Category: Crypto
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DeFi will do to Banks what the Internet did to Newspapers
The early days of the World Wide Web were a heady time for newspapers.
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3 Things DeFi Lending can learn from the Financial Crisis
Despite how different it is from finance, DeFi will need to grapple with three of the same factors that led to the 2007 financial crisis that birthed crypto: yield chasing, musical chairs, and hyper connectedness. In physics, it’s impossible to get away from gravity. In finance, it’s impossible to get away from the market.
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The Blockchain Wars
A few blockchain networks will eventually find a smart user acquisition strategy or game-changing technology (worldwide scalability) or a killer value proposition and start growing.
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The ICO Bat-Signal
In Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon uses the bat-signal to summon Batman. The ICO, for all its mainstream criticism, was the bat-signal that attracted so many to crypto. It catalyzed coordination that made cryptocurrency into a mass movement explored not just by cyperphunks, but by everyone.
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When Elvis Met Satoshi
Like a music fan naively asking “why can’t we all just love all forms of rock and roll,” those in crypto asking “why can’t we all just get along” miss the impossibility of that outcome. The vitriol is an inevitable result of different early adopter communities composed of clashing viewpoints. And the tribalism has some…
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Centralization First
Though it may seem counterintuitive, these blockchain protocols should be centralized at first — and only decentralized over time. This avoids the diminished development productivity and greater security risks of premature decentralization.
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The Tyranny of Values
We generally think of values as overwhelmingly positive. Instead, values are designed to encourage an outcome in a certain context. To make the best decisions, we need to understand the environments when these values are counterproductive.
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Why Crypto Contracts Matter
Cryptocurrencies offer us a powerful trifecta: they allow us to remove costly middlemen, reduce certain forms of regulations, and crucially, engender trust where none existed before. They can lead a more collaborative world that enables commerce that would have been otherwise impossible.
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Engineers and Ethics in Software
Every software engineer I’ve worked with has had a strong sense of personal values and ethics, but the organizations we work for can take actions that are at odds with these. Iit’s critical that you think about the impact of your work and consciously set your personal values in advance of inevitable future challenges.