(0) Only a matter of time before [long-spot / short-futures] trade to capture risk-free yield gets tokenized – v. hard previously given only CEX’s had perps. W/ new gen of DEX for derivatives as enabling Lego blocks, this product is now a reality via @USDL on ETH by @LemmaFinance
(1) This basis trade yield had historically hovered around 3-5% to as high as 40-50% depending on how boolish traders are. One’d argue that aside from the Aave / Compound USDC yield, this is the only other true “risk-free” rate in the market.
(2) It’s neat in 3 ways – 1 is that Lemma can eventually move assets across various protocols to capture the best basis spread + deposit into AAVE/COMP equivalents when basis is negative, so assuming low gas the strat should be strictly superior vs. manual.
(3) 2 is that the hard work put into integrating w/ all the deriv platforms gives Lemma a big leg up to eventually (a) become a deriv aggregator and (b) offer cross-margins within 1 platform. In that sense, the $USDL product is just a starting point.
(4) 3 is that $USDL token being a collateral can not only be folded and levered but also should naturally drive meaningful baseload derivative DEX volumes when at scale. Could see Lemma + DEX partners offering decent token incentives supercharging growth here.
(5) Frankly it’s just much easier for ape a product like this vs. manually putting on the trade w/ slippage. Could also see Lemma getting some sweet airdrops from DEX partners + really enjoying economies of scale (gas, fees, crossing, etc) along w/ add’l kick on token rewards.
(6) My guess is the fee structure could eventually look similar to $LDO and $YFI where a small take-rate on yield accruing to $LEMMA treasury (post gas & commissions). It’d get real fancy when 1 day LEMMA can plug directly to (a) other chains and (b) CEX’s directly.
(7) So w/ derivative DEX’s catching depth w/ adoption + appropriate token incentives + integrating w/ the $CRV’s of the world, could personally see $USDL catching meaningful TVL as a new key DeFi lego block. @FoliusVentures is glad to be involved =)
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0 – Got involved w/ @rct_ai; after YC-funding + years of hard work in AI generated content, it’s now leveraging its R&D to explore 3 interesting (& lucrative) GameFi primitives:
- Bots-as-a-service for P2E
- Matrix of NFT-enabled casual games
- AAA Open-world & MMO & FPS title
1 – rct’s “botting” arm @DeterrenceAI basically aims to automate in-game actions specifically targeting P2E games. In other words, instead of needing actual real people to “farm” say $SLP in Axie, there’s no reason why rct’s bot can’t do it.
2 – Machines already automate most of our lives today, & it seems likely that players, DAOs, and guilds will soon “employ” them in P2E games – I could see game devs hating it, but it’s probably best to embrace & tweak in-game econ than to fight the inevitable.
I'm looking for a Research Partner to help buidl @FoliusVentures together.
If you an ex-founder / prop / HF / big tech / degen ready to explore everything out there in Web3, this is for you.
1. The gig:
- lead both public and private investment ideas, full process from A-to-Z, multichain
- help projects in many ways (buidl, tokenecon, biz dev, audit, etc)
- write fire research threads / decks, get ready for podcasts and interviews
2. The ask:
- you are an expert in some Web3 domain(s) and can run circles around me
- you write (much+++) better code than me
- we see eye to eye on what a "good investment" is
- you are really in it for the tech
- you are fluent in >= 1 language(s) aside from English
Been noodling on this Bybit $BIT token for some time. Haven't formed a strong view yet, but I think it might be the cheapest trailing FDV / stakeholder rev. project in the exchange sector today. @QuirkyQwerty_ had a good post about it a week back:
To put it in context, the CEX clears $8-10 Bn of futures volume / day on its gross fee of 5 bps translates to almost 2.5-3 mm of cash (50% of gross fee) going directly into Bitdao treasury / day, almost $1 Bn / year. The treasury already has ~$500+ mm ETH/USD + ~$4 Bn of BIT.
In TradFi speak, $BIT = stonk at 15-20x P/FCF w/ a bal sht of 500 mm cash & can use its 4 Bn $BIT to do deals. 1 thing to note is that while gross fees is 5 bps, after rebate / ref, disc, etc net-fee could be ~2.5-3.5 bps: Bybit is flowing most of its gross profit to Bitdao.
This one hits home. Turns out the moments one tend to remember are the paths not taken:
- Out of college my friend/ roommate ask me to join him as cofounder of a new lending solution. I passed wanting to hold on to my banking job. It’s now one of the largest in this space.
- During my second gig on WS, a good friend of mine is heading back to China to join some news tech company startup and asked if I want to join him via referral. I had a decent HF job at the time and was like nahhhh. That business was called Bytedance.
- and this one is even more recent. I remember learning about Delphi working on some “axey” thing in their WS WeWork and had sushi with another Chad in Taipei as recent as jan 20 about this Dee-Fi stuff. Was like hmmm but I’m still sceptical. You all know what happened next.
(0) Since our last report on Dec 17th, 2020, the Web3 narrative had moved far beyond single-chain #DeFi to prompt another iteration – this time on where we are re: Web3, #DeFi, token gov & fundamentals, & new primitives.
(0.5) Quick side-note, you may notice the new primitive section being a bit barren – that’s because a single person can no longer cover the space by him/herself (aka me aka ngmi :/). Folius needs help and is hiring (more on this later), but plz do reach out if you are interested!
(1) A feature-complete Web3 to us is a friction-and-cost-minimized info & value transfer network, and while BTC is closer to early-adopter status, the broader Web3 with ~5-10 mm MAU is more like the internet in the mid-1990s.