Future Finance - Issue #113: Compound and Coinbase To Offer DeFi Savings Products to Normies, Twitter Drops Some NFTs And The ABCs Of DAOs

Hi, FF fam! I trust you've all had a great week. This week we saw Coinbase and Compound make moves t

Future Finance - Issue #113: Compound and Coinbase To Offer DeFi Savings Products to Normies, Twitter Drops Some NFTs And The ABCs Of DAOs By Alan Tsen • Issue #113 • View online Hi, FF fam! I trust you've all had a great week. This week we saw Coinbase and Compound make moves to bring defi yields to fintech normies via savings products. As competition continues to heat up in the consumer fintech space, products that allow users to access defi yields will be the next frontier for challenger banks as they look to differentiate their offerings. We're already seeing players like Current (see tweet below) lean in with what looks to be a product that provides access to Compound's high-yield interest rates. I can't wait to see this in the wild! We also saw Twitter drop some fun NFTs on Rarible this week that caught everyone by surprise. My personal fav was the reply guy one. 😂 And always, there's no shortage of news from the industry. So grab a coffee (or beer), and let's get into this week's news from the world of open and decentralised finance. 👉 Got some interesting news I should include in my newsletter? Feel free to respond to this email or hit me up on Twitter - my DMs are always open. — Alan Tsen 👊💯 Ps. If you like what I'm doing here, please feel free to share it on your favourite social media network. Also, it'd be great if you forwarded this newsletter to a friend you think might enjoy it.

Things You Should Know About This Week

Dennis Porter @dennis_porter_ The President of El Salvador @nayibbukele is literally explaining step-by-step on National TV how to use bitcoin. He is also giving $30 in $BTC to every citizen who downloads the government app, but they aren't required. This is true leadership! 🇸🇻 https://t.co/OUHHtLvRY5 12:51 PM - 25 Jun 2021

The ABCs of DAOs As of June 2021, over $1 billion has been committed towards blockchain-native analogs of traditional corporations called decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs. 1729.com  •  Share

Compound Labs Launches 'Treasury' to Get Big Firms Reaping DeFi Yields The USDC-powered savings product could be "shockingly big" for getting fintechs into DeFi, said Compound's Robert Leshner. www.coindesk.com  •  Share

Current @current We're excited to work with Compound Treasury and be able to give our members access to the protocol's interest rates through a simple, unified experience that can enable even more people to improve their financial outcomes. https://t.co/oSgkqikCTD 5:51 AM - 29 Jun 2021

Coinbase Debuts Savings Product With 4% APY On USDC Deposits Coinbase is announcing a crypto savings account with a 4% annual percentage yield (APY) on deposits of the USDC stablecoin. www.coindesk.com  •  Share

Britain Bans Binance's UK Ops In Latest Cryptocurrency Crackdown Britain's financial regulator has said Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, cannot conduct any regulated activity and issued a warning to consumers about the platform, which is coming under growing scrutiny globally. www.reuters.com  •  Share

Goldman Sachs Ramps Up Bitcoin Trading In New Partnership With Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital The moves by Goldman may reverberate on Wall Street and beyond as banks increasingly face pressure from clients who want exposure to bitcoin. www.cnbc.com  •  Share

Are NFTs dead? Making Sense Of The Recent Market Crash Just a couple of months ago, non-fungible tokens seemed to be everywhere. Visual artists, content creators, musicians, virtual marketplaces, investors, collectors – everyone bought into the hype, and many ended up making millions in the process.  tearsheet.co  •  Share

What Actually Happened : IronFinance Writeup of the iron.finance bank run yesterday So with the meltdown we won't know 100% until the devs release the… www.reddit.com  •  Share

Coinbase Receives Crypto Custody License From German Regulator BaFin Coinbase has received the first crypto custody license from Germany's Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). www.coindesk.com  •  Share

Bitcoin, A Currency Of Decolonization France still uses monetary colonialism to exploit 15 African nations. Could Bitcoin be a way out? bitcoinmagazine.com  •  Share

Twitter Is Making NFTs Now, Apparently No, it's not April Fool's Day. But Twitter's entire account has been taken over by NFTs. As its new header reads: "I've stopped moisturizing because tweeting about NFTs is keeping me young now." If that's true, the Twitter bird is going to look like a little baby duckling by the end of the day. This […] techcrunch.com  •  Share

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Germany Opens Gate to Crypto Flood

Plus: FinCEN prioritizes crypto, Congress hears about it and more |

What you need to know today in crypto and beyond  July 1, 2021 Sponsored By:     Welcome to The Node.   If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.   Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Simply reply to this email.   –Daniel Kuhn Today's must-reads Top Shelf WAY TO GO: A new law in Germany takes effect today that could see up to 350 billion euros ($415 billion) flow into crypto. Germany's Fund Location Act allows Spezialfonds, or special funds, the dominant institutional investment vehicle in the country, to invest up to 20% of their portfolios in crypto. Theoretically, if all special funds invested the maximum amount that would total $415 billion, according to Sven Hildebrandt, CEO of Distributed Ledger Consulting.    MAKING HISTORY: Brazil's largest bitcoin exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, raised $200 million in funding from the Softbank Latin America Fund. This is Softbank's largest investment in a Latin America crypto company so far, and the largest Series B round in the region's history.   BIG PRIORITY: The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is taking a closer look at the crypto industry. The agency published its first list of eight government-wide priorities Wednesday, including researching cryptocurrency's use in cybercrime. According to the statement by FinCEN, the agency will specify at a later point how financial institutions should incorporate these priorities.   REGULATION: South Africa is looking into ways to regulate crypto assets following two scams this year. According to the country's financial regulator, a structure is expected to be in place in three to six months.   –Helene Braun  A message from Nexo Your digital assets deserve a savings account in their BEST INTEREST. Leading crypto lender Nexo treats you, your crypto and your fiat to industry-best Crypto & Fiat services, featuring:    * Up to 12% interest on digital assets, paid out daily! * Yields available on BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, XRP, XLM, EOS, TRX, LINK, BNB, PAXG, USDT, USDC, TUSD, PAX, DAI, HUSD, GBP and EUR. * No minimum or maximum limits on funds deposited, offering infinite opportunities to earn. * #ZeroFees on all transactions. * Military-grade wallet security and top-tier insurance on all custodial assets with SOC 2 Type 2 certified crypto custodian BitGo.   Get started at nexo.io "It sounds like the most viable solution is Texas."   –QCP Capital's Darius Sit on Chinese miners, speaking to CoinDesk's "First Mover." A message from CoinDesk EIP 1559: Ethereum's Fee Market Upgrade Explained CoinDesk Research's newest report dives into the economic impacts and investment implications of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. At its core, the code change is designed to make transaction fees on Ethereum less volatile and more predictable.    At the same time, EIP 1559 also poses several risks to Ethereum including risks of miner capitulation or revolt, technological risk in the form of unexpected bugs, and risk of user disappointment.  In this report, CoinDesk Research gives an overview of how EIP 1559 works and its intended impact for investors, miners and users. Download the full report.  What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals The U.S. saw over 80,000 crimes involving cryptocurrency (Forbes) Steven Cohen's Point72 Asset Management is looking to hire a head of cryptocurrencies (Bloomberg) The difficulty of bitcoin mining is about to drop by 27%, following China's crackdown (Decrypt) –H.B. A message from Mimo Introducing PAR, the #1 decentralized Token algorithmically pegged to the Euro, powered by Mimo    The Parallel Protocol makes storing crypto collaterals inside vaults and minting stable assets easier than ever before. Put money in, take money out, safe & sound, all without any tie-ins and at an astounding interest rate of 2%.   To get started, open a vault, choose from an array of collaterals to lock up, and begin minting at aggressively low rates today.   Enter the Future of Capital with Mimo Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway Before We Regulate Crypto, We Need to Know What Crypto Is The government needs to know more about crypto before it can regulate it.    That was a central premise of a congressional hearing yesterday devoted to the risks crypto presents for retail and institutional investors. The hearing was provocatively titled: "America on 'FIRE': Will the Crypto Frenzy Lead to Financial Independence and Early Retirement or Financial Ruin?"   "Today's hearing will ... assess the systemic risks to the economy, as well as the risk of loss to individual investors caused by recent periods of extreme volatility in crypto assets that are not backed by any form of tangible collateral," Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said, kicking off the event.    The hearing took place at a moment when U.S. lawmakers seem to be cranking up the heat on the crypto industry. A host of government officials and agencies have stated the importance of rethinking the nation's crypto strategy. CoinDesk Managing Editor Nik De said yesterday's meeting on Capitol Hill seemed to be more of a fact-finding mission for Congress than a witch hunt. (He live-tweeted the event if you want a full rundown.) Finding facts could be a difficult task in crypto. Despite the fact the industry is (mostly) built on fully transparent and audible ledgers, there's a remarkable amount that's unknown. For instance, exactly how big is this industry? How many cryptocurrencies are there?   "At the outset it is worth noting that there is no official public data source for cryptocurrency prices, market size or volatility. This lack of data is a significant problem," Sarah Hammer, managing director of the Stevens Center for Innovation and Finance at the Wharton School at UPenn, testified. "Financial regulators are at a distinct disadvantage in evaluating their regulatory options," she added later, conceding a general lack of knowledge.    Hammer brings up a significant point: Before regulators can get clear about the risks to consumers or the economy as a whole, they need to get a better grasp on crypto. She noted that before the 2007-2008 financial crisis, there were no official data sources for credit default swaps (the derivatives product that blew a whole in the world's biggest banks) or clarity on how to regulate them.    Of course, there are a number of independent and trustworthy data sources in crypto. But sometimes even getting a clear answer on what bitcoin's price is could be daunting – fractured markets mean there is no unified price, only various estimates using different measures.  A similar question came up this week when a judge dismissed the U.S. government's case against Facebook for monopolistic practices. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg wrote in an opinion: The Federal Trade Commission's "inability to offer any indication of the metric(s) or method(s) it used to calculate Facebook's market share" makes its argument "too speculative and conclusory to go forward."  Boasberg gave the government 30 days to come up with a metric that measures how big the social media economy is and how much attention share Facebook has captured. It'll be a difficult task.  Of course, the government isn't pursuing legal action against "crypto," but it is trying to answer a similar question about size.    –D.K. Sponsored Content   Pirate Chain: Don't Settle for Government Surveillance Coins In this world of government surveillance coins, what is the way out? The only possible answer is a new generation of privacy coins. Pirate Chain, for example, is built on the principle of "Privacy by Design." It takes advantage of zk-SNARKS (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge) to allow users to prove ownership of their assets without revealing any details about the parties in a transaction or the amounts transacted. The cryptocurrency movement has never been so sprawling, reaching every corner of the planet.   Crypto State by CoinDesk aims to connect with local communities to explore this movement of financial disruption and how it trickles down to every corner of the globe, from DeFi investment opportunities to alternative ways to transact and store wealth.    We're making virtual stops with audiences in Nigeria, the Middle East and Southeast Asia this year. Register for the Crypto State virtual tour. The Chaser... ATTENTION: Scammers have been sending fraudulent emails with links to sites disguised to look like coindesk.com. If you are in doubt about a link, type https://www.coindesk.com directly into your browser; do not copy and paste. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The Node   A newsletter from CoinDesk   See Previous Editions Copyright © 2021 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.    250 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003, USA You can manage your preferences here or unsubscribe from all CoinDesk email.