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Exploring How Bitcoin Can Expand its DeFi Footprint

A close look on whether Libra’s intentions line up with what its source code tells us and explaining how Libra's software design decisions differ greatly from projects that are built in a more decentralized manner

Explainer

The cryptocurrency community has done a poor job of evaluating privacy. We are even worse at explaining the tradeoffs of different implementations to regular users.

Ledger databases, not blockchain, is the enterprise community's path forward in this new tech era.

Because we have yet to see how a novel digital asset performs during a world-wide financial crisis, there are plenty of theories around the fate of bitcoin during the next crash.

Looking in the rear-view mirror of 2018 not only offers us a moment of reflection, but shows us what’s plausible for the year ahead.

The historic under-focus on governance systems may be due to the fact that governance concerns are perceived to be about the future. But there more immediate than we'd like to believe.

MimbleWimble, or MW in short, is an approach that was proposed by an anonymous developer to improve the privacy features of Bitcoin.

Ethereum disk bloat anxiety is a non-issue, but it's a nuanced topic that's led to misleading, sensationalist headlines.

In anticipation of PoS networks starting to come online, there has been a boom in the number of ‘staking as a service’ businesses being launched.

Decentralization isn’t a “bad” word — it’s just a marketing phrase. The ultimate goal of most of these networks is to reach some degree of decentralization, but to call something “decentralized” is a bit misleading.

As you’ve probably realized by now, we don’t actually own any of our stuff online—Twitter handles, Facebook friends lists, bank accounts, items in video games, event tickets—they’re constantly on-loan from companies.

Critically, one has to understand that not all stablecoins are built the same.

There's a new threat on the horizon, one which the advertising industry is woefully prepared for.

There are two factions within Austrian Economics: There’s the “full reserve banking” faction, and the “fractional reserve banking” faction.

If Austrian economics is the theoretical foundation for Bitcoin, I think Ronald Coase is the inspiration for general cryptonetworks.

Reputation, on the Internet, has been warped for a very simple reason: we don’t know what the systems to derive reputation look like on a global scale.

If you’ve gotten into Bitcoin, you’ve probably heard the term “Austrian Economics.” Because The Austrian School underpins much of the sound money narrative, I want to give a short primer on Austrian Economics.

An overview of all of the different options that issuers have when launching their token, and the pros and cons of each.

In the crypto space, it’s important to follow where the developers are going, and I’ve been excited to see this through the lens of the Ethereum community.

For all its familiarity and abundance, humans have a hard time translating the randomness around us into something that computers can use. When we talk about randomness in a computer system, what we really mean is pseudo-randomness.

Crypto investing teams are going to have to be multidisciplinary. It’s not just about having investors and sourcers anymore.

A look at Augur, an Ethereum-based platform for prediction markets.

Before diving into specific career paths, let me ask you three important questions to start noodling on.

Civic is a decentralized application built on Ethereum for identity verification

There's a tendency to throw around the term Sound Money without really knowing what it means, so here's a primer on what it is, where it comes from, and why it matters.

Lisk is a cryptocurrency that aims to be a platform for decentralized applications (dApps) running on sidechains. It uses an EOS-style dPoS consensus algorithm for speed and scalability.

Declarative contracts align the structure of the contract implementation with the reality of the chain by defining exactly what state modifications are permissible, and letting the user modify state directly.

Paul Krugman is wrong -- money should optimize for thoroughness and security, not efficiency.

Steem is a cryptocurrency for a social blogging platform. It has a unique consensus algorithm and economic system that allows it to have the best user experience out of all cryptocurrencies to date.

Before we can achieve efficient and unbiased policy outcomes, actors in the cryptocurrency industry must first acknowledge the discrepancy in incentives and desired policy.

2018 is on track to being the busiest year ever for crypto hacks. As of June of this year, losses from crypto attacks were estimated to total around $2.3 billion, and hackers have shown no signs of slowing down.

Ripple is a cryptocurrency backed by a well-funded company. It uses a different consensus algorithm and data structure from Bitcoin to enable fast and cheap transactions.

Capitalism is based on persons allocating scarce resources to exchange work in a competitive market - with profit maximization being the only goal. This competitive drive took us to new heights, but we're now trending towards a different future.

Crypto has a bit of a narrative problem. When talking about Why Crypto Matters and where The Big Opportunity is, people often begin from different assumptions and have different ends in mind.

From a founder’s perspective, there remain universal company-building fundamentals that apply whether or not your project comes with a token.

Whatever they call it: an airdrop, a gift, or a giveaway, the idea is the same: noble intentions of correcting long-standing iniquities. But how effective can giving away money truly be?

Nano is a cryptocurrency that uses a radically different data structure and consensus algorithm to support feeless and near-instant transactions. This article dives into the how and the trade-offs.

An overview of bitcoin's different use cases, and why Lightning is uniquely positioned to help with scaling.

A guide on specific trading behaviors that manipulate crypto markets.

While we spend a lot of time discussing the potential price, timing, or causal event for the next bull turn, a more interesting and ultimately relevant question is what market narrative will drive it?

0x is a protocol for the decentralized trading of assets on Ethereum. 0x combines off-chain order relay and on-chain settlement to make decentralized exchange cheap and efficient.

At this point in time, it’s apparent that the reason Bitcoin is resilient may not be in the code itself, but, rather, in its behavioral and psychological implications.

It might come as a bit of a surprise that when people ask what formulas I’m using to value cryptoassets, I don’t have a clean answer -- and that’s not for a lack of thinking about it.

While historically fiscal policy like taxation has been enforced by governments, blockchains and cryptoeconomics can also be leveraged to coordinate adherence to publicly-defined social contracts.

MyCrypto doesn’t have analytics on any of our sites. This wasn’t an oversight—we decided not implement them early on.

BAT is a token for a blockchain-based ad platform. The project aims to improve online advertising by cutting out middlemen ad exchanges, protecting a user's privacy, reducing ad fraud, and sharing ad spend with users.

Grin is a new privacy and scalability-focused cryptocurrency that is likely to debut in early 2019. There are several properties unique to Grin that make the project interesting.

I see many teams in the industry today make the common Field of Dreams mistake: “If you build it and call it decentralized, they will come.” But adoption - and understanding - of crypto isn’t going to happen by itself.

The language we use to describe things shapes our understanding of those things. This isn’t a new insight, but it’s one worth repeating. Allowing labels rich in implication to attach themselves to new concepts is dangerous.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of the 1637 projects listed on CoinMarketCap — how are you going to differentiate yourself? Building an exceptional community is paramount to becoming a winning cryptocurrency, and there's a playbook for doing so.

Chia is a blockchain that uses an innovative consensus algorithm known as “proofs of space and time”. The algorithm is designed to be significantly less energy-intensive than proof of work.

As we think about governance in crypto, it's critical to understand the history of politics and law - because governance is inherently about human nature and behavior.

The irony of the ICO boom of 2017-2018 is that some of the fastest and, frankly, easiest risk capital in technology history is poised to be followed by a period of unprecedented demand for verifiable operational excellence.

In an often-referenced post by Chris Dixon, Chris cites that “The reason big new things sneak by incumbents is that the next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a toy.

Tezos is a smart contract platform that aims to improve on Ethereum by introducing an on-chain governance system, a self-amendment system, a delegated proof of stake algorithm, and a more formally verifiable smart contract language.

There’s a lot of stress out there in the cryptocurrency world right now but you probably don’t need me to tell you that. Like the rest of us, you likely live on social media and consume as much cryptocurrency content as possible.

New inflows: The best fundamental indicator when evaluating crypto networks.

Teams aiming to ship cryptographic protocols are facing the problem of attracting top talent to work with them. There is an opportunity to bring together top multidisciplinary talent in a way that is in service of multiple protocol projects.

Monero is one of the most popular privacy-focused cryptocurrencies out there. It's protocol is derived from the CryptoNote protocol that has spawned many other privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.

If you've been paying attention to the cryptoasset landscape recently, you've likely seen the narrative rapidly switch from companies running utility token Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), to Security Token Offerings (STOs).

Zcash is a leading privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that uses zk-SNARKS to hide transaction information. Privacy is valuable and Zcash introduces privacy to the Bitcoin protocol without sacrificing decentralization.

Stellar is a high performance cryptocurrency with a feature-rich protocol that enables users to create custom assets, trade them on a decentralized exchange, and create basic smart contracts. It has growing business and banking adoption.

The Idea Execution Paradox is a phenomenon where a company with an unreleased product has a much easier time increasing the price of its cryptocurrency token than a company with a working product.

Theta is an in-development blockchain built for a decentralized live streaming CDN. Live streaming CDNs are costly to operate and Theta hopes that with decentralization, they can build a significantly cheaper CDN that works for everyone.

QTUM is a smart contract blockchain being developed by a team from China. It's one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the East with a large community and extensive business partnerships.

Cardano is an upcoming smart contract blockchain aiming to challenge Ethereum. A blockchain platform built with a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach, Cardano was designed with scalability and extensibility from day one.

What is VeChain? How does VeChain work? In this article, we take a deep dive into VeChain, a highly anticipated Chinese blockchain project focused on supply chain management.

The conventional wisdom around cryptocurrencies is that they are a revolutionary new payment platform that is censorship-resistant, fast, and trustlessly secure. I'd like to challenge this.

What is EOS? How does EOS work? In this article, we take a deep dive into EOS, a highly anticipated smart contract platform that boasts a significantly better user experience with free transactions, fast confirmations, and high scale.

What is Enigma? How does Enigma work? This article aims to answer all these questions and more about Enigma, a cryptocurrency project that wants to introduce privacy to blockchain computation through secure multi-party computation.

What is the MakerDAO project? How does MakerDAO work? This article aims to answer all these questions and more about MakerDAO, the most developed decentralized stablecoin built on Ethereum.

What is OMG? How does OMG work? This article aims to answer all these questions and more about OmiseGO, a blockchain specialized for decentralized exchange and blockchain interoperability.

In the height of the CryptoKitties mania, virtual cats on the blockchain sold for tens of thousands of dollars each. One user made 462 ether trading CryptoKitties. This is his story.

A deep dive into Binance Coin, the native cryptocurrency asset for one of the most popular online cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Binance