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Uncommon Core 2.0

Uncommon Core 2.0

By Uncommon Core 2.0

Uncommon Core 2.0 is a crypto research podcast. This show goes beyond speculation and investing, looking deeper. We explore the fundamental technology and incentives that make public blockchains work under the hood. This show is co-hosted by Hasu and Jon Charbonneau. They’ll be joined by occasional guests, speaking with some of the incredible builders and researchers who are looking to evolve this infrastructure stack to make the mass adoption of crypto possible.
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Defi Top 20 with Arthur0x, Su Zhu and Hasu - Part 2

Uncommon Core 2.0Jan 07, 2021

00:00
01:05:46
Ethereum’s Staking Endgame

Ethereum’s Staking Endgame

Hasu and Jon bring on Ansgar and Caspar from the Ethereum Foundation to discuss the ETH staking endgame. 

 

Ansgar and Caspar recently published two controversial research posts which included a proposal to change Ethereum’s issuance curve. They are concerned that the current ETH staking economics could lead to nearly 100% of ETH being staked, with much of that in LSTs. They propose reducing issuance and targeting a lower stake rate.

 

We go deep in this episode on PoS economics, liquid staking, restaking, economic security, centralization concerns, and much more.

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(00:25) Possible Changes to ETH Staking?  

(00:49) Overview of Current ETH Staking

(16:32) LSTs & Staking Rate Increasing        

(21:36) Nominal vs Real Yield

(23:22) Tax Implications of Staking

(27:57) Staking Demand & External Revenue

(35:33) Stake Ratio Targeting

(36:21) Is 100% Staking Bad?

(40:05) Can ETH LSTs be Money?

(55:24) Would Any Changes Make a Difference?

(01:04:05) Stake Targeting

(01:10:20) Will Targeting Centralize Validators?

(01:22:53) Fiat Money Parallels         

(01:25:16) MEV & Restaking Revenue          

(01:30:52) Electra Proposal to Change Issuance

(01:46:01) Security Budget & Economic Security      

(01:53:40) Validator Set Quality         

(01:55:10) Incentives to Maximize Validator Decentralization

(02:19:00) PoS vs PoW Political Complexity

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Twitter:

Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl

Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb

Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz

Ansgar - https://twitter.com/adietrichs

Caspar - https://twitter.com/casparschwa

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Referenced Materials:

Endgame Staking Economics: A Case for Targeting - https://ethresear.ch/t/endgame-staking-economics-a-case-for-targeting/18751

Electra: Issuance Curve Adjustment Proposal - https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/electra-issuance-curve-adjustment-proposal/18825

Properties of issuance level: consensus incentives and variability across potential reward curves - https://ethresear.ch/t/properties-of-issuance-level-consensus-incentives-and-variability-across-potential-reward-curves/18448

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Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Mar 22, 202402:23:48
SVM vs EVM

SVM vs EVM

Hasu and Jon catchup on what’s new in the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) worlds.


For the EVM, Ethereum has pushed vertical scaling efforts to other chains. This includes Monad, who is building a new EVM L1 with fundamental optimizations to improve scalability.


For the SVM, the Solana ecosystem continues to gain momentum across the board. Meanwhile, Eclipse is gearing up to launch their SVM Ethereum L2.


DBA is an investor in Eclipse Laboratories, Inc. and SOL. Jon has material personal investments in SOL, JitoSOL, ETH, stETH, and TIA. Hasu has material personal investments in ETH and Monad.

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(00:25) Catch up

(00:56) VM Performance Improvements

(02:32) Solana & Eclipse

(04:26) DA vs Execution Bottlenecks

(05:53) Rollups & Parallel Execution

(07:10) Breakpoint

(08:29) Solana & Eclipse – Competitive or Complementary?

(12:48) Ethereum & Solana Funds

(13:33) DBA Research Club

(15:01) What is a VM?

(16:33) Optimistic Parallel Execution vs. Access Lists

(23:45) Solana Resource Pricing

(25:03) Local Fee Markets

(30:48) Liveness Failures

(31:58) A Bottleneck vs. *The* Bottleneck

(35:39) State Growth

(41:29) Weak Statelessness

(45:33) State Expiry & State Rent

(51:10) Solana Un-merklizes State

(51:55) Client Level Optimizations

(53:45) Optimizations for New vs. Old Chains

(57:17) Will Everyone Converge?

(01:00:36) Outro

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Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl

Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb

Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz


Ethereum - https://twitter.com/ethereum

Solana - https://twitter.com/solana

Eclipse - https://twitter.com/EclipseFND

Monad - https://twitter.com/monad_xyz

__

Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.


Dec 07, 202301:01:02
An Incomplete Guide to PBS - with Mike Neuder and Chris Hager

An Incomplete Guide to PBS - with Mike Neuder and Chris Hager

Hasu and Jon bring on Mike Neuder (Ethereum Foundation) and Chris Hager (Flashbots) to discuss the design philosophy of proposer-builder separation (PBS). They first dive into the past and present implementations of PBS, including MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost on Ethereum. Then they discuss the future of PBS - whether PBS should be enshrined, protocol-enforced proposer commitments (PEPC), PBS on L2s, how to prevent censorship, and more. 

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro 

(01:12) What is PBS?

(05:37) The History of PBS

(08:43) MEV-Boost

(10:18) Block Production in Proof-of-Work 

(11:31) Benefits of PBS

(14:17) PBS Makes Based Rollups Viable

(16:21) PEPC & Proposer Complexity

(17:46) Other Builder Services

(19:49) PBS & Regulation

(22:48) Regulation & Encrypted Mempools

(24:38) Division of Labor is Inevitable

(26:15) Risks of PBS

(29:03) Development of COre Protocol Software

(33:31) PEPC, POB, & Alternatives to PBS

(41:53) Decentralization vs. Usefulness Tradeoff

(46:30) State of PBS in MEV-Boost

(50:51) Optimistic Relays

(52:09) Enshrined PBS (ePBS) 

(55:55) PBS on L2

(58:47) PEPC

(01:05:25) Proposer Commitments & User Intents 

(01:09:03) Concluding Remarks

(01:11:05) Recap

(01:12:06) PEPC, PEPC-Boost, & MEV-Boost+

(01:18:44) PBS From First Principles

(01:21:41) PBS is a Philosophy, Not an Implementation

(01:25:44) To Enshrine, Or Not to Enshrine?

(01:35:12) In-protocol vs. Out-of-protocol Development & Funding

(01:50:16) Censorship & Proposer Agency

(01:58:15) Outro & Disclaimer

__

Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl

Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb

Uncommon Core 2.0 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz

Mike Neuder - https://twitter.com/mikeneuder

Chris Hager - https://twitter.com/metachris

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Relays in a post-ePBS world - https://ethresear.ch/t/relays-in-a-post-epbs-world/16278

No free lunch – a new inclusion list design - https://ethresear.ch/t/no-free-lunch-a-new-inclusion-list-design/16389

Payload-timeliness committee (PTC) – an ePBS design - https://ethresear.ch/t/payload-timeliness-committee-ptc-an-epbs-design/16054

Notes on Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) - https://barnabe.substack.com/p/pbs

PEPC FAQ - https://efdn.notion.site/PEPC-FAQ-0787ba2f77e14efba771ff2d903d67e4#41230925420345af84f31b50d806b8ed

PEPC Open Problems - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12kpwAXbZqUA0fu2HnZKSesVwO31ICbgIiacHd0EQ_fk/edit#slide=id.g2401d3821ec_1_0

PBS Guild Proposal [v3 WIP] - https://collective.flashbots.net/t/pbs-guild-proposal-v3-wip/2223

MEV-Boost+/++ - https://www.blog.eigenlayer.xyz/censorship-resistance-with-restaking/

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Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Sep 02, 202301:58:41
How will Rollups Decentralize? Proof-of-Governance and more

How will Rollups Decentralize? Proof-of-Governance and more

In this episode, we explore Jon’s journey into crypto and our mutual passion for research and the writing process. We then give an overview over the key areas of crypto infrastructure today. Finally, we zoom into rollup decentralization roadmaps, and Jon shares a controversial new thesis about sequencer decentralization.

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:42) Interview start

(03:44) Jon's work week

(08:04) ChatGPT & writing

(10:57) Jon's start in crypto

(14:45) How to pick things to work on

(17:08) Outsider's perspective on crypto

(19:05) Jon's research process

(22:00) Jon's proudest moment in crypto

(23:06) Crypto Infrastructure overview

(29:58) Why crypto infrastructure is interesting

(35:57) Rollup decentralization overview

(42:44) Challenges decentralizing the sequencer

(47:46) Ethereum vs Cosmos approach to governance & decentralization

(53:35) User ability to opt out

(56:37) Staking vs. governance deciding sequencers

(01:08:31) L3s

(01:13:34) Superchain

(01:16:38) Summary of rollup decentralization

(01:21:08) Outro

__

Hasu - https://twitter.com/hasufl

Jon Charbonneau - https://twitter.com/jon_charb

UCC2 - https://twitter.com/UCC2_xyz

Website - https://ucc2.xyz

__

Disclaimer: The material and information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speakers and are not the views of any entity or other person with whom the speaker is affiliated, including, without limitation, DBA Crypto, LLC. The “DBA Crypto” name and all forms thereof are the sole property of its owner, and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Jul 14, 202301:21:34
The Merge (Part 2) - with Stephane Gosselin, Danny Ryan, Tim Beiko, and Hasu
May 25, 202201:26:56
The Merge (Part 1) - with Danny Ryan, Tim Beiko, and Hasu

The Merge (Part 1) - with Danny Ryan, Tim Beiko, and Hasu

Listen to conversations between two veterans of the crypto industry: Su Zhu, CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, Strategy lead at Flashbots. Exploring the big ideas in crypto from first principles.

In this episode, Hasu sits down with two Ethereum Foundation researchers, Danny Ryan and Tim Beiko, to explore Ethereum's upcoming transition to PoS. Topics discussed include:

  • Why do blockchains need consensus?
  • How does PoW consensus work today, and how will it change after PoS?
  • What happens between the last block of PoW and the first block of PoS?
  • The role of client modularity and diversity
  • How to test for such an important upgrade

00:00 Intro and guests 03:02 Proof of Stake since 2017  08:18 PoS - Idea to production  12:24 Why do Blockchains need consensus? PoW & PoS Basics  22:21 Why switch to PoS?  37:03 The Merge - How does it happen?  45:14 The Merge - Unbundling of the Consensus & Execution layer  1:01:45 How do you test for such an important upgrade?  1:09:55 End

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May 12, 202201:10:30
The Sovereign Individual - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Apr 01, 202258:35
Hasu gets STARK-pilled - with Eli Ben-Sasson (StarkWare)

Hasu gets STARK-pilled - with Eli Ben-Sasson (StarkWare)

In this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with Eli Ben-Sasson of Starkware. If you listened to my last episode with Su where we talked about the scaling approaches of different L1s blockchains compared to Ethereum, I argued that L1 blockchains do not scale and that the only way to create true scalability is to perform all of the computation off-chain and only post the results of that computation on-chain. STARKs are a technology that allows huge amounts of computation to be compressed into succinct proofs that anyone can easily verify.

Our goal for this episode was to create the most approachable and comprehensive audio resource on how STARKs work and how they will scale blockchains in the future. We start by explaining inclusive accountability and the true meaning of scalability. Then we dive into STARKs, how proof systems work in general, and where they fit into the context of unbundling blockchains. Next, we use DYDX as a comprehensive case study to learn about the StarkEx system, before diving into StarkNet and its tradeoffs to StarkEx. Finally, we talk about StarkWare’s programming language Cairo and how the different costs of proving, verifying, and storage are going to scale into the future. If you’re a developer, you should also gain a very good idea of the tradeoffs between building on a regular L1 blockchain, the general-purpose StarkNet blockchain, and a StarkEx application-specific chain.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
2:03 Eli’s backstory
5:27 What is computational integrity?
14:22 What are STARKs and how do they work?
29:03 How can validity proofs scale blockchains?
34:13 Looking at DYDX + StarkEx as a case study
56:20 What are the differences between StarkNet and StarkEx?
1:02:46 Cairo
1:13:52 What are the different costs for the end-user?

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.

SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast

FOLLOW your hosts

FOLLOW the guest

Dec 16, 202101:37:08
Ethereum vs. Alt L1s - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Dec 13, 202101:23:14
How to value Cryptoassets? - With Su Zhu and Hasu
Nov 10, 202101:04:04
From Skin Trader to NFT Expert - with Anish Agnihotri and Hasu
Oct 28, 202101:39:23
The Game Theory of Crypto - with Jordi Alexander, Su Zhu, and Hasu

The Game Theory of Crypto - with Jordi Alexander, Su Zhu, and Hasu

Today, we welcome Jordi Alexander, a former professional poker player turned macro trader turned crypto trader. 

Jordi competes in the Mind Sports Olympiad and is an expert in games and game theory in general. 

Together we discuss

  • How to pick up new games and improve
  • How you can apply game theory to the crypto markets
  • What Jordi and Su think about the market, especially the role of Bitcoin & Ethereum
  • Why Su is Doge-pilled and whether he can convince us of his thesis

Enjoy!

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.

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Aug 25, 202101:27:54
Interview with a Searcher - with MEV Senpai and Hasu

Interview with a Searcher - with MEV Senpai and Hasu

For our latest episode, I sat down with MEV Senpai, one of the top searchers in Ethereum. He gave us the unique inside perspective of someone who finds and captures MEV himself. The result was a long & intense convo, one of the best I've had in a while.

We discussed:

  • The structure and actors of the MEV game
  • What is searching, how can you learn it, what edges exist
  • Intro to private relays and transaction bundles
  • The role of Flashbots in DEX trading
  • and, of course, the hot topic of the day: short-term reorgs in Ethereum

Enjoy!

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.

SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast

FOLLOW on Twitter

Jul 19, 202102:12:29
State of the Market - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Jun 17, 202101:08:00
Intro to Solana - with Kyle Samani, Su Zhu, and Hasu
Jun 07, 202101:17:12
The most innovative DEX? - with Hasu and Felix Leupold

The most innovative DEX? - with Hasu and Felix Leupold

Earlier this week, I did a deep dive on a new DEX trading protocol called CowSwap, which combines many good features into what is possibly the most complete trading experience in Defi.

First, you no longer publish a fee-paying transaction to the public mempool. Instead, you sign a transaction and submit it off-chain to the CowSwap relayer, which handles all the execution. For you, this means you can safely set a very low slippage tolerance because you only ever pay a fee if your trade succeeds.
Second, and this gets us to real innovation, CowSwap looks for so-called “coincidents of wants” or CoWs before sending your order to the regular on-chain exchanges. For example, if one trader wants to buy ETH at a certain price and another wants to sell it, these two can be matched without paying any LP fees. Off-chain solvers can look at this orderbook and submit optimal matchings that among others, guarantee that all trades in a certain batch have to settle at the same uniform price. Because there’s no point in reordering trades that have the same price, this also eliminates MEV as well.
Only after all coincidents have been exhausted, CowSwap sends the rest of the order to the on-chain exchanges via smart routers like 1Inch

If you didn’t get all of that immediately, don’t worry - neither did I, and that’s why I invited Felix Leupold from CowSwap and Gnosis to answer my remaining questions. Please enjoy my conversation on CowSwap with Felix Leupold.

GUEST
https://cowswap.exchange/#/swap
Felix Leupold
twitter.com/fleupold_

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.
SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast

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Su Zhu twitter.com/zhusu
Hasu twitter.com/hasufl
Our homepage and mailing list uncommoncore.co/podcast/
Transcripts, if available uncommoncore.co/blog/

May 29, 202148:47
Interview with Paradigm - with Charlie Noyes, Georgios Konstantopoulos, and Hasu

Interview with Paradigm - with Charlie Noyes, Georgios Konstantopoulos, and Hasu

May 18, 202101:31:25
Ethereum Bull Case - with Cobie, Su Zhu, and Hasu

Ethereum Bull Case - with Cobie, Su Zhu, and Hasu

For this episode, Su and I invited the legendary trader Cobie, who goes under @CryptoCobain on Twitter. Together, we talked about

  • The bull case for Ethereum and its upcoming catalysts
  • Whether ETH can flippen BTC
  • What advice has helped Cobie to survive several market cycles

Enjoy!

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.

SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast

Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncommon-core/id1517659188?uo=4

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/3vuV292Him90EjQ5YL4XIw

Youtube https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8yNTc4ZDVhMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==

Other https://anchor.fm/uncommoncore

FOLLOW on Twitter

Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu

Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl

Our homepage and mailing list https://uncommoncore.co/podcast/

Transcripts, if available https://uncommoncore.co/blog/

Apr 27, 202101:43:49
Where do the Yields come from in Crypto? - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Apr 05, 202152:23
The Case for Defi - with Richard Galvin, Su Zhu, and Hasu
Mar 05, 202101:02:21
Interview with Zee Prime Capital, Part 2 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

Interview with Zee Prime Capital, Part 2 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

This is part two of our conversation with Matti and Fiskantes of Zee Prime Capital. While the first half was more philosophical in nature, this time we talked exclusively about different blockchain projects and how they might connect to each other in the future. I believe that with gas fees in Ethereum being as high as they, the advent of sharding and layer two solutions, and the first credible Ethereum competitors like Polkadot, Cosmos, and Solana coming to mainnet, this topic has never been more relevant.

In this episode, we covered

  • Why Zee Prime invests in Polkadot and its ecosystem
  • Different approaches to interoperability
  • Binance Smart Chain
  • What role Bitcoin and Ethereum will play in a multi-chain future

Part 1 of 2 https://anchor.fm/uncommoncore/episodes/20-Matti-and-Fiskantes-of-Zee-Prime-Capital---Part-1-eqfb0m

Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu

Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl

Our homepage and mailing list https://uncommoncore.co/podcast/

Feb 21, 202101:01:25
Interview with Zee Prime Capital, Part 1 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

Interview with Zee Prime Capital, Part 1 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

Today, Su and I are sitting down with Matti and Fiskantes of Zee Prime Capital. These two have consistently been among my favorite people to follow on Crypto Twitter, so I’m very glad that they agreed to have this conversation with us.

In fact, we ended up talking for so long that we have to release the episode in two parts. In this first half, we covered

  • The value of Crypto Twitter in finding and spreading ideas
  • Zee Prime’s unique investment thesis and how it is to be an outsider in the VC space
  • How mimetics and reflexity shape crypto markets
  • Whether the current crypto cycle will be the last

Hope you enjoy this conversation, I know I did.

Zee Prime's Investment Thesis https://twitter.com/mattigags/status/1353668468776824840?s=20

Matti's article "On Reflexivity & Imitation" https://insights.deribit.com/market-research/on-reflexivity-and-imitation/

Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu

Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl

Our homepage and mailing list https://uncommoncore.co/podcast/

Feb 16, 202101:08:15
Financial Populism - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Feb 02, 202149:00
Defi Top 20 with Arthur0x, Su Zhu and Hasu - Part 2

Defi Top 20 with Arthur0x, Su Zhu and Hasu - Part 2

This is Part Two of our conversation with Arthur0x on the Top 20 Defi (Decentralized Finance) coins by market cap. Arthur0x went from being one of the earliest users and investors at Synthetix, Aave, and Kyber, to running the largest Defi-focused fund in all of Asia.

Arthur0x https://twitter.com/Arthur_0x
Defiance Capital https://twitter.com/DeFianceCapital
Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu
Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl

Our homepage and mailing list https://uncommoncore.co/podcast/

Jan 07, 202101:05:46
Defi Top 20 with Arthur0x, Su Zhu and Hasu - Part 1
Jan 02, 202101:23:56
Trading Options 101 - with Josh from Orthogonal, Su Zhu, and Hasu
Dec 23, 202001:17:07
Discusssing the Coingecko Top 20 - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Dec 11, 202001:51:24
Interview with DegenSpartan - with Hasu
Nov 13, 202037:43
Art of Trading - with Light, Su Zhu, and Hasu
Oct 23, 202001:24:44
State of the Market - with Su Zhu and Hasu
Oct 08, 202001:00:07
The Sushiswap Story - with Hasu, Anna Rose, and Tarun Chitra
Sep 24, 202040:22
Defi Food Token Mania - with Will and Trent from YAM, Su Zhu, and Hasu
Sep 22, 202046:30
Understanding MEV - with Georgios Konstantopoulos, Dan Robinson, and Hasu
Sep 20, 202001:14:53
Perpetual Swaps 101 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

Perpetual Swaps 101 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

For today’s episode, I sat down with Su Zhu to learn all about perpetual swaps. There’s probably not a person in crypto who has more authority on this topic than him. The first half of the episode serves as a general introduction to perpetual swaps, while in the second half, we explore how perpetual swaps are coming to DeFi and why they are the single biggest primitive that is still missing from the DeFi puzzle.
While the episode can get pretty technical at times, we tried to follow a logical buildup, so no prior knowledge should be required. Please note that I put some links to definitions and followup reading into the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
In this episode:

What is a perpetual swap and how does it work
The history of perp swaps and their usage outside of cryptocurrency
How the oracle problem is misunderstood
AMM and central limit order book: mapping the two approaches to perpetual swaps in DeFi
Tradeoffs between perps in CeFi and DeFi
Perpetual swaps as money legos
How DeFi perp swaps will enable a new form of stablecoin
The role of insurance funds and auto liquidation


Hasu Twitter
twitter.com/hasufl
Su Zhu Twitter twitter.com/zhusu
Episode transcript uncommoncore.co/uncommon-core-podcast-episode-8-transcript/
Definitions and further reading:

TWAP: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-weighted_average_price
LIBOR: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor
CFD: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_for_difference
Tom next swaps: www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tomorrownext.asp
Rolling a futures contract www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rollforward.asp
yTokens and yVaults: anchor.fm/uncommoncore/episodes/6-Andre-Cronje-and-the-Philosophy-of-Yearn-Finance-ei4vds
Synthetix tokens and inverse tokens: docs.synthetix.io/tokens/
Article on crypto banking insights.deribit.com/market-research/the-great-race-to-crypto-banking/
Design space for auto liquidation mechanisms insights.deribit.com/market-research/crypto-derivatives-exchanges-liquidation-pioneers/
Aug 27, 202001:07:21
Interview with Andre Cronje, Part 2 - with Hasu and Tarun Chitra

Interview with Andre Cronje, Part 2 - with Hasu and Tarun Chitra

We return for the second half of our interview with Andre Cronje, a long-time DeFi developer, and creator of Yearn Finance. You can think of Yearn as a smart bank account that automatically allocates your assets to different low-risk investment strategies that execute on the Ethereum blockchain.
My co-host is Tarun Chitra, the CEO and founder of Gauntlet, a company that helps stress test the incentive structures and economics of cryptocurrency protocols, especially of DeFi protocols.
In this episode, we explore governance in Yearn in particular and how governance in DeFi should work in general. What roles exist, and how can we align their incentives? Is governance a feature to be tokenized and sold off, or an attack vector to be closed? How does the price of a governance token affect the security of its parent protocol? And why does Andre eventually want to retreat from being the lead developer of Yearn Finance?
Yearn Finance
Gauntlet
Hasu's article "Is Yearn.finance safe to use?"
Episode Transcript
Aug 21, 202001:04:35
Interview with Andre Cronje, Part 1 - with Hasu and Tarun Chitra

Interview with Andre Cronje, Part 1 - with Hasu and Tarun Chitra

This week, I - Hasu - talk to Andre Cronje, a long-time DeFi developer, and creator of Yearn Finance. You can think of Yearn as a smart bank account that automatically allocates your assets to different low-risk investment strategies that execute on the Ethereum blockchain.
My co-host is Tarun Chitra, the CEO and founder of Gauntlet, a company that helps stress test the incentive structures and economics of cryptocurrency protocols, especially of DeFi protocols.
We're releasing this interview in two parts. The first gives you an introduction to Yearn Finance, it's future, and Andre's design and investment philosophy in building it. Part II explores the design space for governance systems in DeFi - one of the hottest topics in crypto right now.

Yearn Finance
Gauntlet
Hasu's article "Is Yearn.finance safe to use?"
New: Episode Transcript
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