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Nick Chong

14 Jun, 10 tweets, 4 min read

The last time Ethereum gas was this low—as far as I remember—was the start of 2020, around the time of the initial launch of Aave.

A lot has changed in that time for Ethereum and DeFi. Let's recap.

A 🧵

Ethereum now settles over $45 billion in transaction volume each day, between ETH and stablecoins alone.

At the start of 2020, this value was closer to $900 million, lower than Bitcoin's $ throughput at the time as per CoinMetrics data.

There is now over $60 billion locked in Ethereum DeFi today.

At the start of January 2020, that value sat at $700 million, most of which was ETH and a smattering of ERC-20 tokens deposited in Maker to mint DAI.

DEXs today have begun to encroach on centralized exchanges.

Benefits include but are not limited to permissionless access, support for long-tail assets, and sometimes, deeper books.

Yesterday, Uniswap processed over $1.1b in volume, outpacing Bitfinex, Bitflyer, and Bitstamp.

The Truffle development environment has surpassed five million downloads as developers continue to flock to Ethereum.

@gitcoin

An additional $20 million was allocated to Ethereum developers and community members via @gitcoin since January 2020.

Q1 2021 was the largest quarter yet, facilitating $6.5 million in funding, around $3,000 per hour over that quarter.

ETH2 has started to come to fruition.

At the start of 2020, there was heavy criticism of Ethereum 2.0 by the BTC crew and others due to a delayed timeline.

There is now $14 billion in ETH betting on the launch of ETH2.

Bitcoin is flocking to Ethereum.

Today, over 239,847 BTC—or over 1% of the total supply—exists on Ethereum.

At the start of 2020, the figure was closer to 1,000
Bitcoin.

Thematically, early 2020 DeFi was primarily focused on one thing: borrowing, primarily through MakerDAO.

Today, we've seen the use cases for DeFi expand to trading, synthetics, asset management, and more.

And there's more to come. Derivatives👀

So what's behind the drop in gas prices?

Polygon happened. A bit of BSC and Solana too, probably. Prices dropped as well.

But is DeFi gone?

I don't think so. Polygon's consistently full blocks are a testament to that, as are the billions of $ still locked in smart contracts.

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More from @n2ckchong

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

9 May

@MakerDAO

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

Next on deck: @MakerDAO, DeFi's "central bank" and the issuer of the DAI stablecoin. Arguably one of the most important dApps.

A 🧵

TL;DR: MakerDAO allows users to collateralize their Ethereum-based assets to issue the $DAI stablecoin in a permissionless manner.

MakerDAO is often seen as DeFi's "central bank."

1) Bitcoin and Ethereum are inherently assets used for transaction fees. ERC-20 tokens were, at least prior to this cycle, also w/o much utility.

Users would thus hold most crypto assets in expectation of price appreciation, not in expectation of a native yield or dividend.

Read 29 tweets

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

7 May

As more retail enters DeFi, more capital will flow toward yield farms as users seek to capture the best return on their idle assets.

I don't claim to have it all figured out, though here are a few tips I've learned over the past year.

A 🧵

1) Watch your favorite follows' favorite follows and their likes.

While many DeFi chads may be tight-lipped in their feeds about the farms they're in, some (mistakenly?) follow the farms they enter or are watching on Twitter. Likes matter too.

twitter.com/Cryptoyieldinfo

2) Keep a close eye on this chad. He leaks alpha all the time.

Issue is, he isn't straightforward about it. Read his tweets closely. Google synonyms / related terms. Try out those terms then add a .finance or .fi.

twitter.com/Cryptoyieldinfo

Read 12 tweets

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

30 Apr

Over the past few months, both real-life friends and new Internet friends have asked how they can start getting involved in crypto & DeFi more professionally, even as kids my age.

I don't claim to have it all figured out, though I have some personal tricks & tips.

A quick 🧵

1a) Work on your Twitter!

Twitter is actually *the place* to network in crypto. Aside from the shills and low-effort shitposts, almost every person "in" the space is somewhat active here.

You can easily access founders, investors, innovators, programmers, and more.

https://twitter.com/ashwath_22/status/1387654850683363329

1b) Leak alpha or post things that will teach some audience something.

Users will be inclined to follow you, engage with you, and in sm cases, offer you a job.

Take it from Ashwath—or me! Talent is needed in this space: Twitter is where you can find it.

https://twitter.com/ashwath_22/status/1387654850683363329

Read 9 tweets

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

18 Apr

@Uniswap

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

Next on deck: Uniswap (@Uniswap), a decentralized exchange built on Ethereum utilizing an Automated Market Maker (AMM) model.

A 🧵

TL;DR: Uniswap is a decentralized exchange that automatically matches buyers and sellers of Ethereum assets.

Any user can swap any between any asset, as long as there is a pool that can be routed through.

Any user can also provide liquidity to earn trading fees on assets.

1/ Centralized exchanges have long dominated crypto.

For years, users that wanted to swap between assets (e.g. ETH -> USDC) had to sign up for exchanges, be required to KYC, and risk losing their assets or face long service times.

Read 26 tweets

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

17 Apr

@AaveAave

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

So, let's break down the basics of some of the top protocols.

First on deck: Aave (@AaveAave), an Ethereum-based money market protocol.

A 🧵

TL;DR: Aave is a protocol through which any user anywhere in the world can take decentralized loans by collateralizing their assets.

Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.

1/ For years, most crypto assets had no indirect or direct utility.

Users would hold BTC, ETH, and other assets (including many ERC-20 tokens) with no expectation of a native yield or dividends.

ETH, for instance, was long just an asset for transaction fees, as was Bitcoin.

Read 24 tweets

Nick Chong

@n2ckchong

24 Mar

Spent some time this evening thinking through Uniswap v3 a bit more.

Wanted to break down the basics of this upgrade and some effects it may have on the rest of the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem space.

👇

Fees (1/4):

v2 popularized the model whereby 0.3% of each transaction accrues to liquidity providers.

v2 also has a fee switch where UNI holders are entitled to 0.05% of each transaction—or 16.6% of transaction fees.

Fees (2/4):

v3 introduces three "fee tiers" of 0.05%, 0.3%, and 1%. 1:1 assets may trade in the lowest category while high vol assets may sit in the highest category.

v3 also makes it so governance can set the % (10-25) of LP fees that accrue to protocol on a per-pool basis.

Read 19 tweets

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