2020 was a game changer for Ethereum.

The vast majority of its success was fueled by #DeFi.

Here's what happened in 5 Tweets 🔽

1) Governance Tokens 🪙

Projects gave complete ownership of billion dollar protocols to their users, often using retroactive airdrops.

Early adopters earned tokens for past usage, and token-based voting now dictates all technical upgrades.

https://t.co/uzR8NW5AyD
2) Liquidity Mining ⛏️

Power users were the first to earn on-going distribution by providing liquidity.

$COMP sparked the wave, with $BAL coining the term a few weeks later.

https://t.co/BGqUNjc0kC
3) Yield Faming 🌾

Projects coupled liquidity mining and governance tokens to boost 'yields' by combining lending rates with an incentive layer.

APYs peaked as high as 1M% during 'DeFi summer', leading to a 'food coin' craze like $YAM and $SUSHI

https://t.co/59pCAav7pk
4) Fair Launches ✅

Who needs investment when you can launch using yield farming?

@iearnfinance debuted $YFI with no formal funding, seeding a community treasury for self-sustainability.

The notion of a core team and community became one and the same.

https://t.co/OuTWjSrcjd
5) Meta-governance 🗳️

Delegation and indexes allowed projects to vote on other protocols using assets under management.

$DPI is the best example, using its $COMP and $UNI to vote based on $INDEX sentiment.

https://t.co/XLjrtRau3w
Key Takeaways:

- Early adopters got paid
- Putting capital to work netted the highest returns
- Liquidity allowed teams to seed a community treasury.
- Treasuries accrued tokens, used to govern other protocols.

Most importantly, team and community merged together.
What's Next?

Composability will flourish, and projects will win liquidity based on cash flows, rather than short-lived APYs.

Governance incentives will boost participation, leading to a vibrant number of protocol politicians.

Curation will thrive.
https://t.co/dxw2P0roQL
This was without a doubt my most exciting year in crypto.

If you're new to #DeFi, take time to learn more with great outlets like @DefiantNews @DeFiRate @BanklessHQ and @Yield_TV.

S/o Daily Gwei by @sassal0x and Daily Ape by @Darrenlautf 💪

Until then, keep up the honest work!

More from Crypto

Out of curiosity I dug into how NFT's actually reference the media you're "buying" and my eyebrows are now orbiting the moon

Short version:

The NFT token you bought either points to a URL on the internet, or an IPFS hash. In most circumstances it references an IPFS gateway on the internet run by the startup you bought the NFT from.

Oh, and that URL is not the media. That URL is a JSON metadata file

Here's an example. This artwork is by Beeple and sold via Nifty:

https://t.co/TlJKH8kAew

The NFT token is for this JSON file hosted directly on Nifty's servers:

https://t.co/GQUaCnObvX


THAT file refers to the actual media you just "bought". Which in this case is hosted via a @cloudinary CDN, served by Nifty's servers again.

So if Nifty goes bust, your token is now worthless. It refers to nothing. This can't be changed.

"But you said some use IPFS!"

Let's look at the $65m Beeple, sold by Christies. Fancy.

https://t.co/1G9nCAdetk

That NFT token refers directly to an IPFS hash (https://t.co/QUdtdgtssH). We can take that IPFS hash and fetch the JSON metadata using a public gateway:

https://t.co/CoML7psBhF
You are running out of time to get ahead in cryptocurrency.

You know what's coming:

🔺️ Regulation
🔺️ More shutdowns
🔺️ Banks deciding who gets to do business

It's time you got your own crypto wallet.

Don't know how? I'll show you.

/////THREAD\\\\\

METAMASK

What's metamask? It's a wallet. That you -- I mean YOU -- own.

You see, when you buy crypto through an exchange like CoinBase, you own it but only kind of.

If they get

🔺 Hacked
🔺 Shutdown
🔺 Servers crash

-- your money is STUCK.

We are gonna avoid that 👇


First thing,

Go to

https://t.co/JXAp9o5RzJ

You can download it on your computer. It's a browser extension.

Alternatively, go to the app store on your Android or iPhone. It's there too.

As part of the setup process, you will choose a password.

More importantly though...

SEED PHRASE

As you follow the setup process, you will be given a 12-word seed phrase.

WRITE. THIS. DOWN.

Take it down and guard it like the map to Davey Jones' Locker.

THESE ARE THE ONLY WAY TO RECOVER YOUR ACCOUNT.

DO NOT LOSE.

We good? Great.

Let's continue.


Once you're all setup, your MetaMask wallet is going to look something like the picture below.

See where it says Crypto Address? That's where your actual address will be.

It'll be a random arrangement of letters, numbers, etc.

Click on it to copy to your clipboard

NEXT STEP

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