bitcoin’s role in dark markets like Silk Road — where Bitcoin arguably found its initial userbase.
However, like most breakthrough technology, Bitcoin is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral. People can use it for good or they can use it for evil. Thankfully, it’s being used less and less for illicit activity. Criminals are starting to understand that transactions on a blockchain are public and traceable — it’s exactly the type of system they usually try to avoid. And it’s true, at this point “a lot more” crimes are actually committed with fiat than crypto.
As a result, the perception of bitcoin and cryptocurrency has been changing over the years to a more positive light.
Bitcoin has even started to enter the world of media & entertainment. It’s been mentioned in Hollywood films like Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and in songs from major artists like Eminem. It’s been mentioned in countless TV shows like Billions, The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, Gray’s Anatomy, Family Guy, and more.
As covid19 has ravaged economies and central banks have been printing money, Bitcoin has caught the attention of many legendary Wall Street investors like Paul Tudor Jones, saying that Bitcoin is a great bet against inflation (reminding him of Gold in the 1970s).
Cash App already lets their 25M users buy Bitcoin. It’s rumored that PayPal and Venmo will soon let their 325M users start buying Bitcoin. Bitcoin is by far the most dominant cryptocurrency and is showing no signs of slowing down. For more than a decade it has delivered on its core use-cases — being able to send or store value.

At this point, Bitcoin has very much entered the zeitgeist of modern pop culture — at least in the West.

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Ethereum: Programmable Money

When Ethereum launched in 2015, it opened up a world of new possibilities and use-cases for crypto. With Ethereum Smart Contracts (i.e. applications), this exciting new digital money (cryptocurrency) became a lot less dumb. Developers could now build applications that go beyond the simple use-cases of “send value” & “store value.” They could program cryptocurrency to have rules, behavior, and logic to respond to different inputs. And always enforced by code. Additional reading on Ethereum from Linda Xie or Vitalik Buterin.

Because these applications are built on blockchain technology (Ethereum), they preserve many of the same characteristics as Bitcoin: no one can stop, censor or shut down these apps because they are decentralized.

One of the first major use-cases on Ethereum was the ability to mint and create your own token, your own cryptocurrency. Many companies used this as a way to fundraise from the public. This led to the 2017 ICO bubble (Initial Coin Offerings). Some tokens — and the apps/networks they powered — were fascinating and innovative. Most tokens were pointless. And many tokens were outright scams. Additional token reading from Fred Ehrsam, Balaji, and Naval.
https://reddit.com/link/ho4bif/video/b5b1jh9ofu951/player

Digital Gold Rush

Just as tokens grew in popularity in 2017–2018, so did online marketplaces where these tokens could be bought, sold, and traded. This was a fledgling asset class — the merchants selling picks, axes, and shovels were finally starting to emerge.

I had a front-row seat — both as an investor and token creator. This was the Wild West with all the frontier drama & scandal that you’d expect.

Binance — now the world’s largest crypto exchange —was launched during this time. They along with many others (especially from Asia) made it really easy for speculators, traders, and degenerate gamblers to participate in these markets. Similar to other financial markets, the goal was straightforward: buy low and sell high.
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That period left an embarrassing stain on our industry that we’ve still been trying to recover from. It was a period rampant with market manipulation, pump-and-dumps, and scams. To some extent, the crypto industry still suffers from that today, but it’s nothing compared to what it was then.

While the potential of getting filthy rich brought a lot of fly-by-nighters and charlatans into the industry, it also brought a lot of innovators, entrepreneurs, and builders.

The launch and growth of Ethereum has been an incredible technological breakthrough. As with past tech breakthroughs, it has led to a wave of innovation, experimentation, and development. The creativity around tokens, smart contracts, and decentralized applications has been fascinating to witness. Now a few years later, the fruits of those labors are starting to be realized.

DeFi: Decentralized Finance

So as a reminder, tokens are cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies can carry value. And value is a lot like money. Because tokens are natively integrated with Ethereum, it’s been natural for developers to build applications related to financial services — things like lending, borrowing, saving, investing, payments, and insurance. In the last few years, there has been a groundswell of developer momentum building in this area of financial protocols. This segment of the industry is known as DeFi (Decentralized Finance).
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In Q2 of 2020, 97% of all Ethereum activity was DeFi-related. Total DeFi transaction volume has reached $11.5B. The current value locked inside DeFi protocols is approaching $2 Billion (double from a month ago). DeFi’s meteoric growth cannot be ignored.
Most of that growth can be attributed to exciting protocols like Compound, Maker, Synthetix, Balancer, Aave, dYdX, and Uniswap. These DeFi protocols and the financial services they offer are quickly becoming some of the most popular use-cases for blockchain technology today.
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This impressive growth in DeFi certainly hasn’t come without growing pains. Unlike with Bitcoin, there are near-infinite applications one can develop on Ethereum. Sometimes bugs (or typos) can slip through code reviews, testing, and audits — resulting in loss of funds.
Our next post will go much deeper on DeFi.

Wrap Up

I know that for the hardcore crypto people, what we covered today is nothing new. But for those who are still getting up to speed, welcome! I hope this was helpful and that it fuels your interest to learn more.
Until you understand the basics of this technology, you won’t be able to fully appreciate the impact that it has on our new digital bank, Genesis Block. You won’t be able to understand the implications, how it relates, or how it helps.
After today’s post, some of you probably have a lot more questions. What are specific examples or use-cases of DeFi? Why does it need to be on a blockchain? What benefits does it bring to Genesis Block and our users?
In upcoming posts, we answer these questions. Today’s post was just Level 1. It set the foundation for where we’re headed next: even deeper down the crypto rabbit hole.
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• Listen via Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc): https://anchor.fm/genesis-block/episodes/9-Crypto-Powered---Understanding-Bitcoin--Ethereum--and-DeFi-eggfjs

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Tether Gold (XAU₮) is now listed on Bitfinex!
Trading in XAU₮ is available from 24/01/20 at 2:30 PM UTC, and can be traded with:

• U.S. Dollar (XAUt/USD)
• tether (XAUt/USDt)
• bitcoin (XAUt/BTC)

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Read the official announcement and discover more about XAU₮, the digital token backed by physical gold ⬇️
https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/450

Recently, the price of Bitcoin plunged to $ 3,600 on BitMEX and $ 3,800 on Bitfinex, setting the worst one-day drop in seven years. The sell-off coincided with a sharp correction in the US stock market.
Bitcoin, at least in theory, should be a safe-haven asset immune to the turbulence of traditional financial markets. However, in the past two weeks, as investors frantically sold high-risk assets, Bitcoin has begun to fall in sync with the stock market.
Do US stocks dive leading crypto market down?
Over the past week, the bitcoin price has responded to several key events, including President Trump's announcement of a 30-day travel ban between the United States and Europe, and the Federal Reserve's announcement to reduce the federal benchmark interest rate to 0.00% -0.25% Levels and more.
Compared with the trend of S & P 500, Bitcoin is almost the same as Bitcoin.
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OKEx's advanced analysis is that William told Golden Finance, "Just as bitcoin price has no correlation with gold, there is no obvious correlation between bitcoin and U.S. stocks. The reason why U.S. stocks and bitcoin are falling is that the market is too lacking Liquidity, all funds are looking for safe, liquid assets. "
He explained by way of example that, in normal time, the water in the well is difficult to connect with the water in the lake; but the sky fell and the water levels of the lake and the well fell sharply. Even so, there was not much connection between the two sides. Just because of the influence of the big climate.
US stocks are about to open. How is Bitcoin trending?
In the early morning of March 18, local time, all three major US stock index futures fell, triggering trading restrictions.
The S & P 500 index futures contract for June 2020 fell to 2393.50 points, down 3.70%, hitting trading restrictions. The NASDAQ (7334.78, 430.19, 6.23%) index futures contract for June 2020 fell to 7064.25 points, hitting trading restrictions. The Dow Jones (21237.3809, 1048.86, 5.20%) index for the June 2020 contract was reported at 2039 points, which also hit trading restrictions.
Only 2 hours from the opening of the US stock market, will the US stocks reappear?
In this regard, industry analysts believe that the current US government is preparing to introduce the US $ 700 billion to the US $ 1 trillion stimulus plan and issue it directly to the public. All the US stocks rose due to this positive impact yesterday. But whether the liquidity crisis can be resolved is still a question mark. In addition, there are already confirmed cases in all states in the United States, the number of confirmed diagnoses in Europe is also rising sharply, a large number of factory shutdowns, which has a great impact on the stock market, so the probability of US stocks will fall in the next few months. Investors are not advised to take a dip at this time. It is now a crisis period and a dip is now a high-risk event. Regarding Bitcoin, it is recommended that you do not buy it, for the time being, at least it is not too late to buy it after the liquidity crisis has passed.
In terms of technical indicators, BTC remained within the rising triangle range formed after the recent big drop. The rebound started yesterday evening with the rise of U.S. stocks, but the strength was limited, and it was difficult to form a more powerful rebound in the short term. After wearing the Bollinger Middle Rail for 4 hours, the MACD bullish measuring column started to weaken above the 0 axes. The fast and slow lines have flattened, and the short-term upward momentum is insufficient. In the near future, it is still shock-organized. Parallel head up, volume matching, and breaking through the 4-hour potential double bottom neckline to suppress the high point of $ 5,950. Later, it is expected to test the previous low of 6400-6500. At present, the support below is the uptrend line. Today's limit is 4850. US dollar, the next 4-hour level is 4880 US dollars, short-term support to increase about 30 US dollars every 4 hours, the short-term operation can pay attention to these positions, the current overall maintenance of the triangle interval, waiting for direction choice.
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Why the bull trend has not yet arrived

Trader Joe007, leader of the Bitfinex exchange ranking, explained why the price of bitcoin is now not in the middle of a bullish rally.
“Trends don’t magically “happen” — they are based on supply/demand imbalances and backed by fiat in/out-flows. Anyone who doesn’t understand this and sees BTC as some black box that magically “does what it always does” has no business trading,” Joe007 wrote in his Twitter account.
He noted that at the moment he does not see an inflow of funds into Tether, so there is no point in talking about the beginning of growth.
“I’ll believe it when I see the fiat inflows, sure. All the rest is just noise/posturing. It may seem oh so exciting to noobs but I’ve heard it all thousands of times, during all phases of market cycle. Means nothing,” the trader explained.

Opinion: Bitcoin will reach $15,000 by mid-year

Currently the market has all the conditions to strengthen the price of BTC up to $ 15,000 by the summer, Jehan Chu, Kenetic Capital co-founder said.
According to him, the upcoming halving, the outbreak of coronavirus in China and global economic instability will contribute to the growth. All these factors are pushing investors to seek new investment assets.
“The bitcoin halvening as well as public market jitters is yet another reminder that bitcoin is much less risky and offers potentially outsized returns,” Chu said.

Raul Pal: Bitcoin is the best investment in 2020

According to Raul Pal, ex-executive of Goldman Sachs, bitcoin will be the best investment in 2020. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the businessman said that if he was offered to only own one asset for the next 10 years, it would be BTC.
Later, the businessman explained in Twitter that he considers Bitcoin an ideal investment due to a number of parametres.
“It encapsulates all of my larger macro views and feels like the point on the far horizon we are headed to, in some shape or form. Yes, like gold too and many other things but BTC risk/reward beats all,” Pal wrote.

In the last couple of years, central banks in many countries have been actively buying gold. This increased demand served as a key factor in driving up the price for the precious metal. Recently, the price even exceeded $1,500 for a troy ounce. Even though it's still far from the historical high of $1770 (reached in 2011), the current price dynamics points towards a new cycle of growth.
The 2008-2011 price rally started at the $750 mark and was a result of the global financial crisis. Fortunately, developed economies managed to halt the downturn quite quickly, and the price of gold underwent a correction. However, after a fall to $1,070 for a troy oz. at the end of 2015, a new uptrend began. It was hardly noticeable at first, but by spring-2019, with the escalating US-China trade war and increasing tensions in the Middle East, gold prices started to grow rapidly.
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It's worth noting that for the past few decades, the United States has held more gold in reserve than any other country in the world. In the last 15 years, the US gold reserves have stayed virtually unchanged, at 8,100 tons. By comparison, Germany — which holds the second place - has circa 3,400 tons of gold, or more than twice when compared to the US. Numerous international experts claim that the money and credit policy of the United States has a decisive impact on the price of gold. This theory does a great job at explaining the current situation: as the Federal Reserve takes steps to devalue the dollar, the gold prices keep growing.
In particular, in June, Bank of America experts Michelle Meyer and Ben Randall, issued a warning saying that the US government is considering an intervention to weaken the dollar.
In this context, more and more countries, central banks, and corporations realize that the value of the US dollar is based on the trust conferred to it by the global community. If this trust evaporates, a crash will become inevitable. The USD exchange rate may not fall so much relative to the euro or Japanese yen. However, the change relative to the price of gold will be dramatic. The exchange rates of all other fiat currencies to gold will decrease proportionately.
Gold is a safe investment asset, since US authorities cannot subject it to any sanctions. Besides, it has value in its own right, which is a statement that does not apply to US dollars or the euro. Thus, it's not surprising that the demand for physical gold continues to grow.
According to the latest report issued by the World Gold Council, the demand for the yellow metal reached a 3-year high in the first half of 2019. In Q2 2019 alone, global demand grew to 1,123 tons, which is 8% higher than in the second quarter of 2018.
The demand was spurred mostly by the ongoing purchases of central banks and by the steady growth of the gold-backed ETF market. The overall demand for gold in the first 6 months of 2019 grew to 2,181.7 tons.
During the same period, central banks across the globe bought a total of 374.1 tons – the largest six-month net increase in global gold reserves for the whole 19-year history of quarterly records. The report states that the most active buyers were central banks in developing countries.
The growth of state gold reserves around the world hints at intensifying disagreements among countries. This can be a sign that countries want to abandon the traditional reserve currencies of the old global economic leaders. As a result, the growing demand for gold is threatening the positions of the US, UK, and the European Union.
However, there is a key difference between the 2008 crisis (which led to a sharp increase in the gold prices) and the current situation. The market now has a new alternative to fiat money: cryptocurrencies. In the next ten years, global market players will have three basic instruments at their disposal: fiat money (mostly the US dollar as the main reserve currency), gold, and crypto (first and foremost Bitcoin).
Out of the three, fiat money is considered ever less reliable. There is already a tremendous amount of paper money that is not backed by anything – and more is being printed every day. The alternatives are the tried-and-true gold, on the one hand, or the new cryptocurrency ecosystem, on the other. While gold is the money of the past, fiat currencies (USD) are the money of the present, and crypto is the future of money.
A good example of a breakthrough solution for the problem of money is the new GOLD stablecoin. It combines the features of traditional currencies, while also leveraging the power of cryptocurrency, thus bypassing the unreliable fiat systems entirely.
In order to understand why it's such a disruptive solution, we should compare it to the most popular fiat-backed stablecoin on the market – USDT. Tether receives fiat dollars, stores them in a bank as a reserve fund, and issues tokens whose number should theoretically equal the amount of US dollars present in the reserve.
As shown by the recent incident with Bitfinex, this is not exactly true – but that issue goes beyond the scope of this article. Here, we must only mention that the market cap of Tether exceeds $4 billion – even though Tether investors don't receive any reward for holding their tokens.
The situation is almost absurd: with the current sanctions and repeated personal data leaks, many individuals and companies find that it's safer to store their funds in a stable cryptocoin than in US dollars – the most secure fiat currency. Unlike Tether and other fiat-pegged stablecoins, GOLD is pegged to the price of gold at the rate of 1 GOLD = 1 gram of 99.99% gold. Just like Tether stores US dollars in its reserve accounts, Digital Gold (the issuer of GOLD) keeps its physical gold reserves in a specialized vault.
The vault belongs to BullionStar – a global leader in the precious metals market. The gold is audited round the clock by BullionStar itself, providing a much stronger guarantee of security than any bank account statement. As investors keep buying more GOLD stablecoins, the company will keep purchasing new batches of physical gold, depositing it in the vault, and issuing new tokens.
The total amount of gold held by individuals, central banks, stores, and private vaults across the globe is valued at $8 trillion. Some experts believe that Bitcoin is the only crypto that can reach the same market capitalization and become a digital alternative to gold.
However, Bitcoin, like all other cryptocurrencies, is highly volatile. Besides, transaction fees in the Bitcoin network are high, so it can't be used for micropayments. And as the BTC price keeps growing, increasing fees can become a problem for larger transfers, too.
In this context, GOLD tokens feature three serious advantages. First of all, they are not volatile. Of course, the token's price does change as the underlying price of gold changes. But for those investors who are used to buying physical gold or ETFs, these fluctuations won't constitute a problem.
Secondly, the fact that GOLD is an ERC-20 token means that it can be successfully used for any payments, including microtransactions. In the absence of excess volatility, the average fee will range from $0.01 to $0.02. Lastly, since physical gold will always grow relative to all fiat currencies, GOLD will keep growing relative to all fiat stablecoins. Of course, this is only valid over long periods of time, since in the short term, gold prices can both rise and fall. The key point is that gold has been growing in value over the course of millennia. Thus, long-term investors will find GOLD far more attractive than any fiat-based stablecoins. What's more, they might soon lose their interest in fiat-pegged crypto altogether.
Website : https://gold.storage/ Whitepaper: https://gold.storage/wp.pdf Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gold_erc20 Telegram: https://t.me/digitalgoldcoin Steemit: https://steemit.com/@digitalgoldcoin Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/golderc20/ Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5161544