#Optimism crypto news software#
#Optimism crypto news series#

This is one blunder where the project that I co-founded, Tezos, deserves a share of blame. That is, until Ethereum’s next “imminent” upgrade, which is promised for this year but could take longer. That means, effectively, tokens are trapped after they’re pledged.

#Optimism crypto news software#

While Ethereum token holders can now participate in validating the network by running specialized software and pledging bonds as (actual) collateral, they cannot unstake their bonds from the network. After seven years of breathlessly promising an imminent transition to proof of stake from proof of work, ETH 2.0 launched Sept. This year, however, Solana became a rare cryptocurrency project with seemingly more downtime than Coinbase or Kraken.Įven Ethereum’s much-hyped Merge felt overblown. The solution was…using centralized aggregators.Ĭryptocurrency exchanges historically post downtime during macro events or rumors of insolvency. Despite many breathless explanations of its parent company’s commitment to academic peer review, the launch of Sundae led to near-instant congestion for the entire network. Crypto often is still an exercise in building narrative rather than displaying technical acumen.Ĭardano, the smart contract platform that didn’t support smart contracts for the first four years of its existence, launched its decentralized exchange, SundaeSwap, at the beginning of 2022.

#Optimism crypto news series#

A series of blunders from well-capitalized projects proved that there are no consequences for poor implementation. There hasn’t been a market for good technology in the cryptocurrency space. (At least that’s what two brothers did for the Solana ecosystem.) This, in turn, created a narrative of inevitability and strength for the ecosystems built on houses of cards. That’s not very sticky, is it?īut this meme metric was influential enough to encourage the creation of elaborate protocols to “double count” dollars pledged toward TVL. According to DefiLlama, the metric fell from $175 billion to $35 billion over the course of 2022. In 2022, however, we saw that the “L” allegedly locked in a specific TVL was too often a fiction. In the last two years, backers of various DeFi projects memed TVL into relevance by claiming that funds not subject to selling pressure were a proxy for the overall viability of a protocol. Total value locked, which became the default metric for evaluating DeFi ecosystems in 2021, is the amount of locked funds-tokens an owner can’t withdraw until the expiration of a smart contract-pledged on a decentralized exchange. This gives too much power to that minority, which can almost unilaterally kill a token’s value and wreak havoc on the wider market. If the float of a network is less than 10% of its total supply, as many new cryptocurrencies seem to be, then a small minority essentially decides whether it lives or dies. In the case of FTX, however, this fell apart when one of its insiders, who also happened to be a competitor, posted a massive sell order. If 94% of a token’s supply is held by financiers or insiders, its market cap can be inflated to egregious numbers. Market cap as the ultimate metricĪ popular strategy to create hype around a new token has been to float a small fraction of the total supply on the open market, create buying demand through aggressive marketing, and appease insiders who got in early with the new implied market cap. Thankfully, the spectacular collapse of FTX and Terra Luna will make investors reluctant to back future projects founded around a “tokens I can print at will” scheme.

Literally, though, it is a terrible idea. Metaphorically, we’re all creating our own collateral. Unfortunately, Bankman-Fried became drunk on the power to mint his own tokens, using them conceal that he was funneling customers’ funds into his hedge fund.Īs a founder, it’s important to have faith in yourself.

Meanwhile, MIT graduate Sam Bankman-Fried created FTT tokens to run a similar scheme.