Andrew Kang Profile picture
Nov 24, 2020 23 tweets 9 min read Read on X
1/ Empty Set Dollar ($ESD) [@emptysetsquad]

The first such asset to simultaneously serve as a Store of Value (SOV), stablecoin and a speculative asset

An incredibly asymmetric and reflexive opportunity
2/ Stablecoins were the first crypto products that achieved product-market fit at scale after Bitcoin

Stablecoin growth is currently parabolic (USDT alone approaching $20B) and will be the first crypto sector to achieve mass adoption Image
3/ So we're all bullish on stablecoins, but traditionally it's been very difficult to gain exposure to their growth

- Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) are private companies whose shares trade extremely thinly OTC
- $MKR is a poor proxy of DAI growth (DAI up, MKR sideways)
4/ Enter $ESD, a decentralized elastic supply stablecoin where supply growth directly translates into returns for $ESD stakeholders

i.e. if the market cap of $ESD increases from $100M to $1B, the $900M increase is reflected in the increased portfolio value of stakers
5/ Why is this important?

$ESD would potentially be the first scalable censorship resistant stablecoin built for exchange

The two closest candidates would be $DAI and $sUSD but they don't cut it

This is a multi-billion dollar opportunity ($10B-$100B+)
6/ $DAI is now backed by centralized collateral (USDC, wBTC, etc)

$sUSD is censorship resistance, but if it was widely used as a medium of exchange (MoE) are, that weakens the system it is built off of (@synthetix_io) as the synth supply needs to be actively traded through sX
7/ $ESD may seem similar to other elastic supply stablecoins such as $AMPL and Basis, but it better in many ways. Namely:

- Stable portfolio value
- Two token system
- Composable / Superfluid Collateral
- Distributed Supply (Satoshi style launch)
8/ $AMPL achieves its $1 target via system wide state modifications (rebases). The issue is that even if $AMPL trades close to $1, your portfolio value can go down even when just holding making it not so stable
9/ $ESD fixes this by replacing rebases with a system of coupons and rewards

Speculators that play the coupon game can risk more to win more. Those that don't want to take risk can simply bond $ESD and have their portfolio value either stay the same or increase (w/ rewards)
10/ $ESD was actually inspired by the Basis design but implemented many protocol improvements leading to greater efficiency. For example the three token system moving to a two token system where the stablecoin serves as both the MOE and speculative asset and shortened cycles
11/ One of the biggest advantages of $ESD since it doesn't rebase is that it can easily serve as a money lego to be plugged into other protocols (all AMMs, money markets, etc.) This is smth $AMPL has struggled with.

A vote has already passed to create a Curve Metapool
12/ This was by far the most voted on proposal for @CurveFinance so far. With it's potential to become premium collateral, it can serve as one of the foundational building blocks within DeFi

gov.curve.fi/t/scip-11-add-…
13/ The most exciting thing is the quantity and quality of DeFi gigabrains that have been very involved: @will__price @delitzer @rleshner @scott_lew_is @_wilbur4ce_ @LewisFreiberg etc

The current design might not be perfect, but this is the community that could get it there
14/ Not only is the community iterating on the protocol but building a fascinating ecosystem of tools and projects around it

I've always been skeptical of algorithmic stablecoins but $ESD has the highest potential of any I've seen and the first time I've been excited about one
15/ Of course we can't forget what everyone cares about - the absurd farming yields:

During max expansions, this works out to around 3% / epoch (8 hours) - 5000%+ APY

Currently, the yield is 1.66%/epoch. Still not bad.
18/ ESD 2.0 featuring zero-coupon bond system by @will__price and @scott_lew_is

medium.com/@scott_lew_is/…
ESD Podcast to explain basic concepts

open.spotify.com/show/6dxJSX3AR…
An ESD focused fund is launching

complementcap.substack.com/p/coming-soon
Instructional Video by @ssdavari

APR is actually an underestimate since yields compound every epoch (every 8 hours)

esd.tools Image

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More from @Rewkang

Mar 11
This was pretty insane memecoin alpha from AVAX foundation

Whenever a big player says they are buying, it never fails to ignite momentum when market conditions are ok (CZ/Binance in March, early Saylor buys, etc). Suddenly, the technology improves

Don’t fight the fed
Think you see this strategy replicated across all chains/foundations in the future, just as all of them launched DeFi incentive programs

It’s a very high ROI/probability way to increase onchain activity, bridging inflows, community members, etc
It’s the same reflexive loop that chains saw with NFTs last cycle where people needed to buy the chains coins to buy the NFTs and every chain wanted NFT collections but I think there’s more power in this loop because tokens are better speculative vehicles than their NF counterparts
Read 4 tweets
Dec 30, 2023
1/ The road ahead for Arbitrum ($ARB) - Mega thread

2021
- Arbitrum launch

2022
- Nitro upgrade for improved performance
- Arbitrum Odyssey introduced but paused
- Arbitrum Nova, a separate chain built for lost-cost transactions focused on gaming and social apps was launchedImage
2/ 2023 was the year of big launches and announcements

- Launched highly anticipated $ARB token, with 1.162B tokens distributed to ~580k wallets
- TVL doubled since the start of the year
- 4th highest TVL chain - more than Solana and Optimism combined
- Resuming Arbitrum Odyssey Image
3/ But things are just getting started for Arbitrum.

Believe that these following catalysts/narrative will really kickstart the arbitrum flywheel going into 2024:

- Arbitrum Orbits
- STIPS
- ARB Staking
- EIP-4844
Read 15 tweets
Jun 7, 2023
The New King of Money Markets

The @RDNTCapital Thesis twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
1/ At $5B and $2B TVL, Aave and Compound are currently the largest money markets in crypto

By innovating while others cruise, @RDNTCapital is the top competitor to challenge the throne and has the potential to become the new King of Money Markets in all of crypto
2/ At a glance:

-$260m TVL across Arb/BSC

-First functional cross-chain MM (lend on X chain, borrow on Y)
-Launching on ETH & zkSync next
-Safely adding more collateral like $ARB (other MMs move slowly)
-Token design optimized for demand & protocol growth
Read 16 tweets
Feb 27, 2023
Accumulated spot position in $STX last 2 weeks as well

As an investment, it hits the sweet spots of good supply schedule, strong marketability, cheap relative valuation, important catalysts ahead, proven bear market resistant builders
Main catalyst is the Bitcoin Halving in a year and I think Hal's comparison to LDO & the merge is pretty apt

Second big catalyst would be potential catalysts for DeFi on Stacks - potentially catalzying a 9-10 figure DeFi ecosystem built around $BTC
On relative valuation, my proxy would be Lightning network who i believe if they had a token would be valued at least multi-billion FDV just based on brand value alone, regardless of usage

But if DeFi on Stacks takes off, it probably leap frogs Lightning on actual usage
Read 7 tweets
Jan 25, 2023
Every cycle, people need a good excuse to miss the bottom

in 2018, it was Tether FUD. This cycle, it's "bad macro"

Markets are forward-looking - equities can bottom almost a year before recession

For $BTC, its likely the worst is behind us

kitco.com/news/2018-12-2… Image
Yes, the Macro situation is not inspiring (for the US), but after an 80% drawdown, it seems to be overly priced in

It would take an extreme catastrophe to create even worse sentiment

The negativity of 2022 was an opportunity to buy cheap $BTC - can you ask more from the market?
The ego is a wonderful thing - its hard to admit being wrong and missing the bottom

But the sooner one can overcome that, the more coins one will acquire
Read 4 tweets
Jan 16, 2023
1/ 2022 Echo Bubble - Full thesis

A thread presenting evidence for a mid term bottom and oncoming "echo bubble" with thorough confluence from technical analysis, onchain data, and exchange/derivatives data
/2 From a TA perspective, we have just given every person that considers technicals in their trading/investing reason to start to look for long exposure. $BTC & $ETH have broken above diagonal trendlines & MAs, started weekly momentum crossovers, reclaimed important supports
3/ The most important indicator of an oncoming rally is the weekly RSI crossover from a previous very long period of bearish momentum implying large potential energy for a move higher based on a supply squeeze.

Read 19 tweets

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