1confirmation Newsletter - Issue #65
We were in Berlin last week for the Web3 Summit, DappCon, and several other Berlin Blockchain Week events.
Here are a few takeaways from our week in Berlin:
DeFi excitement is growing: Enabling the world to access open, global financial products is what blockchains do best and new products continue to emerge. Users can now get 11% APY on Dai on Compound. In a macro environment that is seeing negative interest rate policy (NIRP) in a growing number of countries, this is the type of product that could bring millions of new people to the space.
DAO experimentation is increasing: Bitcoin was the first DAO that effectively decentralized the decision-making and ownership of an organization. We're seeing more and more experiments on this front, from a venture fund DAO to a decentralized exchange DAO. While it still feels early here, the experimentation is exciting to see.
Next-gen blockchains are coming: Ethereum is working well for DeFi, but new platforms like Cosmos and Polkadot are coming soon to enable new use cases. IBC is likely to be enabled in the Cosmos network by year end and Polkadot is likely to launch early next year .
We'll be in Osaka for Ethereum's DevCon and San Francisco for SF Blockchain Week later this year. Let us know if you'll be around!
Required reading this week
Bitcoin for safety — jameso.be
James O'Beirne succinctly explains the state of global finance and why Bitcoin is well positioned for the macro environment that lies ahead.
Cross-Chain Infrastructure Revisited — blog.synthetix.io
Kain Warwick explains how tooling, composability, social structure, and monetary premiums give Ethereum strong network effects for dApp development.
Where stablecoins are headed — lindajxie.com
Linda Xie shares where centralized and decentralized stablecoins are headed based on their different attributes.
How Blockchain Networks Will Disrupt the Businesses of Today, and Signal the End of M & A — medium.com
Nicolae Rusan explains how blockchain networks undermine current business operating paradigms and how current large tech incumbents are ill-equipped to deal with the changes.
1confirmation portfolio reading this week
Announcing Support for Participatory Airdrops, Including Edgeware Signaling — medium.com
Anchorage clients who hold Ethereum can participate in signaling to claim an airdrop of the Edgeware governance token, EDG.
v2 Transition Update — www.augur.net
The target for Augur v2 launch is now early January 2020. The Augur team explains what to expect moving forward.
Kusama Rollout and Governance — medium.com
Kusama is Polkadot's experimental testnet designed to help understand how governance, staking, and sharding work under “real” economic conditions.
The Inglorious Cosmos Validators — medium.com
Jack Chan looks at the economics of running a Cosmos validator and explores sustainable business models for validators.