27% APY on a stablecoin - how sustainable is Ethena?

My first thread in a long time.

What is it?

Ethena is a synthetic dollar protocol built on Ethereum that will provide a crypto-native solution for money not reliant on traditional banking.

Ethena's synthetic dollar, USDe, will provide the first censorship-resistant, scalable, and stable crypto-native solution for money achieved by delta-hedging staked Ethereum collateral.

The 'Internet Bond' will combine yield derived from staked Ethereum as well as the funding & basis spread from perpetual and futures' markets. Why are stablecoins so important?

All major trading pairs across spot and futures markets in centralized and decentralized venues are denominated in stablecoin pairs with >90% of orderbook trades and >70% of onchain settlements being stablecoin denominated.

Stablecoins settled >$12 trillion onchain this year, constitute 2 out of the 5 of the largest assets in the space, >40% of TVL in DeFi, and are by far the most utilized assets across decentralized money markets.

AllianceBernstein, a global asset management firm with $725B AUM, predicts that the stablecoin market cap will reach $3T by 2028.

If we examine today's market, the stablecoin market cap is currently at $138B, peaking at $187B. That's a 2000% potential increase!

USDe is aiming to meet this demand by being censorship-resistant, scalable, and stable (hopefully).

The upcoming Arbitrum airdrop will distribute 12.75% of the tokens to the community today.

Here are 10 resources that could be helpful for the Arbitrum airdrop

Smol thread

1/ Countdown to the airdrop:

etherscan.io/block/countdow…

/2

My Crypto Positions In 2023 - Arbitrum Edition

CPI print today was neutral, but $BTC reacted bullishly with a pump-

This means that altcoins will print too.

Here are the main tokens I'm invested in on Arbitrum.

Thread 🧵 To do it, I am using @NestedFi, a very cool decentralised portfolio management platform AND our ongoing sponsor for my newsletter The Black Swan:

route2fi.substack.com

1/21

Everybody is talking about Optimism right now.

Coinbase just announced they're launching a new L2 blockchain called “Base” built on the $OP stack.

In this thread, we’ll look at

1⃣ What Optimism is
2⃣ Why $OP is a top choice for DeFi
3⃣ DeFi protocols with huge potential

🧵/23 1/23

I'll go through the following:

1️⃣ What is Optimism?

2️⃣ What makes Optimism a top choice for DeFi?

3️⃣ DeFi protocols with huge potential

4️⃣ Strong DeFi protocols to keep an eye on

Let's dive in!💰

Arbitrum and its wider ecosystem are on fire right now.

I've found many DeFi protocols with a lot of potential.

Why I'm investing in Arbitrum and a breakdown of my portfolios that you can copy

🧵/22 1/22

In this thread I'll go through the following:

1️⃣ What is Arbitrum

2️⃣ What makes it so special?

3️⃣ 3 great DeFi protocols you must know about

4️⃣ Strong DeFi protocols with lots of upside

5️⃣ An update on my 2 Arbitrum portfolios

A lot has changed for the Fantom Opera network and the ecosystem built on top of it since the parabolic run in 2021.

Let's take a look at what they have built in the bear market, the current narratives, and all the opportunities in the $FTM ecosystem going forward.

Thread👇 Long-term followers of my content may remember that I’ve written threads about $FTM in both 2021 & 2022, but since then, there have been some major upgrades in the works

If you want to look at my earlier Fantom threads, you can find them here:

https://twitter.com/Route2FI/status/1463814714304212992?s=20

/1

Let's talk about Polygon.

Polygon is a layer 2 scaling solution in rapid growth that runs alongside the Ethereum blockchain providing faster transactions and lower fees.

Let's take a look at the narratives and all the opportunities in the ecosystem going forward.

Thread 👇 First, Polygon and $MATIC are often used interchangeably but have clear differences.

Polygon is a layer-2 scaling infrastructure on the Ethereum blockchain, while $MATIC is its native token used to power the ecosystem.

The token $MATIC is currently sitting at an 11B mcap.

/1

It’s time to give an update on the @cosmos ecosystem.

The new whitepaper was released this week, with some important changes.

Let’s have a look at the Cosmos ecosystem and ATOM 2.0

/THREAD The Cosmos Hub has successfully initiated the Internet of Blockchains, achieving its early goals by implementing the software stack used to build and connect app chains, meaning:

Cosmos SDK + IBC + Tendermint.

/1

Some ramblings about time:

In the US you get an average of 3 weeks of vacation every year

The western world teaches us that more is good.

So we end up chasing more. Bigger houses, several cars. Nothing wrong with that.

But unless you're wealthy, this has a price on your time. How much is your time worth?

Everyone has an implicit value for their time, though they may not think in those terms.

Even a billionaire will volunteer to do an extra hour of work if he or she is offered enough money in return (say, $10 million).

How the last year in crypto has changed my mental & physical health + my thoughts about the balance between time vs. chasing more money.

A thread with some reflections.

/1 Those who have followed me since the beginning know that my background is from the stock market blog that I started in '17 and that I made a shift to full-time crypto in the summer of 21.

While the stock market has a smaller window for the opening hours, crypto is open 24/7.

/2

Top 8 best tweets on CT:

I:

"This tweet is both not a joke and not a drill, you can screencap it if it helps.

I called the picotop and picobottom in realtime to sovereign wealth funds, where am I and where are you".

-Zhu Su II:

"Your entire personality is based on a cartoon monkey you don’t understand.

I can buy your BAYC 1000x and your entire family, send to the burn address without altering the trajectory of my financial life one millimeter.

You are a nothing person, a specter in the Ether."

Here are a collection of 10 threads I've enjoyed lately in crypto: A very good thread about what's on the other side of having made it.

About a guy that quit his job and went full-time in crypto.

Not a typical thread. Credz for honesty.

By @magickcian

https://twitter.com/magickcian/status/1543417502780329984

/1

The last month in crypto has been brutal. If you're still around, you're one of the few.

Here are 9 great threads with crypto lessons that will help you prepare for the next bull market (whenever that is)

/THREAD Thoughts about the current bear market by @redphonecrypto

https://twitter.com/redphonecrypto/status/1537514750933966941

/1

19 crypto newsletters/substacks I read regularly: 1. Wrong A Lot by @mattigags

wrongalot.substack.com/archive

The last snapshot for Terra was done 1 hour ago.

Did you have $UST or $LUNA 7th of May? You will get an airdrop.

Did you have $UST or $LUNA 26th of May until 1 hour ago? You will get an airdrop. Not sure if you had $LUNA or $UST at the correct time?

- Check the timestamp here for May 7th (in your local time): finder.terra.money/mainnet/blocks…

- Check the timestamp here for May 26th (in your local time): finder.terra.money/mainnet/blocks…

We've been in a downtrending market for the last 6 months.

Here are 11 great threads with crypto lessons that will help you prepare for the next bull market.

/THREAD A long thread about bear market lessons from @punk6529

👇

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1525565876711444484?s=20&t=z2Rnt3ignFTRaY-13MuYLQ

1/

Some reflections about my own Anchor Protocol journey: I started using Anchor Protocol in September last year.

Initially, I was very skeptical. 20% APY sounded too good to be true.

My long-term background is from equities, and 10-15% APY is counted as a good year in the stock market.

The questions that remain unanswered about $UST / $LUNA:

• We've heard nothing from Do Kwon for over 2 days now.

What's next?

There are so many people that got wiped out by this event that still want answers.

1/11 • Where did Luna Foundation Guard's $BTC go?

There are some unconfirmed rumors they still have $BTC reserves left.

https://twitter.com/Darrenlautf/status/1525075539026845696

/2

What happened to $UST and $LUNA?

A long thread that looks at what happened in the last 4 days

/1 It all started with a massive sell-off on Curve. There was an $85 million UST-to-USDC swap that had the 3-pool slightly out of imbalance.

To put the Curve pool back into balance 50,000 $ETH was sold, and another 20,000 $ETH was sent to Binance.

/2

What a dark night for Terra and $UST.

Bank run on $UST: 52% of Anchor deposits withdrawn within 3 days.

Binance-peg was $0.62 at some point, it is restoring now, but there's no doubt that confidence is lost big time.

There's still $6.7B in Anchor and I think people are... waiting for a $1-peg and that more people will sell off their $UST

Since I've posted a lot of DeFi strategies that contain $UST, I feel very responsible for people that have lost money based on my guides. Ofc, it's DYOR, but in the end maybe I was the one that gave you that idea

The way it goes:

• A crisis starts (eg. Covid-19 in March 2020)

• The government prints money to stimulate continued economic growth

• Inflation and the circulating amount of money increases

• People get more money –> they now both invest and spend more money

1/6 • Both asset prices and consumer good prices increases

• People get richer, so they increase their spending and take out loans to buy even more (houses, cars, luxury goods, stocks, crypto, bonds, etc.)

• Eventually, the government loses track of inflation

2/6