michiel 🦊

@oost_marcel @Revolut Surely this is a dig at @LloydsBank

Today @Revolut is debuting its first major campaign as a UK 🇬🇧 licensed bank: ‘Welcome To My Bank’ What do you think?

The robot treasury management experiment begins..

@TheStalwart Like thinking of a new colour.

I still don’t get extreme multidimensional space. How could there be more than three dimensions. Ok time. Fine that’s four. But more than that? Come on.

@StaniKulechov I love Aave but this is such a random comparison - unsecured BNPL loans vs. overcollateralised DeFi

Aave operates at fintech scale.

@TheDeFinvestor If my grandma had wheels she’d be a bike

If AAVE was a bank, it would be the #43 largest US bank by TVL. DeFi is slowly but surely taking over the financial sector.

@inno_ox @solana @phantom @solflare @jup_mobile Where's the underlying data?

Wallet war on @solana ⚔️ SOL wallets are competing for users attention. >@phantom once dominant, now slowly losing ground >@solflare rising fast, Breakpoint prolly a turning point >@jup_mobile growing steadily with powerful features. Which wallet do you use? Thinking of a switch?

@efipm and it's working! Ramp is a hell of a company.

Amen. Someone is thinking beyond this and the next quarter.

@xkonjin High value post fr Wonder how segments compare to trad neobanks eg Chime, Revolut, Cash App.

Most neobanks will fail and churn their incentives chasing linear utility curves. The fundamental category error founders are making is treating Regulatory Friction (Location) and Liquidity Preference (Asset Class) as correlated variables. They assume that high-friction environments equal low-sophistication users, or that friendly environments equal high-adoption mass markets. Scraping data from social media across regions and user types shows they are generally orthogonal with p95. If you map fiat vs crypto friendly zones against fiat:crypto liquidity ratio (how much crypto do you hold vs your fiat wealth) we uncover interesting data pointing to the true crypto neobank user archetypes. The majority of neobanks you see live on the market today are in the top left, chasing linear utility curves (much loved by @SlackHQ founder @stewart) with the same offers and churning incentives with no real moat. This only appeals to the "Yield Tourist" (Friendly Env / Low Crypto Net Worth). These users are mostly mercenaries. Their loyalty is rented, not owned. As soon as a competitor offers a higher basis point or two on benefits, they churn. You are likely optimizing for a linear curve (more features = more value) when your optimal user is on a logarithmic or exponential curve (basic access = 90% value or whales seeking status such as the Atlas / Amex black cohort). Real crypto neobanks need to go back to basics and solve real problems for crypto natives. Can i pay my mortgage with my crypto? Can i pay for my direct debit with crypto? Can i treat my crypto like money? These questions are different depending on where you live and your wealth status. In reality, only two products will win in the long term. Product A: Optimizes for helping crypto natives in traditionally hostile environments. It is boring, invisible, and bulletproof. It serves the Hostile Quadrant. It solves hard problems. Product B: Optimizes for Asset Efficiency and status. It is flashy, complex, and status driven. It serves the Friendly Quadrant. It gives people a better experience while allowing them to do more with their crypto. Most lie in a no-mans land in the middle, not quite as good as a high street neobank like revolut or cashapp, but not able to be used to truly life off grid. The true crypto neobank dream is half finished. The company that verticalizes the stack, closes the loop with merchants and crypto holders while allowing them to spend their crypto like money for real life things will win. @andrewchen 's work on Allele metrics for closing local loops with Uber is relevant here. Return to crypto. Give people freedom to live with their crypto. Own your stack, close the loop, set people free. Caveat: This is not a dig at current neobanks, we are so far ahead of where we were just a few years ago and this is a positive sum industry, we win together by overturning legacy systems. Make no mistake, incumbents will shut down your accounts whether they accept stablecoins or not.

@OG_RogerTennis 100%

A brief rant on why Defi sucks! Defi's primary adaption problem has long been UI. Ironically the industry running on superior rails than tradfi can't produce a simple UI that every-day people can actually use. Defi is actually the worst user experience I have ever seen > ledgers, wallet extensions, dozens of gas tokens, bridges, chains, signing, approvals, non-stop hacks, phising, seed-phrases. And 99% of protocols don't get it as they are probably focused on extracting VC-funds asap through their zero-value governance tokens. Many times it is a get rich quick scheme for non-serious people. So we see endless iterations of hot trends (CDP, CLP, perps, prediction markets etc...) instead of actual innovation that could help onboard, you know, the 99.9% of the population that will never use a Metamask and pay gas. Aave App is the first Defi product I have ever seen that seems to actually bridge the gap. Why? - Trusted brand - No Defi-crypto mentioned - no ledgers, no signing, no gas, no swapping, no Metamask - Protection: $1mn deposit insurance - Seemless on/off ramping from your bank account It is that simple. Defi would be much more successful if protocols used blockchain as a seamless back-end, and built actual platforms that normal people can use. That is why, I think tradfi/fintech is a huge threat to OG defi protocols that want to continue to build sandcastles in their little VC-sandboxes as opposed to build consumer-friendly apps, platforms that normal people outside of the 10,000 active users (sybill, bot, capital adjusted) we have in Defi can actually use.

@TheDeFinvestor @ethena @ResolvLabs @aegis_im @USDai_Official @OpenEden_X @capmoney_ @almanak @noon_capital We also need a standardised way of scoring risk based on that transparency.

DeFi needs way more transparency. Here are a few yield-bearing stablecoin products with transparent backing: @ethena's sUSDe @ResolvLabs's wstUSR @aegis_im's YUSD @USDai_Official's USDai @OpenEden_X's cUSDO @capmoney_'s stcUSD @almanak's alUSD @noon_capital's sUSN @infiniFi's iUSDe @strata_money's srUSDe @falconfinance's sUSDf @fraxfinance's frxUSD I'm surely missing a lot of protocols, but these are a few great examples. Shoutout to the teams that remain aligned with the core ethos of crypto.

@LexSokolin @bpmilne Etherfi, Avalanche, and Kolo use Rain but are counted separately in the chart. The Rain data includes the remaining other programs.

@bpmilne You’re probably right, will do some research!

Crypto fundamentals exist

Reminder that DeFi TVL is skewed towards higher risk profiles Blue-chip DeFi yields 5% p.a. on stablecoins and compares it to TradFi money market funds of 3-4%. But Balancer hack is a reminder that smart contract risk is very real even on the most seemingly robust dapps.

We are live with ZERO fees on swaps into mUSD 🫡

@mert not only has it made it worse -- but everything is written the same annoying way.

think it can be argued that chatgpt has made the internet net worse so far

what stage of the cycle is this?

@krakenfx @cz_binance who cares about USD? 😀

@cz_binance The price of one Bitcoin if it had the same market cap as gold would be over 1 million USD for reference

Prediction: Bitcoin will flip gold. I don't know exactly when. Might take some time, but it will happen. Save the tweet.

@cz_binance I made a website last year that tracks this! btc-eats-gold.com

@brian_armstrong Binance Alpha playbook incoming

This makes accessing assets through Coinbase significantly easier and faster than before!

Perps, Prediction Markets, Rewards, and MetaMask USD Cooking!

@TheDeFinvestor very useful ty sir

Crypto Watchlist for the week ahead: $SOL - The final deadline for the spot Solana ETFs applications is Oct. 10 $S - The ICO for Flying Tulip, one of the most hyped dApps coming to Sonic, will happen in October $MNT - The full release of Mantle's UR, a neobank built on blockchain, will happen very soon $PENDLE x $XPL - Pendle will announce a new incentive campaign in partnership with Plasma next week Macro events - US FOMC Meeting Minutes will be released on Oct. 8 $FF - Falcon Finance teased a major announcement for the next days $STBL - STBL Protocol is entering its launch phase on Ethereum starting Oct. 10 $ASTER - Aster will release the airdrop checker for its next airdrop on Oct. 10 $SKY - Sky Protocol (formerly MakerDAO) will launch Savings V2 in October Monad - Monad is rumored to make an announcement next week If you enjoyed reading this, a like and a repost would be appreciated🫡