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

Nov 21
Upping my odds of an eventual $DOGE ETF to 90%

Moon soon Image
Ngl I wouldn’t be surprised if a Doge ETF got more net inflows during a similar one year time period than the ETH ETF

Have actually heard of substantial institutional interest in DOGE

In the bull market, it’s like Bitcoin, but with more upside
Larry Fink’s face when he thinks about all the fees he’s about to collect from his Doge ETF Image
Read 5 tweets
Oct 27
It’s counterintuitive, but the best tokenomic design for a project (and retail) is to not have investor lock ups and have as much tokens to be as circulating as possible on Day 1 (except team, treasury)

One year cliff and 3-4 year vests are a poor standard that came about from a misunderstanding of capital markets and lazy copy pasting from prior projects

In reality, long vests have little impact on investor contribution post TGE. Good investors will be supportive whether tokens are vesting or not. Opposite for passive investors

The standard needs to changeImage
I wrote about why low float high FDV was bad in 2021. Back then projects started to copy the Serum model of 1% circulating - I pushed that projects should have at very minimum 15-20% circulating on TGE. Now I believe even that is too low. The standard should be 65-75%+

We've given a lot of this advice to new founders, but its tough because you are fighting against bad tokenomics advice from lawyers that misinterpret securities law and other VCs that try to push the status quo

But talk to any past founder and most will tell you that vesting + low float designs are a mistake and result in major headaches down the lineImage
Read 4 tweets
Aug 11
No knowledge of anything actually happening but combination of the below leading me to bet that there’s some interesting developments upcoming for $SUI

1. Raoul pal shill thread while he sits on advisory board
2. Large OTC bids
3. Relatively strong holdership through big unlocks
4. Aggressive price action with no pullback
5. Big recent performance upgrade with Mysiceti potentially allowing for interesting new apps
Many people commenting that they are giving grants to people to shill. If true, this is bullish
Potential speculation into Korea blockchain week announcement
Read 5 tweets
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

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