The DeFi Timeline, Ronin Hack, Aave V3 Launch, and more.
101 today:
A topic we explain —
For our very first newsletter, we’re starting from the basics: What is Decentralized Finance?
Major happenings in the DeFi ecosystem —
Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge suffers a $600m exploit, and Aave announces its V3 iteration launch.
A Goldmine of a Twitter thread that sums it all up —
All major learning resources to get started with DeFi.
A peek behind the doors —
Notes & Updates from our team.
One Topic:
What is Decentralized Finance?
DeFi or Decentralized Finance refers to permissionless and transparent financial services being offered on open blockchains such as Ethereum, and Solana. Permissionless-ness and Transparency are the foundational qualities of DeFi.
‘Permissionless’ means anyone in the world who has access to internet can access the financial services being offered by DeFi pseudonymously - unlike that in the case of TradFi or traditional finance.
Because it is open source and every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, the codes and transactions are both available to be reviewed by anyone - the reason why DeFi is ‘Transparent’.
Marvin Ammori, the chief legal officer of Uniswap has explained what DeFi is and why it matters in today’s world in a very succinct manner here. Have a read.
“With DeFi, anyone in the world can lend, borrow, send, or trade blockchain-based assets using easily downloadable wallets without having to use a bank or broker. If they wish, they can explore even more advanced financial activities — leveraged trading, structured products, synthetic assets, insurance underwriting, market making — while always retaining complete control over their assets.”
— Marvin Ammori
News that made people go:
A $625M hack -
The Ronin bridge for a popular crypto game Axie Infinity suffered a hack of a whopping $625M this week. The hack that actually took place on 23rd March, was not identified until the 29th of March until a user failed to withdraw 5000 ETH from their account.
According to Ronin’s newsletter, the attacker found a backdoor through their gas-free RPC node, which they abused to get the signature for the Axie DAO validator. The key points highlight that -
The Ronin bridge has been exploited for 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC.
The Ronin bridge and Katana Dex have been halted.
Ronin is now “in the process of discussing with Axie Infinity / Sky Mavis stakeholders about how to best move forward and ensure no users' funds are lost.”
Find the newsletter here: Substack - Ronin
AAVE V3 Launch: 🎉
Aave launched its V3 iteration on March 16th. According to Aave, V3 is the “most powerful version of the Protocol to date.” It supports portals that facilitates cross chain transactions, faster load times, higher borrowing power, and a reduction of gas costs by ~20-25%.
In the DeFi world, liquidity flowing seamlessly across multiple chains is a step-up.
Find Aave’s launch announcement here:
One Quote:
“Wealth is not a stagnant dry thing. Wealth is money alive. Wealth is money vibrant. Wealth is money in motion. Wealth is money continuously growing into greater and greater abundance, producing more and more of itself. Wealth is about money flowing with ease and grace and definiteness.”
— Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr
One Tweet:
Major learning resources piled up in one place:
A Peek Behind the Doors:
Last Sunday, our team rolled out a collection of NFTs - ‘Bithoot Aaveians’ exclusively for our early believers.
Aaveians is a collection of high-quality, head-turning pixel art owlets, each unique in its own way. Users can look out for our post on the official Aave Discord to learn how they can earn some good karma and get early access to Bithoots Aaveians and Brew Money!
That’s it for today, folks. See ya next Friday. 🎩