The Rollup

August is off to a bangin’ start! EIP1559 went off without a hitch yesterday. Stay connected on Twitter to keep up with all the updates as we follow this historic Ethereum Hard Fork.  DeFi continues to flourish at an increasing pace and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, adoption of EIP1559 shows the network is as resilient as ever.  Now, applications of DeFi primitives are spreading into mo...

If you’re a crypto native you know how the game works by now. We saw Bitcoin and Ethereum spark an initial wave of innovation. Now, DeFi is leveraging these early blockchains to unlock nascent markets with additional tools. Baked into these early blockchains are certain ecosystem standards. Agoric is breaking these standards to bring a blockchain with a coding language familiar to traditional prog...

Navigating DeFi is increasingly difficult as the ecosystem evolves with more complex products. Advanced AMM tech, scalable smart contracts - all that’s great but it gets overwhelming for a newcomer. OH! Finance takes all the best parts of DeFi (high yield, verifiable liquidity) and bundles them into 1 universal button for easy access. This all-in-one DeFi platform makes crypto digestible for the p...

It’s middle of the Summer and no doubt cryptocurrencies are starting to heat up again. NFT’s are continuing their blazing pace, and Layer 2 networks are anticipated to make a splash towards the end of this month. The transition from Centralized Finance (CeFi) to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) sometimes looks like a revolution. We picture the flow into DeFi as a peaceful transfer of capital simply fo...

A major part of the ethos in DeFi is Collaboration over Competition. As the native DeFi protocols grow more and more complex, collaboration amongst founding teams, educators, and users becomes increasingly more important. It is from this collaborative intuition that we have seen some teams grow into flourishing communities with massive TVL, while other teams remain isolated in their niche. Althoug...

This might be hard to believe… but we are still early. Bitcoin has taken on the role of Digital Hard Money, however Ethereum has the potential to tap into the gigantic structured product layer of Traditional Finance. The Perp Fi team is bridging the transfer of wealth between Traditional Finance and DeFi. Its no secret — the derivatives market far outweighs the volume of capital stored in hard mon...

This might be hard to believe… but we are still early. Bitcoin has taken on the role of Digital Hard Money, however Ethereum has the potential to tap into the gigantic structured product layer of Traditional Finance. The Perp Fi team is bridging the transfer of wealth between Traditional Finance and DeFi. Its no secret — the derivatives market far outweighs the volume of capital stored in hard mon...

One of the long anticipated community led applications is hitting the Ethereum mainnet. Babylon is a protocol by the people and for the people. With Web3 solving for self-custody, community investing has quickly become one of the primary use cases of DeFi. dHEDGE, Enzyme, and now Babylon are each tackling community investing with a different approach. Babylon's community offer is unique in tha...

It's been a great week coming off Bitcoin Miami. The world is rallying around El Salvador as they become the first country to certify Bitcoin as legal tender. We are seeing steps towards global acceptance of the evolving digital economy. While the world watches Bitcoin surge in political approval, Ethereum continues to power a whirlwind of DeFi innovation. Eyes on Bitcoin means Ethereum is in...

Despite the wicked upgrades coming to Ethereum's mainchain, DeFi is a multichain world. Polygon and Binance Chain have shown that liquidity mining incentives and cheaper Tx fees are a formula for large inflows of liquidity. In this Episode we go through the thesis for a multichain approach to DeFi. George is Head of DeFi at YAP Global and founder of Step Finance on Solana. George is a true OG...

Its been a rollercoaster week. Clearly, there has been some market turbulence but what remains - believers are unbothered. DeFi is largely a bundle of web applications that are difficult to use in the first place and even more difficult on mobile phones. Argent is looking to change that. Argent is a smart contract mobile wallet providing self-custody for millions of dollars in crypto holdings. We’...

Yield farming on Ethereum main-chain is very expensive at the moment, especially if you’re looking to compound your LP positions or do any rapid farming: A few solutions that are present include L2s, sidechains, and aggregators. Were gonna go heavy into what Harvest Finance as an aggregator is, how they started, what it took to overcome a malicious exploit and how you can take advantage of their p...

The scaling revolution is upon us. Binance Smart Chain has been popping off. Matic/Polyogon has seen exponential growth in activity and users. Ethereum 2.0 is right around the corner. Here comes DeGate! Unlike BSC which is a side-chain, DeGate operates on Arbitrum which is a roll-up style L2 similar to Polygon Network. The tech is all behind-the-scenes. On the front-end you see exactly what trader...

The current state of DeFi is on the edge of a massive shift to layer 2 & available scaling solutions. We’re so so close. And its the most exciting time to be active in the Ethereum community that I can ever recall. In EP #31 we hosted Ben who recently took a leave of absence from Harvard to join the team of beasts over at Mechanism Capital led by Andrew Kang & Daryl Lau. Savages. Ben is ve...

Our friends at GYSR are at it again. This team embodies the ship ‘n drip philosophy. Tons of awesome upgrades coming with their new V2 release. The familiar liquidity mining incentives with triple digit APY’s are now complemented with a swarm of new features. To give y’all a taste - updates include a brand a new UI, modular smart contracts, and much more. Overall, GYSR is bringing flexibility and...

This podcast was a trip. It’s rare that we discuss the entire spectrum of consequences around crypto — economical, financial, political, and personal. The future is bright to say the least. Michael from Pocket Network is a wizard when it comes to data collection and psychological organization. We dove deep on how chains of centralization are still weighing down DeFi protocols. The ecosystem contin...

It may sound surprising, but investing in crypto is still far too risky for many investors and market participants. More specifically, the risk here is directional risk. Directional risk is a risk of loss which arises from exposure to the particular assets of a market. In this case, the risk of crypto dropping in price prevents people from using crypto. mStable is here to solve this issue. Remembe...

Insurance is a $1.3T+ market in the US alone. As more assets transition on-chain there is more and more value to protect. Just like insurance in traditional markets, members of DeFi markets can now pool risk to lower the threat to any one individual. In this episode, we talk to Hugh from Nexus Mutual — a trailblazer of on-chain insurance. Hugh dives into the must-knows of personal security along a...

The scaling focus has become so important, entire teams and projects have tossed out their roadmaps and now are dedicated to trying to help Ethereum become more usable. Exactly what we need right now. In this episode we spoke with Sandeep from Polygon, a leading force in the L2 side-chain race for adoption. Polygon offers extremely low gas prices and their own versions of some of the prominent DeF...

‘Alpha’ is tossed around as the extremely desirable and most sought after investment information.  Despite what you may think this podcast will not share CMS Holdings’ edge & alpha (well, ok maybe a little bit). Instead, CMS and the DeFi Slate team discuss how to build your edge from the ground up. So alpha is attainable for any investor, in a way that you - the investor - can understand. In a...

“Think about it. Everything is a rug” Welcome to the pure comedy gold (infotainment as I like to call it) episode that is Hardwood. Hardwood is a random degen on defi twitter who self-proclaims to be gay quite often. We brought him on because he has shared valuable info with us in the past via Twitter and he was down to join part of the character series. Unbiased, raw opinions. We at DeFi Slate be...

There are fewer noble quests in the crypto world than being an activist who builds products to bridge the gap between irl & bripto. Brippppptooooooo. Really, a challenge of regulatory pushback combined with internal fears and much more. As I was just speaking with a buddy from Europe, he reminded me of one of my favorite Little Debbie snacks and the only way to purchase them: “Oatmeal creme pi...

Martin Ploom, founder of Smartcredit.io , is one of the smartest & strongly opinionated men I’ve ever really spoken to. He was adamant on detailing the history of credit, money, lending and borrowing, gold standard, fiat and how we got to the fractional reserve system we have today. Absolutely booming with valuable info in the form of an open history lecture. Really, an insightful podcast. 𝗪𝗲...

Ocean Protocol has been BUIDLing for years now albeit a very niche’d operation, they have a grand vision to fulfill: Giving the power back to the people of the internet. Building a web 3, community owned, data economy. Giving you control over your data and the rights to sell it to advertisers and other purchasers alike. A bless. Because as of now, all your data including this article, is being shi...

Cover Protocol has had a helluva ride the last few months…with an epic launch and collaboration with Yearn to a major smart contract hack & drain. I mean. This has been insane. The team stood strong and supported themselves to do what is best for the defi ecosystem as a whole. They will rebuild better than ever. We recorded an entire podcast right before the hack (lol, the timing) and then ano...