Created ERC20 token to compare to BrianCoin on Sol.
Through remix. Gives you web3, ethers.js, an account address, more. Interact with deployed contracts. Orange methods modify the blockchain, costing gas. Blue methods do not. Native deploys to remix EVM (not accessible outside remix).
Used solidity to write the contract and inherit from ERC20 rather than spl’s cli.
Total token supply.
Fixed: return total amount to the address that initially deployed the contract. That creator can redistribute however they’d like. If _mint is called in the constructor, that’s the max forever. Can’t be called again, only called once at deployment when the contract is instantiated. If mint() is a public method, it can be called over and over.
Lazy minting: tokens are received as the result of an event (typically a reward). Mining a block, purchasing something, etc. This can be uncapped or have a max supply.
Inherit from ERC20Capped and add the cap to the constructor to enforce.
Inherit from Ownable to use onlyOwner, eg to restrict minting to only the person who originally deployed the contract.
@openzeppelin/contracts/access for all the security and RBAC: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/access-control.
Then got out of remix and used a local dev blockchain. Went with hardhat instead of truffle to get some lateral experience.
Tested against an alchemy node (rather than my local geth, or ganache, or infura).
Update the deploy script with hardhat.ethers.getContractFactory and provide the inputs (cap) rather than remix’ gui.
Did the dev version of erc20 brian coin on the polygon mumbai test network. Just add the http endpoint from alchemy to module.exports.networks.<mumbai>.url.<address>. And priv key of deploying address to dotenv, read in on hardhat.config as well.
Added mumbai to metamask. It’s a child of goerli. Faucet: https://faucet.polygon.technology/. Added the custom token as well (via simple address after hardhat deploy).
Overall, I liked the local dev experience of truffle/ganache better than hardhat/alchemy.
And overall, I liked the sol dev experience better than eth.
“sill idealTree buildDep” timing out during npm install. https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/3257.
Disconnect the vpn, or npm config set http[s]-proxy to the proper address.
Remember your wallet seed phrase (at least in metamask) is only associated to the first account. Other accounts must be imported with their relevant private keys. If someone obtains the private key of one account, that doesn’t mean they get automatic access to all other accounts you have in your metamask wallet.
Kubernetes documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE77h7dmoQU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=318elIq37PE.
Stakewiz allows you to set up alerts when a validator is delinquent or changes its commission fees: https://stakewiz.com/.
Saber, AMM on solana. I like raydium better.
More on yield farming.
Particularly leveraged yields, LYF.
Francium (on solana) is big in this space: https://francium.io/.
Tulip (on solana) as well: https://tulip.garden/.
They support auto-compounding vaults, no action necessary.
Their leverage farming option: basically offering select liquidity pools on both raydium and orca, but you only have to provide one of the tokens in the pair; you can automatically swap the necessary amount of yours to match the other. And 3x leverage.
https://medium.com/@Cogent_Crypto/solana-staking-guide-part-1-6a6a85f07b56 focuses on native staking and an intro to liquid staking. Part2 will focus on solend and defi strategies.
Like Yearn on eth, Sunny is a yield aggregator on solana: https://medium.com/sunny-aggregator/introducing-sunny-solanas-composable-defi-yield-aggregator-57e70566304a. Would like more info, but they don’t have any docs. Just twitter/discord. https://app.sunny.ag/.
Remember for marinade, msol accumulates rewards by increasing its value relative to sol, not by adding additional tokens to the staked account.
You don’t need to hold msol to accumulate rewards, per say, you just need to have ownership of it to trade back to sol for greater value at some time. You can lock it up in an LP or lender or vault deposit in the meantime.
It’s currently ~1.033sol. Track here: https://stats.marinade.finance/d/sqUQd1Onk/marinade-kpi-dashboard. 6.67% APY.
Adjusted the marinade-solend leverage. Can’t use turbo pool (up to 90% instead of 75%, LTV = loan-to-value, or percent-of-supply-you-can-borrow) because they don’t allow msol.
Each round of supply-borrow is reduced proportional to the LTV. This is mathematically a sum of numbers, each reduced by that factor. This is a geometric series. (1)x + (0.75)x + (0.75)(0.75)x…etc where x is your initial investment.
Which is the same as the sum from 0 to n of LTV raised to that power. If you do 5 rounds of supply-borrow, then it’s the sum of LTV raised from 0 to 4.
This reduces to (1-LTV^n)/(1-LTV). So if I do 5 rounds of supply-borrow in solend’s main pool (75% LTV), it’s 3.05. If I do 10, it’s 3.77.
The limit as n->inf, the infinite geometric series, (if LTV between 0 and 1, which is true) reduces VERY simply to 1/(1-LTV). Same example above, inf rounds in solend LTV 0.75, it’s 4. The max you can get is 4x leverage at 75% LTV.
In the turbo pool, if you do infinite rounds, you can get 10x leverage.
This is all pretty obvious, but worth going through the math. 10 leverage rounds is fine.
So how do we weigh leverage against APY? Take an example of 2.5k seed.
With 6% APY from msol and 11% from synthetify, you get 17% of 2.5, you get $425 of passive income (in the first year).
With 6% APY from msol, +1% on msol lender supply, -3% on sol lender borrow, +5% slnd/mnde rewards. Total APY is less, 9%, but on 10k (leveraged 4x), $900 in first year. All numbers rounded, but conservatively to exemplify. Relative to the original position, 900/2500, your effective APY is 36%.
There’s subtlety, but just compare APY to leverage. If a leveraged position earns half the APY, but allows >=2x leverage, it’s still worth it.
Impermanent loss.
While your money is providing liquidity in an LP, you’re making from the fees of the people who swap with that liquidity.
If the value of simply holding those tokens would have been better than the rewards from the LP, you’ve taken an impermanent loss (loss because loss, impermanent because you haven’t pulled out).
Can happen in either direction. The price of the token drops, but your liquidity pool value drops by more than that.
Overall, you want the relative value of the pair to stay the same. If either token moves in a direction away from the other, you will have impermanent loss. If they both increase the same amount, or both decrease the same amount, or both don’t change, then you don’t have any impermanent loss. You collect the full profit of the fees from the trades enabled by your liquidity.
Lots of arbitrage opportunities in defi from liquidity price differences across exchanges. This is actually what drives the LPs back to 50/50. AMMs will keep adjusting price (constant product, as more people buy eth the price will increase) to the proper market as arbitragers take advantage and profit from the difference.
L2/sidechain yield farming.
Staking occurs on eth mainnet? Not MATIC on the polygon sidechain? Not sure exactly what that means. PoS is only on the sidechain.
Confirmed: https://blog.stakin.com/a-guide-to-delegating-polygon-matic/. You have to hold and delegate MATIC on eth mainnet. Dumb. Just gonna leave the bridged MATIC on the polygon network for actual use, rather than passive yield.
Just added to LPs on uniswap for polygon/arbtitrum/optimism.
Remember Brave’s browser-native (fast) wallet only supports EVM-compatible chains, including L2s. Sure, it could replace metamask, but not phantom/terrastation/keplr/yoroi/etc.
Google analytics started flowing for bmahlstedt. I should add to supercontest as well.
FIDE Grand Prix leg 1 finished, Hikaru.
Liquid staking. Some general info on the protocol, as well as sol+eth specifics.
Marinade (sol).
You still have access to your funds while yield farming. You stake your sol, earn the apy on that, and then receive msol. You can then use the msol for additional yield (add it to liquidity pools, savings, whatever). Current rates are about 6.25% APY for the original sol, then whatever you can get with msol on your own.
They delegate to a number of validators so you don’t have to. Like an index.
They choose lower validators, to further decentralization: https://docs.marinade.finance/marinade-protocol/validators.
https://github.com/marinade-finance.
You can also stake an already staked account with marinade. Not sure how that works. My guess is that they redelegate it and you stop accumulating rewards with the original validator (getting marinade’s instead). Few answers on https://docs.marinade.finance/faq/faq.
Staking rewards are paid back directly to the account, so you don’t “lose” rewards. You stake accumulated extra in the stake account. This is true of standard sol as well as marinade msol.
Synthetify on Solana. A DEX that supports “synthetic assets” that can represent tokens, equities, commods, anything. https://synthetify.io/resources/synthetify-whitepaper.pdf.
They also have vaults, a generic term used across a number of DeFi products; just means a passive income opportunity. A savings account of sorts, with much better interest. They give you an APY while they use your money for various opportunities behind the scenes (liquidity, market making, etc).
Lido (eth, primarily).
Supports staking eth2 (4.6%), terra (9.5%), and sol (6%). Obv eth2 for pos not pow. You get stETH, stLUNA, stSOL.
Does NOT support staking eth on sidechains or L2s. Only eth mainnet.
Then get additional stETH yield (or wrap to wstETH if your second product requires a static account balance) on a liquidity provider or however you’d like. Curve and yearn have good options.
Zaps are bundled transactions across multiple smart contracts. Common in DeFi. Saves on gas fees and time. Example: approve access, deposit, borrow, wrap, send, swap, unwrap, send, etc. Just do it in one. Helpful for doubleyield flows like this.
Decentralized lending. Some general info on the protocol, as well as sol+eth specifics.
Simpler than you think. Deposit X, which can then be used as collateral to borrow Y. Y obviously can’t go above X.
The borrow limit (consider it yellow) depends on the loan-to-value ratios of the specific tokens you’ve deposited. Some are safer than others. https://docs.solend.fi/protocol/parameters/main-pool.
Above the borrow limit is the liquidation limit (consider it red). Above this threshold, your account is eligible for liquidation.
This borrow APR goes to supply APY. The people receiving loans are paying interest to the financiers, of course (although it’s not 1:1).
Solend for supply/borrow on solana blockchain: https://solend.fi/.
Aave for supply/borrow on the ethereum chain, primarily: https://aave.com/.
They also support polygon and avalanche. It’s only 0.7% supply APY for MATIC right now.
Aave also allows staking, but only for AAVE token.
You don’t need to borrow the same token you supplied. It’s a net-value situation.
While borrow APRs are higher than supply APYs, you can achieve a net negative APR to borrow due to some rewards programs. Example here: https://docs.solend.fi/protocol/liquidity-mining. If you borrow SOL, you owe an APR but you also receive SLND tokens. If these appreciate greater than your borrow APR, you are making money by taking the loan.
Stake sol on marinade -> msol -> deposit msol on solend -> accure mnde and slnd rewards -> collateralize to borrow sol -> accrue slnd rewards -> third-yield the sol however you’d like (LPs, vaults, do it again for more leverage, etc).
Joined a few discord servers, reddit communities, twitter follows, bookmarks, email newsletters, the usuals.
Enabled 2FA on npm.
A little disappointed at how many defi platforms are still (only) on ethereum mainnet. Even mature, good ones. Still on L1.
PLTR still not great.
Reddit list of rugpulls: https://www.reddit.com/r/dao/comments/r9re6z/list_of_rug_and_pull_daos/.
Takes 7 days to withdraw from both arbitrum and optimism back to L1. Polygon withdrawal back to eth mainnet takes ~3h.
Unlike other L2s, you don’t use loopring directly in metamask. Transfer/deposit/withdraw is all on https://loopring.io/#/layer2. You also trade (swap) and have pools on loopring directly, don’t need uniswap. Metamask still connects to it, as withdrawals and deposits are (of course) between L1 and L2.
ERC20 = BEP2 on bnb chain.
Coinbase doesn’t offer luna/xmr/ksm/bnb (in ny). Gemini offers luna.
Coinbase allows staking, but coinbase pro does not.
Tons of transactions and new positions. All yield farming in noncustodial wallets. I have $0 on exchanges now. Modified many addresses in many address books.
MakerDAO = DAI.
Organized bookmarks.
Wallets and staking across a few blockchains.
Polkadot.
Can use Math Wallet for both polkadot and cosmos.
Can also use polkadot.js for account management, sending, staking, etc. https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/accounts. This will autolink to your mathwallet.
Remember polkadot is npos, so you “nominate” a validator. Couple other diff limitations: (1) need 120 DOT minimum (~$2500) and (2) there cannot be more than 22.5k validators globally (right now).
General instructions: https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/articles/65000168057-how-do-i-stake-nominate-on-polkadot-.
For picking validators: https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/articles/65000150130.
https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/staking/targets.
No full dex on polkadot yet, polkadex soon though.
Avg APY 14.7% rn.
Cosmos.
Can use Math Wallet for both polkadot and cosmos.
No app needed, just send ATOM to the desired validators with appropriate MEMOs (as guided by your wallet). Sketchy. I tested this with a small amount.
List of validators: https://www.mintscan.io/cosmos/validators.
Like all others, choose the obvious. Reputable, not oversubscribed, uptime, low commission, etc.
Staked properly with Keplr. Only chrome is officially supported, but you can install the extension on Brave.
ATOM requires a memo when sending to an exchange, I believe.
Terra.
Terra station extension/app/wallet. Stake through this interface as well.
Supported on chrome but works on brave.
https://station.terra.money/ and https://finder.terra.money/.
Algorand.
Pera for mobile is the most popular wallet.
My Algo for web. It’s not a browser extension, it’s a site. https://wallet.myalgo.com/. Not sure how it interfaces with dapps.
Remember algorand is ppos (pure). You don’t have to delegate or elect anything to stake. Your holdings automatically generate stake rewards.
Cardano.
Daedalus most native wallet, but it’s a desktop app.
Yoroi is the browser extension wallet. Like many, built for chrome but works on brave.
Yoroi generates a new public address for every receipt, which is great/safe. Can’t add to the exchange address book, because it changes every time, but still nice.
Kept most off mobile. Reduce vectors.
Idk. Overall staking appears to be a decent average of ~15% APY. No gigantic distinction of pros/cons for use of wallets/DEXes/apps/mobile/extensions/everything across the many chain ecosystems.
Not sure favorite eth L2/sidechain yet.
Nexus mutual: https://nexusmutual.io/.
More research. Decentralized healthcare. Whitepaper: https://nexusmutual.io/assets/docs/nmx_white_paperv2_3.pdf.
Some as others, you can approach claims assessment with (1) oracle data or (2) crowd-sourced prediction market. In order for (2) to work, people need to have skin in the game. That’s what NXM (the membership token) does; stake it to become an assessor.
Obviously, the smart contract keeps a certain level of solvency relative to exposure. MCR = minimum capital requirement.
Became a member (1tx), kyc whitelisted, and bought some NXM (via the affiliate program eth -> weth -> wnxm -> nxm on cowswap and https://wnxm.eth.link/). More fees for the extraneous transactions but ended up with ~3x NXM tokens.
Then you can stake NXM with up to 20 projects. Remember, if that project has a claim paid on it, you could lose your stake. (this smart contract interaction with very gas-expensive).
You can’t sell NXM when total reserve is below 100% of claims (MCR < 100%). You can’t infinite-loop the discount either, because to sell (when MCR<100, which is probably going to be true for a while) you have to wrap then sell wnxm on uniswap (or another), and wnxm is 1/3 the price of nxm. The discount is unidirectional, can only become liquid if you sell NXM directly on nexus’ swap (when MCR > 100).
Remember “eth2” typically refers to the consensus layer. The execution (EVM) layer undergoes upgrades periodically as well.
20million people clicked the superbowl coinbase qr link within 60sec.
Um: https://sports.yahoo.com/dj-steve-aoki-said-made-143502657.html. Aoki made more from his NFT drop last year than the previous decade of musicmaking.
Game 1 of the finals of Grand Prix 1, Nakamura/Aronian draw.
Annoying that you go to all these sites and products advertise themselves as a “protocol” – and nothing more. Cool. That tells me nothing. You could be a legislation, a handshake, a process, a thousand things.
In most cases, they mean a collection of defi smart contracts. Usually a dex/pool/stake/lender.
Fun fact: aave isn’t just a dex/lender on eth, it historically has been an acronym for African American Vernacular English.
Loopring is an eth L2. Uses ZK for rollup. Coin LRC. 2k tps. From a google/crypto guy. Site: https://loopring.org/. App: https://loopring.io/#/layer2 (connects to metamask). Polygon is rolling out ZK soon but loopring is much further ahead.
Layer 1 comparisons (aside btc/eth). Many are derived from eth forks. Many have metamask support, just adding an additional network (like sidechain polygon and L2 artbitrum).
Binance smart chain (now BNB chain, “Build and Build”). dPoS (centralized validators) and PoA. EVM/metamask. Coin BNB. Trust wallet. Binance native DEX, and PancakeSwap. And remember, the original binance chain could not run smart contracts.
Cardano. PoS. Coin ADA (named after lovelace, mathematician just like creator Charles Hoskinson). https://cardano.org/. Ouroboros algo, selecting slot leaders to verify epochs. Interoperability, KMS sidechains and bridges. Daedalus wallet. SundaeSwap DEX.
Terra. PoS. Coin LUNA. https://www.terra.money/. Provides payment services, fees capped 1%, focused on algorithmic (by trading UST<->LUNA) stablecoins bc other crypto is too volatile for mainstream payments. TerraSwap DEX. Anchor Protocol on terra = savings account (20%!). Mirror protocol on terra = equities/commodities market, buy stocks on a dapp.
Avalanche. PoS. Coin AVAX. EVM/metamask. https://www.avax.network/. Avalanche wallet. Pangolin DEX. Consensus algo is Avalanche, custom and very high security. Pretty fast chain, 4.5k tps. Snowman protocol is the linear version.
Polkadot. PoS. Coin DOT. From Gavin Wood. https://polkadot.network/. “Layer 0” – Internet of Blockchains. Hub that links other chains together (“parachains”) on its relay chain. Wallets: https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/build-wallets. Polkadex DEX. Kusama (KSM) is the testnet/canary chain for polkadot, although it’s not pure dev; it’s closer to mini-prod, with actual stakes. This was so they could test governance and things that require an actual value system.
Cosmos. PoS. Coin ATOM. https://cosmos.network/. A little newer. Very similar to polkadot, L0 internet of blockchains. Cosmostation one option for wallet. Gravity DEX. IBC = inter blockchain communication (protocol).
Algorand. PPoS (pure). Coin ALGO. https://www.algorand.com/. From Silvio Micali, MIT professor. Algorand wallet and algodex. Supports L1 and L2 within the algorand network.
Monero. PoW. Coin XMR. https://www.getmonero.org/. Private transactions. No etherscan or anything. Meant to be p2p cash/payments like btc but private, not a full platform with smart contracts like eth. Monero offers its own native gui+cli wallet. No dex since no smart contracts, obviously.
Overall: Eth OG, Sol fastest, Terra stablecoins, DOT(+KSM) and ATOM L0, Monero for private BTC, LRC for ZK L2.
5 hour (watched on 2.5x, so 2hrs) Tim Ferriss and Balaji Srinivasan (former coinbase CTO, Stanford Lecturer, https://www.linkedin.com/in/balajissrinivasan/).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRao8xS_nyM.
It was not technical; mostly geopolitical.
Always remember: bitcoin is a currency. It’s a primitive (in a good/resilient way). The other blockchains are platforms.
Planted lemon pepper, sunflower, eggplant, beet, stevia, and lime basil.
Contango: where the futures price is higher than the spot price. It’s going up. Opposite is backwardation.
Software/crypto bros love the phrase “Cambrian explosion” – I hear it in nearly every podcast.
a16z’s web3 testimony: https://a16z.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/How-to-Win-the-Future-Deck.pdf. Not technical, more high-level impact pitch.
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. VC menlo park. Much of early silicon valley tech and now crypto.
Love the abbreviation a16z, from their last names.
Some stablecoins are algorithmically-pegged, rather than collateralized with fiat.
Tether still #1 at 78b market cap right now, USDC #2 at 52b. Then large dropoff to binance usd, terra, and dai.
Coinmarketcap’s portfolio feature is enter-all-positions-and-transactions-manually, not connect-your-wallets-and-autoupdate.
DeepDao: https://deepdao.io/ (403 when VPNing). They’re to DAOs what coinmarketcap is to coins. Aggregator, analytics, leaderboards, etc.
Lists treasury, holders, active members, proposals, more.
Currently 183 listed DAOs with full data (of ~4k total globally). BitDAO #1, uniswap 2, lido 3.
WalletConnect, protocol to link any wallet to any dapp: https://walletconnect.com/.
Cisco offered >20b for splunk: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-11/splunk-jumps-on-report-that-cisco-made-20-billion-plus-offer.
BlockFi 100m SEC fine (illegally offered yield product).
1inch: https://1inch.io/. Another dao/wallet/dex/api/more (cross-network, primarily eth and its L2s).
Nick Szabo’s post about social scalability: https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html.
Weak subjectivity: a new node is nearly objective and can determine what the current state is correctly (which active chain), but if it’s been offline for a long time then it will need input from other nodes. https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-love-weak-subjectivity/.
He built 2 dapps (https://autonomous.graphics/ and https://firstderivative.market/) and a dynamic (violatory) nft.
Almost everything uses Infura or Alchemy to interact with the blockchain. MetaMask even. It’s just making infura calls (for balances), opensea calls (for NFT holdings) and etherscan calls (for transaction history).
Remember what this means about decentralization. Your client (say, your mobile smartphone) isn’t running a full eth node. It’s making a call to a centralized service that has nodes running on servers.
Now, I can confidently agree – with context.
Reactions on reddit (including vitalik): https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ryk3it/my_first_impressions_of_web3/hrrz15r/.
Transferred decent chunks of MATIC and ETH to each of polygon/optimism/arbitrum.
All can be used directly through metamask, just switch networks.
Obviously to deposit IN, you have to use the bridge for that network to go from eth mainnet to X.
Then, again, dapps that support those networks just connect through metamask as usual.
Or directly send to an address on that specific network (your address for receipt is the same, they just select the appropriate network before sending directly in metamask).
Even wallet transactions to approve usage of various tokens within the wallet; over $15 each. Eth L1 is unusable for the common population (and it’s been much worse before than the current volume).
Gas for a single transaction on optimism just now was still $1-$2. Too much for the avg transaction for the avg person.
Optimism was smoother from a network perspective than arbitrum. Similar gas.
PoW -> PoS. Validators will have to stake 32 ether.
Sharding. The beacon chain is the primary chain, and there are 64 shard chains that run in parallel. Each node only needs to run one shard chain. This parallelizes the network, allowing more transactions (from 15/s to 100k/s) The beacon chain makes sure the shard chains settle and sync properly.
“Docking” is when the current eth blockchain becomes a shard in eth2. An important step on the roadmap. This is phase 1.5.
Some believe we may finish at 1.5 and not go full sharding of phase 2. Vitalik’s thoughts: https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/a-rollup-centric-ethereum-roadmap/4698. Basically, rollups will be so prevalent that we won’t need full phase 2.
Remember PoW punishment for mining an invalid (and ultimately rejected) block is not explicit (you’re not charged) but implicit (you wasted your hashrate). Sure, it’s a self-incentivizing system. But that’s just waste. Is PoS, punishment is explicit. Your stake is slashed.
PoW has an easier time in the earlier days of the blockchain. Anybody can start a node and begin mining. Fairer distribution. PoS requires stake, which requires that somebody send it to you. It all starts with 1 account, then doles out from that actor.
A 51% attack on PoW mean slip to 49% if more people bring up more miners. This is more resilient than PoS, which is static if some group gets 51% of the token. It’s over.
Overall: sure, the points are valid for bitcoin stay better on PoW. But others are more efficient on PoS.
Vitalik’s preference of hard forks over soft forks: https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/03/14/forks_and_markets.html.
Played a little bit more with the connections between GAv4 and MonsterInsights/WordPress.
