BC BITCOIN
Saved by @ThomassRichards

Another #FreeLoveFriday. So far, I’ve covered Bitcoin, Mastercoin/Omni, and last week ChainLink and the importance of decentralized oracles. Today, let’s talk about one of the most fascinating projects in crypto - @MakerDAO

 In my thread about Mastercoin, I briefly touched on the vital role fiat-backed stablecoins play in crypto markets, but there’s a catch with them:

The counterparty risk of a third-party holding fiat in reserves.
Enter MakerDAO, which set out to create a decentralized, collateral-backed cryptocurrency, DAI, that would be “soft-pegged” to the U.S. Dollar using the power of algorithms. In crypto tradition, its supporters said trust game theory, not operators.
In 2017, MakerDAO published a whitepaper describing a system where anyone could create DAI by leveraging ETH as collateral to create Collateralized Debt Positions. Essentially, you take out a digital USD loan against your crypto.
The game theory of the system is structured such that DAI issuance is controlled to keep the price pegged to $1.00. In essence, it buffers the fluctuations of the underlying collateral to create a synthetic dollar bill.
This obviates the need for a backing bank, or fiat in reserve, or any kind of dependence on fiat, save as a unit of account.
In 2019, the project innovated further to accept forms of collateral beyond just ETH. Now, there’s a whole ecosystem built on MakerDAO’s governance, including the DAI stablecoin, collateral vaults, and oracles.
While DAI seems to be similar to USD, it offers advantages that fiat cannot match. Namely, it is trivial to send even large quantities. No need for costly and slow bank transfers. So that’s why the price for DAI sometimes even exceeds its peg of $1.00.
Admittedly, it took me a while to understand exactly how Maker works -- our paper on the taxonomy of stablecoins sheds some light on its internals. It’s always amazed me how stable DAI has stayed over the years.
https://t.co/Pz3BkJLUM7
My greatest worry about algorithmic stablecoins like DAI had been the game theory. They work well as long as demand has them operating at or above $1.00, but the dynamics of when they fail are not well understood.
But last March, we saw that the biggest threat to the stable value of DAI isn’t governance, but the constraints of its underlying network.
As the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a meltdown of the traditional financial markets, a liquidity shock rang throughout the crypto markets. Ethereum network fees were outrageously high, and that’s if you could get a transaction confirmed.
You’ll recall, DAI is a collateralized product. If you can’t sufficiently re-capitalize your position as the price of your collateral plummets, the Maker contract follows its rules and liquidates your position.
It was sad to see people losing their money & being turned away from crypto. It was also disappointing to see an innovative project take a reputational hit for circumstances that were out of their immediate control.
I’m certain that the MakerDAO ecosystem will continue to innovate and seemingly make magic happen with math. I’m also curious to hear what you all and @RuneKek want to see built around MakerDAO next.

More from Bitcoin

cryptograffiti
cryptograffiti
@cryptograffiti
With Philadelphia now up, the billboard photo thread that teaches those about #Bitcoin as an alternative to our broken financial system is complete

Those in the 12 Federal Reserve Bank cities who see them are directed to the thread below as copied from @BTCvsFED ⬇️


Not long ago, the dollar was backed by gold

This meant you could redeem your dollar for gold & the government had to have enough gold to match the number of dollars they printed

“The Gold Standard” ended in 1971 b/c the US ran low on gold & needed more $ for war & welfare


Without a cap on how much money could be printed, The Federal Reserve (USA’s central bank) was now free to create unlimited quantities of dollars

When the Fed prints money, inflation occurs & prices go up b/c all dollars are worth less

If your earnings don't keep up w/ the rate of inflation the purchasing power of your dollars melts away

Imagine the economy is a pizza & The Fed gives you a slice ($1)

When printing new money, they cut your🍕into more pieces to give out


Yes, you still have a slice ($1) but you’re hungrier b/c that $1 doesn’t go as far

Many Americans hold dollars b/c they can’t afford a home & w/ bills to pay they can’t risk the stock market

Meanwhile, the wealthy move $ into real estate & other assets that better hold value
BITCOIN
Jordan Eliseo
Jordan Eliseo
@JordanEliseo
Agree mate. Well done @ttmygh @profplum99 and @nic__carter on a ripping show. Im obviously in the "gold is superior" camp, though I am long #BTC (tiny position). I thought the best/most interesting point of whole debate was raised by @profplum99 regarding the fact that a 1/n


#Bitcoin transaction is never really final, given the energy required to keep the network running, and obviously its scale issues will only grow over time. That said, I actually though @nic__carter "won" the debate as it were, and I was unconvinced by the threat to national 2/n

security or undermining Fed policy angles Mike put forward. Two areas that are super interesting to me. One is the issue of #Bitcoin ownership, and how concentrated it is in terms of a small % of addresses that own most of it (2% addresses > 95% of holdings I think). 3/n

made great point a lot of this is omnibus/exchange related - so exchange or fund - ie @Grayscale holds #bitcoin for multiple investors. That may well be true - but it brings up 2 other issues. One - it proves that #bitcoin doesn't really "work" without 4/n

centralisation - as this implies most people need exchanges or funds (or @Paypal) to buy it. If so, that kills off a major "bitcoin is better than gold argument" - as in reality, gold is way more decentralised (from mine supply to ownership distribution). It also brings up a 5/n
BITCOIN
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Ugly OldGoat
Ugly OldGoat
@UglyOldGoat1
The #Bitcoin fundamentals of four generations of inflation, entitlements, and regulations are separate and apart from #Bitcoin the technological innovation. If we had sound money there would be little demand for Bitcoin. (1/13)


The notion that gold futures hold down the physical gold price or subjects the gold price to long-term manipulation is a canard. CME gold futures deliveries are settled with warrants meeting exact specifications met by approved refineries, carriers, and warehouses which (2/13)

ensures the integrity of delivery apart from the exchange. https://t.co/CpV1OBSsAT One need look no further than the 1980 Hunt Silver fiasco which illustrates how deliverable futures contracts provide for the discovery of an untapped silver supply resting in people's homes.(3/13)

Not so for Bitcoin. The CME Bakkt Bitcoin contract is for Bakkt Bitcoin. It is not Bitcoin. Bakkt Bitcoin is a cash-settled monthly futures contract. While the Bakkt Bitcoin has geographically storage of private keys, they are not your private keys. (4/13)


Not your keys, not your bitcoin. The Bitcoin Warehouse is an internal ledger The internal ledger operates separate and apart from the Bitcoin blockchain. The only interaction with the public blockchain is during the deposit of bitcoin into the Bakkt Warehouse and the (5/13)
BITCOIN
Dan Held
Dan Held
@danheld
1/ Satoshi’s Vision™ is a silly endeavor, as it doesn’t matter what it was, we are where we are now. However, those pushing the “Bitcoin was first made for payments” narrative insist on cherry-picking sentences from the white paper and forum posts to champion their perspective.

2/ The following tweetstorm is a categorical repudiation of this tired narrative. Bitcoin was purpose-built to first be a Store of Value (SoV), a thread:

3/ How do we determine Satoshi’s intention? We need to look at his ideology, description of functionality/architecture, timing, and audience. Let's start with how Satoshi describes the problem Bitcoin solves. In his first public comms after the whitepaper, in the first paragraph:

4/ “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” - Satoshi

5/ He later expands on that Libertarian thought in his other writings:

“[with Bitcoin] we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.” — Satoshi Nakamoto
BITCOIN
Preston Pysh
Preston Pysh
@PrestonPysh
Here’s my thoughts with BTC lending as this cycle heats up. During the previous cycle we saw BTC prices jump from 10,000 to 20,000 in 16 days. This means that if the borrower overcollateralized with an LTV of 50%, their escrow will be liquidated (unless margin is met)...1/

within half a month. Now, what happens if this cycle produces growth that keeps running at double the price action in another 16 days from there? Well, it means those that just met the previous margin calls, now only have 4 days to respond to the next. So what does 2/

this mean for spreads? It means borrowers start to disappear from the market...which also means the spreads in the derivative market don’t get market makers to service the short-side of the trade. For lending/borrowing platforms that are completely overcollateralized, there 3/

shouldn’t be any problems for the depositors, but if lending/borrowing platforms are cutting corners for some of their borrowers (and they aren’t overcollateralized), the borrowers ability to meet margin calls due to counter-party risks in other parts of their portfolio mix ...4/

could cause systematic risk for all participants of the borrowing/lending platform. This is why transparency on borrowing/lending platforms are paramount to long-term trust and growth in the industry. I suspect the risk to lending/borrowing platforms is actually....5/
BITCOIN

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See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:

And see this thing that I wrote:

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क्या आप जानते हैं कि क्या है, पितृ पक्ष में कौवे को खाना देने के पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण!

श्राद्ध पक्ष में कौओं का बड़ा ही महत्व है। कहते है कौआ यम का प्रतीक है, यदि आपके हाथों दिया गया भोजन ग्रहण कर ले, तो ऐसा माना जाता है कि पितरों की कृपा आपके ऊपर है और वे आपसे ख़ुश है।


कुछ लोग कहते हैं की व्यक्ति मरकर सबसे पहले कौवे के रूप में जन्म लेता है और उसे खाना खिलाने से वह भोजन पितरों को मिलता है

शायद हम सबने अपने घर के किसी बड़े बुज़ुर्ग, किसी पंडित या ज्योतिषाचार्य से ये सुना होगा। वे अनगिनत किस्से सुनाएंगे, कहेंगे बड़े बुज़ुर्ग कह गए इसीलिए ऐसा करना

शायद ही हमें कोई इसके पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण बता सके।

हमारे ऋषि मुनि और पौराणिक काल में रहने वाले लोग मुर्ख नहीं थे! कभी सोचियेगा कौवों को पितृ पक्ष में खिलाई खीर हमारे पूर्वजों तक कैसे पहुंचेगी?

हमारे ऋषि मुनि विद्वान थे, वे जो बात करते या कहते थे उसके पीछे कोई न कोई वैज्ञानिक कारण छुपा होता था।

एक बहुत रोचक तथ्य है पितृ पक्ष, भादो( भाद्रपद) प्रकृति और काक के बीच।

एक बात जो कह सकते कि हम सब ने स्वतः उग आये पीपल या बरगद का पेड़/ पौधा किसी न किसी दीवार, पुरानी

इमारत, पर्वत या अट्टालिकाओं पर ज़रूर देखा होगा। देखा है न?

ज़रा सोचिये पीपल या बरगद की बीज कैसे पहुंचे होंगे वहाँ तक? इनके बीज इतने हल्के भी नहीं होते के हवा उन्हें उड़ाके ले जा सके।
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Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇 Thread. New deck getting published this week: "Consumer startups are awesome, and here's what I'm looking to invest in at Andreessen Horowitz." If you want to read it, subscribe to my newsletter here: https://t.co/262t8eh0wf


1/ A lot of new consumer technologies have been introduced to US households in the last 100 years. But it's taken many of them - like the telephone - more than 50 years to get to the majority of the US. Why is that?


2/ We had to literally teach people how to use phone. Which end goes to your mouth, which goes to your ear. Say "hello" when people call. The motivation of consumers to talk to their friends has always been there, but we had to teach the behavior


3/ If you compare phones to the latest technologies, there's been a huge shift. Things are being picked up much faster.


4/ Even while there's been all this innovation recently, physically speaking, we are still the same human beings from 100,000 years ago.
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