Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.
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 🧵
Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.
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.
Users can deposit a variety of assets as collateral, then use that collateral as ammo to borrow other assets to be used in DeFi or beyond.
Loans are *overcollateralized*.
1. Those looking for steady, relatively safe yield on idle assets.
2. Those that want to leverage their assets by borrowing against their holdings, then trading and spending the loan to achieve utility beyond the rate they pay.
- Find idle assets that can be lent out on Aave
- Deposit said assets
- Earn a per-block, pro-rata interest paid for by those that borrow your assets (assets are pooled, then used) from the protocol
- Find inactive, useless asset
- Deposit it into Aave
- Enable it as collateral
- Borrow desired assets from protocol
- Use borrowed assets for trading, yield farming, spending, etc.
Shorting:
A user can borrow an asset from Aave, sell it, buy it back when the price is lower, then pocket the delta.
This works because the loan is denominated in the asset(s) borrowed.
ETH natively does not produce yield.
It can be used as collateral to borrow assets that *can* earn yield.
Assuming you can earn 15% on USDC and borrow @ 5%, borrowing USDC at a 200% collat. ratio will allow for an effective yield of 5% on ETH.
Say a user is holding Wrapped Bitcoin and wants something on-chain or IRL, though doesn't want to get rid of their WBTC exposure.
A user can collateralize their WBTC, buy what they want, then pay back the loan with income or other assets to reclaim their WBTC.
Aave pioneered flash loans, a concept where anyone can borrow any amount of capital within a single block for a number of use cases.
Did a thread here in the past.
https://t.co/FRn5Pj2TFk
If you've been following DeFi or Ethereum over the past few months, you've likely heard the term "flash loan" mentioned again and again.
— Nick Chong (@n2ckchong) October 29, 2020
This new DeFi primitive has been at the core of a number of economic exploits and arbitrages.
A thread on the basics of flash loans - \U0001f447 pic.twitter.com/uOQC2tzlYl
- A user borrowed 2,048,000 USDC from dYdX
- Traded that USDC for 2,028,367 DAI in Curve's Y pool
- Traded that DAI for 2,064,182 USDC in Curve's sUSD pool
- Paid dYdX back + 2 wei
All in one block...
Profit: 16,182 USDC
Cost: $60 in gas
I'll cover:
- Interest rates
- Terms
- Liquidations
- aTokens
The more an asset is utilized, the higher the rate lenders earn and borrowers pay.
The borrow rate is always above the deposit rate.
Here's the borrow rate model for USDC / USDT.
To mitigate unexpected spikes in utilization affecting the rate one pays on their loan, users can lock in a fixed rate, so they can manage risk properly.
This rate can readjust based on market conditions.
Aave has a number of loan terms that dictate how much one can borrow, at what point they are liquidated, and how much they pay when they are liquidated.
These terms are determined by a risk team, who assess market conditions to minimize risk to protocol collateral.
Unlike traditional loans, Aave loans are liquidated autonomously when a user's loan-to-value ratio falls below certain values.
A large enough drop in the value of one's collateral will allow users to bid the collateral, sell it, then pocket a bonus.
aTokens are yield-bearing assets that accrue interest in real time, allowing one to watch their deposited assets grow by block.
It can be used by other developers to build interesting applications and use cases.
For instance...
@APWineFinance: APWine allows users to trade unrealized yield
etc.
aTokens, flash loans, etc. can all be used in tandem with other contracts to create use cases.
More from Crypto
We are actively working to launch on @binance Smart Chain #BSC .
To make this transition easy & understandable for everyone, we are answering most frequently asked questions here.
Ready? Go! 🔥
1/24
#DeFi #YieldFarming
Q1 - What are the benefits of holding the $VALUE token on the Ethereum Mainnet network? Give me reasons not to sell. Some are assuming that the VALUE token will be abandoned now that vBSWAP is being created. Can you clarify the use case for VALUE?
👉 $VALUE will always be a governance & profit receiving token of the whole ecosystem if staked in #vGov. With the new farming token on #BSC , gvVALUE holders will get extra rewards at BSC if they choose to bridge their gvVALUE to BSC & stake in gvVALUE-B/BUSD 98/2 pool.
Q2 - What do I need to do with my VALUE tokens that are staked in vGov? Is it OK to leave them in the vGov?
👉If you have VALUE but aren't staking in the vGov & you would like to participate in the BSC expansion, you will need to stake your VALUE in the vGov to receive gvVALUE.
If you are staking in vGov but don't see the correct gvVALUE amount in your wallet, go to vGov (https://t.co/udXn5IJtVx) to unlock your gvVALUE from the old contract. There will be a bridge from ETH to BSC to move gvVALUE and vUSD over.
To make this transition easy & understandable for everyone, we are answering most frequently asked questions here.
Ready? Go! 🔥
1/24
#DeFi #YieldFarming
Q1 - What are the benefits of holding the $VALUE token on the Ethereum Mainnet network? Give me reasons not to sell. Some are assuming that the VALUE token will be abandoned now that vBSWAP is being created. Can you clarify the use case for VALUE?
👉 $VALUE will always be a governance & profit receiving token of the whole ecosystem if staked in #vGov. With the new farming token on #BSC , gvVALUE holders will get extra rewards at BSC if they choose to bridge their gvVALUE to BSC & stake in gvVALUE-B/BUSD 98/2 pool.
Q2 - What do I need to do with my VALUE tokens that are staked in vGov? Is it OK to leave them in the vGov?
👉If you have VALUE but aren't staking in the vGov & you would like to participate in the BSC expansion, you will need to stake your VALUE in the vGov to receive gvVALUE.
If you are staking in vGov but don't see the correct gvVALUE amount in your wallet, go to vGov (https://t.co/udXn5IJtVx) to unlock your gvVALUE from the old contract. There will be a bridge from ETH to BSC to move gvVALUE and vUSD over.
Excited to share our 2020 #Bitcoin review.
2020 will be remembered as the year the long fabled institutions finally arrived and #Bitcoin became a bonafide macroeconomic asset.
Below are the top highlights of each month for Bitcoin’s historic year.
1/
Bitcoin is now at all-time highs capping off an extremely successful year.
But it was by no means stable ride up.
2020 was a historically volatile year.
@YoungCryptoPM and I provided a detailed overview of every month of 2020 in all its
Jan.
3 days into the new year the US assassinated Iran’s top general Soleimani.
BTC surprisingly reacted to the events behaving like a safe haven as the risk of war increased.
The events provided the first hints of BTC potentially having graduated to a legitimate macro asset.
Feb.
COVID-19 reached a tipping point causing markets to crash.
BTC’s correlation with the S&P 500 reached an ATH in the following weeks.
This is when everyone learned BTC was not a recession hedge, it was a hedge against inflation and loss of confidence in fiat currencies. https://t.co/JB7dJ3qp6M
Mar.
Financial markets in free fall.
The liquidity crisis was so severe BTC experienced one of it’s worst days ever.
Now known as Black Thursday, on March 12, BTC plummeted as much as 50% to below $4,000 at its lowest point on the day.
BTC closed the day down 40%
2020 will be remembered as the year the long fabled institutions finally arrived and #Bitcoin became a bonafide macroeconomic asset.
Below are the top highlights of each month for Bitcoin’s historic year.
1/
Bitcoin is now at all-time highs capping off an extremely successful year.
But it was by no means stable ride up.
2020 was a historically volatile year.
@YoungCryptoPM and I provided a detailed overview of every month of 2020 in all its
Jan.
3 days into the new year the US assassinated Iran’s top general Soleimani.
BTC surprisingly reacted to the events behaving like a safe haven as the risk of war increased.
The events provided the first hints of BTC potentially having graduated to a legitimate macro asset.
Feb.
COVID-19 reached a tipping point causing markets to crash.
BTC’s correlation with the S&P 500 reached an ATH in the following weeks.
This is when everyone learned BTC was not a recession hedge, it was a hedge against inflation and loss of confidence in fiat currencies. https://t.co/JB7dJ3qp6M
1/ Figure I should get out ahead of this issue:
— Dan McArdle (@robustus) June 22, 2018
Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation & loss of confidence in fiat, NOT a hedge against a typical recession.
Mar.
Financial markets in free fall.
The liquidity crisis was so severe BTC experienced one of it’s worst days ever.
Now known as Black Thursday, on March 12, BTC plummeted as much as 50% to below $4,000 at its lowest point on the day.
BTC closed the day down 40%
I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/
It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
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Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
One thing I've been noticing about responses to today's column is that many people still don't get how strong the forces behind regional divergence are, and how hard to reverse 1/ https://t.co/Ft2aH1NcQt
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
THREAD PART 1.
On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙
He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.
On the 27th of June. Noah's naked body was sadly discovered 950m inside a storm drain, between access points. This storm drain was accessible through an area completely unfamiliar to him, behind houses at Northwood Road. https://t.co/bpz3Rmc0wq
"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."
Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.
On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙
He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.
On the 27th of June. Noah's naked body was sadly discovered 950m inside a storm drain, between access points. This storm drain was accessible through an area completely unfamiliar to him, behind houses at Northwood Road. https://t.co/bpz3Rmc0wq
"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."
Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.