1confirmation Newsletter - Issue #87
The two most important crypto trends to be aware of today are Ethereum usage and Ethereum transaction fees. Usage of DeFi applications on Ethereum has exploded (total value locked increased from $2B on July 1 to $6.6B today) but Ethereum transaction fees have also exploded (average gas fees increased from ~47 gwei to ~115 gwei in the same period).
This has interesting implications for the space. While a new wave of speculative high dollar value DeFi applications has reinvigorated excitement within the crypto community, the fees and UX still may not be ready for broader adoption. There's a number of great teams doing their best to solve the fee and UX problems and we think an eye toward the bigger picture is healthy during speculative waves.
Required reading this week
Comparing DeFi Token Models — integral.dydx.exchange
dYdX describes the different types of DeFi token models that exist today: Fee, Governance, Collateral of Last Resort, and Staking/Inflation.
Ethereum: how to save even more on gas price with a weekly plan — medium.com
Marco Marchioro analyzes the weekly periodicity of Ethereum transaction fees and reveals that the best time to submit a transaction is during the weekend.
Crypto-native Insurance — www.fehrsam.xyz
Fred Ehrsam outlines how crypto-native insurance - on-chain insurance covering protocols and DAOs - has the potential to be the next big financial primitive in DeFi.
Vitalik Buterin shares a post explaining different trust models, particularly how "1 of N", "N/2 of N" and "1 of 1" trust are very different, with an eye to blockchain applications and scaling protocols.
State of Ethereum Wallets — medium.com
Makoto Inoue analyzes what features Ethereum wallets current have and where he thinks they're going.
1confirmation portfolio reading this week
ETH-USD Perpetual Contract Market is Live — integral.dydx.exchange
ETH-USD Perpetual Contract Market is live. Traders can trade ETH with increased leverage (up to 10x) while using ETH as collateral.
Introducing Rally Creator Coin — medium.com
The creator industry continues to grow at an astonishing rate, yet it’s still incredibly hard to make a living as a content creator. Rally pioneers a new way for streamers to earn a living and interact with their fans.
Announcing bloXroute for ETH DeFi — medium.com
bloXroute launches the new Ethereum DeFi focused toolsuite designed to allow DeFi traders to hear about and send transactions and blocks fast.
Transferability and Redenomination Public Notice — polkadot.network
Token transfers for DOTs are finally enabled. DOTs are also redenominated 100:1.
Acala Launches the 1st Parachain on Polkadot Testnet — medium.com
Acala launches its first parachain on Polkadot testnet for its stablecoin, DEX, and staking derivative with cross-chain shared consensus and message passing.
Nexus Mutual Product Roadmap Discussion — forum.nexusmutual.io
Nexus Mutual outlines future development and roadmap on product, capital scaling, and decentralization.
On-chain metrics to watch
