According to a recent report by MarketsandMarkets, the market for crypto games is skyrocketing at an astounding pace, and expected to record a CAGR of 70.3% between 2022 and 2027 to reach USD 65.7b.
Given such record growth rates, it does seem like crypto adoption has found another frontier. Blockchain-based games could have a real shot in driving mass crypto adoption as crypto drives the in-game ecosystems.
It is also heartening to know that, while early Web 3 games are focused on GameFi, there are increasingly more of such games that focus on fun gameplay.
Before we delve deeper into some of these games, we shall define what constitutes a Web 3 game.
Most Web 3 games often integrate crypto for their in-game payments or allow gamers to own tradable assets and accessories in the form of NFTs within their gameplay.
The use of smart contracts in the games ensures full transparency when trading these in-game assets and fair gameplay.
1. Kuroro Beast Brawl (The Pokémon of Crypto?)
From the gameplay down to the graphics, Kuroro Beast Brawl is a free-to-play turn-based PVP strategy game that draws its inspiration and bears resemblance to the well-loved Pokemon game.
Similar to Pokemon, players can collect a roster of 30 unique beasts, each of these beasts own a combination of 2 out of the 12 available elements. Players can then send these beasts into battle to experience the thrill of strategic combat.
The ecosystem is powered by the $KURO token on the Ethereum blockchain that facilitates the purchase of beasts and customizable traits in the game.
Kuroro Beast just released a Free-to-Play game called Beast Brawls and will airdrop to all gamers playing it
re you an Anime fan? If so, this next game called Stella Fantasy is the Genshin Impact of Web 3 gaming. Stella Fantasy is a Japanese anime-inspired RPG with beautiful NFT waifu characters.
Gamers can gather resources, craft gear, and battle monsters within the treacherous Abyss Rift dungeon in the mystical world of Verania.
Game Spotlight @rStellaFantasy, which won Best RPG Game in our social contest, will be participating in the @3XPgg Web3 Gaming Expo! Stella Fantasy is a high quality character collectable RPG, where adventurers travel the mystical land of Verania. pic.twitter.com/dXlrGWjhut
— 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo – Powered by Game7 (@3XPgg) May 26, 2023
The characters have different classes such as Mage, Range and Healer. Each class has different utilities and skills.
Backed by notable investors such as Animoca Brands and Play Venture, it is currently live on the Binance Smart Chain and has plans to launch on other chains such as the Sui Network as well.
The players purchase valuable in-game items with the Stella Fantasy $SFTY token.
3. Spider Tank by Gala Games
If you are hard-pressed for time, this is the game for you! With the right setup to achieve the goals of the match, you can win this game in 3 minutes!
your knight in shining armor has just landed in the store
Designed and created by renowned Netherlands-based gaming studio GAMEDIA, Spider Tanks is a free-to-play and play-and-earn PVP game where players act as pilots in spider tanks.
Players can customize their tanks with a wide array of parts and weapons before battling it out and earning $SILK tokens in a fast-paced game.
4. Blocklords (The Age of Empires of Crypto?)
Created by the promising MetaKing Studios, Blocklords is a free-to-play turn-based immersive medieval Web 3 based game that is built on the Polygon Network.
They recently released the Community Beta and partnered with @PolygonGaming.
Embark on a journey to establish your own kingdom, raise formidable armies and battle it out with other players in a quest for greater territorial control.
The characters in Blocklords are known as heroes that have limited lifespan, they are minted as digital assets and belong to the gamer upon creation. Each of the heroes have unique traits and attributes.
5. MixMob
Now you may have heard of a card game or a racing game, but have you heard of a card strategy racing game? MixMob is such a game.
Watch & Bet starts in 10 minutes!
Wager SUD$, spectate in LIVE races, and win rewards in bonus raffles.
Built on Solana and developed by a team that worked on FIFA, Nintendo and Disney, MixMob counts big names such as Solana Ventures, DeFiance Capital and Arthur Hayes’ investment fund Ascensive Assets among its investors.
Final Thoughts
As both gamers and developers converge and warm up to the idea of Web 3 gaming, we can expect to see many more of such interesting and fun blockchain games in the coming months and years to come as the industry grows exponentially.
Many of these Web 3 games that have the most traction often resemble the popular traditional games such as Pokemon. In creating new games, game designers and developers draw inspiration from these successful traditional games in terms of gameplay and gaming mechanics.
Although it still remains to be seen as to which Web 3 game or games will dominate the space, this shift from the focus on gamification of finance to building blockchain games that prioritize fun gameplay is a step in the right direction.
Crypto investing is risky. When scouting for new tokens to allocate toward, investors often surf through countless metrics and publications in order to offset some of the volatility.
One metric that often draws parallels with traditional is the “Fees-to-Market Capitalization” ratio. Arguably, a token should perform well when it generates strong revenue whilst being undervalued.
Fees are operational metrics, protocols generate fees as a result of usage and adoption, some protocols might share their fees generated with liquidity providers others with stakers or just token holders this is why some may use fees and revenue interchangeably.
Another factor to consider is that when a protocol starts seeing an increase in adoption and usage fees generated might increase this means higher fees to stakers and liquidity providers, which in turn creates a positive flywheel, leading to more stakers and LPs committing their funds to the protocol.
As more funds are locked in the protocol the total value locked (TVL) will increase and this is an indicator that the protocol is in good health.
Market Capitalization is a valuation metric that tells us the value of all the circulating supply of a token.
Therefore, the “fees to market capitalization ratio” give us an idea of a protocol’s operational profitability, as well as possible payouts, in this case yield, to stakers and liquidity providers.
This means the higher the figure of the ratio the more valuable a token is using this metric because a higher ratio would mean higher fees and this means that the project is a potentially good investment going by this indicator.
Lido Finance (LDO) is a crypto-staking solution available on Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot and Kusama.
The liquid staking solution lets users stake their ETH with no minimum deposits or maintaining of infrastructure whilst participating in on-chain activities, e.g. lending, to compound returns.
Lido Finance issues stETH tokens for ETH staked on its platform on a 1:1 basis. Stakers can use their stETH tokens like regular ETH for trading on crypto exchanges and for various activities across decentralized finance platforms.
The Lido DAO manages the entire staking fund and charges a 10% fee on the earnings which is split between node operators and the Lido DAO.
Lido also supported the staking of SOL, DOT and KSM on their native blockchains.
LDO is the native utility token is used for:
Granting governance rights in the Lido DAO.
Managing fee parameters and distribution.
Governing the addition and removal of Lido node operators.
LDO currently has a market cap of $1,805,394,541 and it’s currently trading at $2.06.
Image Courtesy: Token Terminal
LDO made $48m in fees in March and $49m in fees in April, so far in May LDO has generated $59.7m from fees. The protocol has seen a 63% increase in fees in the past 90 days.
PancakeSwap is the leading decentralized exchange native to BNB Chain. Users can swap their coins for other coins without the input of middleman services although PancakeSwap focuses on BEP20 tokens (a specific token standard developed by Binance).
To those who have been in DeFi for a while, PancakeSwap actually needs no introduction, the DEX is useful not just because of swapping but also because you can:
Stake CAKE in Syrup Pools.
Lend and provide liquidity on the automated market maker (AMM).
Participate in IFOs (Initial Farm Offerings).
Engage in perpetual trading.
Buy or sell NFTs via the NFT Marketplace.
CAKE has a market cap of $309m and a TVL of $1.66B with a market cap to TVL ratio of 0.186, CAKE is trading at $1.53 at the time of writing.
In the last 90 days, PankcakeSwap is among the top 10 protocols that have generated the most fees. Sitting at number 9, PancakeSwap has generated $28.2m in fees in the past 90 days.
Image Courtesy: Token Terminal
YTD, PancakeSwap has generated $45,880,829.5, therefore, the fees/MC ratio is 0.148.
Convex Finance is a DeFi protocol that allows Curve (CRV) liquidity providers to earn a share of trading fees on Curve without staking liquidity there.
Instead, Liquidity Providers can stake with Convex and receive boosted CRV and liquidity mining rewards.
This provides CRV stakers with better capital efficiency and positions.
See how it works in 4 simple steps:
Deposit any amount of CRV tokens into Convex
Receive cvxCRV tokens in exchange for providing CRV
Receive a share of the total CRV rewards
Earn Curve platform trading fees
CVX has a market cap of $339m and a Total Value Locked of $3.25B with a market cap to TVL ratio of 0.104, CVX is currently trading at $4.38
Image Courtesy: Token Terminal
Convex is number 7 among the top 10 protocols that have generated the most fees in the past 90 days. The protocol generated $45.1m in this time frame.
Convex Finance has generated $75,776,192.3 in fees YTD its fees/mc ratio is 0.22.
Sushi is a community-driven decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Ethereum blockchain. The automated market maker (AMM) DEX, uses a liquidity pool to facilitate trades, users can also partake in yield farming and staking.
Its native token, SUSHI, is used to govern the protocol and incentivize liquidity providers.
Image Courtesy: Token Terminal
With a market cap of $164m, SUSHI is currently trading at $0.852. SushiSwap has generated $14m in fees in the past 90 days
SushiSwap has generated $24,766,726.4 with a fees/mc ratio of 0.15.
GMX is a decentralized exchange (DEX) for trading perpetual cryptocurrency futures with up to 50X leverage on popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etheruem and more,the exchange supports low swap fees and zero-price impact trades.
Trading is supported by a unique multi-asset pool that earns liquidity providers fees from market making, swap fees and leverage trading.
The platform launched in September 2021, GMX has a total trading volume of over $130B and 285K total users, making it the leading derivatives DEX on Arbitrum and Avalanche.
GMX has a market cap of $495,618,871 and is currently trading at $56.46
Image Courtesy: Token Terminal
GMX has generated $75,293,824 in fees YTD therefore having a fees/mc ratio of 0.151.
This ratio can be employed when comparing protocols, especially in the same industry e.g DEXs then it can aid in making informed decision when choosing the project to investing.
One caveat however is that some project might be overvalued this will inflate the market cap that’s why its also important to use other ratios like market cap/TVL to see which ones are over or undervalued.
Most importantly use other metrics like total supply, circulating supply, FDV etc and always do your research before investing.
It goes without saying that crypto have revolutionized the way the world perceives money and finance.
As the industry becomes increasingly popular, numerous opportunities have emerged alongside it. The possibilities are endless; whether you are looking to build a full-time career or simply trying to augment your income through crypto.
If you want to diversify your income streams, there are various crypto side hustles to consider.
From gaming to teaching, blogging to trading, these side hustles offer the potential to earn a significant income, while helping you stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving world of cryptocurrencies.
Play-to-earn (P2E) games are one of the biggest innovations in the cryptocurrency space in recent times. As the name suggests, a P2E game is a blockchain-based game in which the players receive rewards and earnings for participating.
These rewards are usually in the form of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible markets, which can be sold on the secondary market.
Playing P2E games is perhaps the most exciting side hustle in the crypto world, as you get to earn some real bucks – all while having fun.
However, there is a catch with most blockchain-based games. You are almost always required to fork out a certain amount as an upfront investment – used for purchasing game characters and items.
That said, you will spend most of your time in the game collecting various digital assets, such as weapons, characters, avatars, etc. These in-game collectibles are often NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and have real-life value, which can be redeemed on NFT marketplaces and exchanges. Notable examples of P2E games include Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Ember Sword, and Decentraland.
While there is no clear-cut answer to how much a P2E gamer earns, there’ve been multiple reports of people earning thousands of dollars monthly from blockchain games.
2. Cryptocurrency Blogger/ Influencer
As already inferred, the cryptocurrency world is filled and stacked with so much information. For this reason, several finance websites and crypto websites are creating blogs where they can publish articles about digital assets and cryptocurrency as a whole. Interestingly, nothing stops individuals – like yourself – from also starting a crypto blog.
Fortunately, creating a blog has become a lot easier these days. With modern web hosting platforms, even newcomers can install WordPress blogs with one click-install. A crypto blog can help you earn hundreds to thousands of dollars through blog incomes, affiliate marketing, and collaborations; albeit it might take a while before your blog becomes profitable.
Here’s a tip – try focusing on one crypto niche at first, as this would help you build a community of readers more rapidly.
3. Affiliate Marketer
As with several other industries, the crypto industry is leveraging affiliate marketing and other entrepreneurial tools. With affiliate programs becoming increasingly popular on crypto exchanges and protocol, you can now make a passive income by recommending new individuals to some crypto businesses. After all, that is how all affiliate programs work; by actively recruiting new users or customers, you will receive incentives in return.
The more individuals you recommend, the larger the monetary incentive you earn. This program is particularly more beneficial for people with a large audience. For instance, if you have a crypto blog or YouTube channel, you can conveniently market crypto projects and businesses to a large audience of people.
4. Cryptocurrency Tutor
A cryptocurrency tutor is an individual who helps people or clients to understand various crypto-related subjects.
Similar to a crypto advisor, a crypto teacher provides crypto education as a service to help their students comprehend the complexities of cryptocurrencies and digital finance. To provide this service, you can employ different media outlets, such as YouTube, Skype, Zoom, Google Meet, and so on.
As a crypto tutor, you will be tasked with teaching your students how to make healthy, consistent profits in the crypto market.
You will need good skill at creating effective trading strategies. But that’s not all – you must also be able to translate these strategies in your trading, while showing your students how to replicate them in the market.
As a cryptocurrency tutor, you can earn over a thousand dollars every month.
A year ago, Bybit – one of the world’s leading exchanges – launched the second edition of its ‘Teach and Earn With Bybit’ program, which entailed hiring tutors to teach others about crypto. This job offer came with a salary package worth as much as $1,000 per month.
5. NFT Creator or Trader
Non-fungible tokens, popularly known as NFTs, are some of the most sought-after assets in the cryptocurrency space. In 2021, NFT sales volume totalled $24.9 billion, which is a massive improvement from $94.9 million recorded in the previous year, according to data from DappRadar.
While the buzz around these digital assets might have waned in the past few months, there’s no denying that the NFT market will continue to expand.
An excellent way to make passive income in the crypto space is by leveraging on the NFT buzz and launching an NFT collection.
The tools you need to bring your artistic ideas to life are available on various NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, and so on. The best part is that a successful NFT project can help you earn as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Also, you can become an NFT trader on the secondary market. Similar to cryptocurrency, stocks, and forex trading, this involves buying NFTs at a low price to be sold later at a higher price.
You can make hundreds to thousands of dollars buying and selling NFTs on the secondary market.
6. Discord Community Manager
Discord communities, also known as Discord servers, are online communities on Discord – a Voice over IP and instant messaging social network. These communities serve as a virtual platform where investors, artists, projects developers, and crypto enthusiasts can meet and interact. While you might be familiar with these online communities, a detail people often miss is that these platforms have managers.
Discord community manager is another lucrative side hustle you might want to consider if you are looking to augment your income. As a manager, you will spend most of your time responding to questions, referring community members to the right team members, coordinating the community, and so on. That said, the pay is quite encouraging, as you could earn as high as $95,142annually.
7. Crypto Content Writer
This list would be somewhat incomplete without the role of a crypto content writer. Creating written content for different crypto publications and blogs is a fantastic way to make extra bucks. As a content writer, you will be tasked with researching, writing, and providing valuable information on cryptocurrency to a target audience of crypto enthusiasts.
We’re hiring
Chaindebrief is looking for both full-time and freelance writers!
If you feel like you’d be a good fit on our team, send us your resume at team@chaindebrief.com
To become a content writer, you don’t particularly need many technical skills. However, there are certain things you must master, including how the blockchain works, the ability to perform financial analysis, cryptography and securities, and smart contracts. Also, you must understand how legal regulations and compliance work in the crypto space.
According to data from Glassdoor, the salary for crypto writer roles ranges from $74,000 to $118,000 per year.
Wrap Up
Overall, the world of cryptocurrencies has ushered in several opportunities for people to earn a substantial income through various side hustles.
Whether you decide to become an NFT artist, a content writer, a community manager, or a crypto tutor, you will surely find a crypto side hustle that suits your interests and skillset. As the cryptocurrency industry grows, more high-paying opportunities will emerge. By staying current on the latest trends and technologies, you can capitalize on new opportunities and potentially reach new financial heights.
Bank runs are happening at unprecedented speeds. In just three days, we witnessed two of the largest bank failures in American history. Signature Bank, a New York-based regional bank, shuttered suddenly on Sunday, marking the third-biggest bank failure in U.S. history — just two days after the country’s second biggest failure, Silicon Valley Bank.
Despite this, there is a chorus of voices that want us to believe that all is fine in banking. “Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe”, said Biden. “There is no systemic risk to our financial system”, said Britain’s Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.
These reassurances are understandable, regardless of their believability. In 2014, rural banks in China’s eastern city of Yancheng stacked piles of cash in plain view behind teller windows to calm depositors queueing at bank branches for a third straight day — following rumors that they had run out of cash. American banking tycoons Marriner and George Eccles, did something similar during the Great Depression to fend off multiple bank runs.
But history has shown that some skepticism is warranted. “We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will be limited and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system,” declared Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in May 2007 — just a year before the Global Financial Crisis — the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.
While we may not see a wave of bank collapses like in 2008, the rapidity and scale of the run on both Signature and Silicon Valley Bank reveal deep structural flaws with the very design of fractional reserve banking in the internet age.
This is a story bigger than any one bank. Bigger than the failure of risk management. Bigger than economic vulnerability created by the aggressive seesawing between artificially high and low interest rates. It is a story of how fractional reserve banking is fundamentally broken and antiquated.
The Big Con: Fractional Reserve Banking
There is a profound contradiction at the heart of fractional reserve banking. Deposits are liabilities of the bank that must be repaid on demand. But most of those deposits are being loaned out to earn an interest — and those loans have maturities that cannot be recalled on demand. The balance on your bank account statement is an illusion — it isn’t actually there.
Fragility is baked into the very nature of fractional reserve banking, because it creates liquid claims against illiquid assets. Put simply, at any given time banks never have enough money to fulfill their promise to repay all their depositors on demand.
The word “con”, is shorthand for a “confidence trick”. And although we are largely content to forget this inconvenient truth as we go about our daily lives, mere confidence is the cornerstone of banking today.
“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve”, explained Satoshi Nakmoto in a forum post announcing the Bitcoin White Paper in September 2009.
For the uninitiated, this is not merely the fringe opinion of a techno-anarchist. “Under a fractional-reserve banking system (the system in operation virtually everywhere in modern developed economies), banks have to hold a fraction of their deposits (a liability for them) as deposits at the central bank (called reserves) (an asset for them), but they can “lend out” the remainder”, wrote Paul Sheard, Standard & Poor’s chief global economist.
One of the first modern scholarly analyses of this fundamental contradiction was a paper titled, “Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity,” written by Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1983.
Confidence In An Internet Age?
The fall of Silicon Valley Bank is being described as the fastest bank run in history. This is not a coincidence. The banking environment has changed dramatically, and the current fractional reserve banking is no longer compatible with the rapidity of information dissemination in modern society.
The reserve ratio was a concept first introduced in American banking in 1863 to protect depositor funds from being used by banks in risky investments. Federal deposit insurance was pioneered in America in 1934, in an effort to stop the rampant issue of bank runs. Yet, with each passing decade, the use of these tools appear increasingly inadequate to do their one job — prevent bank runs.
In the past, rumors spread by radio, newspapers and television. To demand for withdrawals, depositors had to physically queue and only during the opening hours of banks’ branches. In the internet age, rallies and crashes in financial markets are not only more extreme in magnitude, but also faster. The diffusion of information (reliable or not) spreads at the speed of a 140 character tweet. Furthermore, internet banking has also dramatically shortened the time it takes for depositors to demand withdrawals from troubled banks.
These concerns are not new. Industry observers have been sounding alarm bells as early as 2019. “A digital bank run in a hypothetical future would be much more dangerous as it would happen in seconds and minutes when clients could simply use mobile banking apps to transfer money to another account,” said Susanne Chishti, chief executive of Fintech Circle, in an interview given to Raconteur magazine.
Former Canadian central banker Mark Zelmer’s independent review into the UK’s Co-operative Bank, noted that Open Banking “may come at the cost of less stable deposit-taking institutions”. In the report, Zelmer concluded, saying, “I would not be surprised if smaller institutions find their deposit bases become less sticky over time and more likely to run at the first hint of trouble”.
This remark by Zelmer has now become a shocking reality just 4 years later. SVB, the 16th largest bank in America that has operated for 40 years, collapsed in just a mere 48 hours, when the first hint of trouble around its $1.8B losses on securities soon spread like wildfire over social media and online spaces:
Timeline of SVB’s collapse
March 8, 2023: SVB announced that it would sell $2.25B of shares to fix its balance sheet. SVB suffered a $1.8B loss on the sale of long-term bonds, which were decimated in value when the Fed started hiking interest rates, and simultaneously experienced thinning deposits because many startups started withdrawing because of the current macro climate
March 9, 2023: Shares of SVB plummeted 60%. SVB tries to calm venture capital investors, but Pandora’s box has already been opened. VCs urge their portfolio companies to pull funds from SVB, Slacks across startup and tech groups start lighting up, and Twitter grows in full force of FUD. “OK I am hearing from dozens of founders about what to do at SVB. It’s an all out bank run.” wrote Howard Lerman on Twitter.
March 10, 2023: SVB collapsed, shares were halted, and regulators shut down operations.
In comparison, the previous banking crises of Northern Rock (2007), Bear Stearns (2008), and Home Capital Group (2017) all took place over the course of several months. Northern Rock first sought emergency funding from the Bank of England in September 2007, but didn’t ultimately become nationalized until February of 2008. Bear Stearns started struggling in 2007 when the housing bubble burst, but the rumors around its decline and ultimate shutdown did not come until March 2008.
In just 15 years, the time it took for a bank to collapse went from a few months to just a few days. This unprecedented speed of collapse coming from a digital bank run will not be just an anomaly. It will become the new normal.
Our current model of fractional reserve banking is ill-suited to our networked age. Liquidity crises can very quickly become solvency crises — all of which hangs on the confidence of depositors and investors.
Confidence, as we all know, is an incredibly fragile thing in an internet age. Yet, unbelievable as it may sound, it is in this increasingly frail house of cards, this dangerous con — that we are asked to store our entire life’s savings.
Better Banking Designs
The pursuit of more resilient alternatives to fractional reserve banking has been going on for decades. As early as 1933, a group of economists hatched an idea known as the “Chicago Plan”. They hoped to identify the causes of the Great Depression. Among the culprits they identified was fractional reserve banking.
Their solution? A 1:1 ratio of loans to reserves. The Chicago Plan would not only have subjected checking deposits to 100% reserves, but banks could no longer make loans out of savings deposits. To obtain the capital to make loans, they would have to raise money by equity-financed investment trusts.
Despite generating a lot of interest at the time, the plan fell into obscurity. It resurfaced briefly several years later, following the US recession of 1937–1938, and once more in the wake of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.
In March 2015, Iceland published the results of an intensive study that explored the viability of ending fractional reserve banking. The report, commissioned by the prime minister, explored alternatives to the fractional reserve system, including a revival of the Chicago Plan.
It proposed the separation of bank deposits into two types of accounts: (i) interest-free Transaction Accounts kept at the Central Bank, which are not available for banks to invest, and redeemable on demand, and (ii) yield-bearing Investment Accounts which are invested by the bank, and only redeemable at maturity, ranging from 45 days to a few years.
Funds can be transferred from a Transaction Account to an Investment Account. Banks can offer Investment Accounts with different risk profiles, maturity and interest rates, catering to different types of savers.
The Smart Contract Solution
Fractional reserve banking is a walking contradiction propped up by mere confidence. Confidence is increasingly fragile in an internet age where both the circulation of information, and the ability to act happens 24/7, at the speed of a click. Deposit insurance, and reserve ratios — the two primary tools developed to shore up confidence in fractional reserve banking are proving to be increasingly inadequate.
SVB and Signature weren’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last internet-fuelled bank run.There are two possible responses: (i) restrict deposit withdrawals in crises, (ii) restrict lending to prevent crises. The first two are highly unpalatable to depositors and banks respectively.
In every crisis from the Great Depression, to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, to Silicon Valley bank — robust alternatives to fractional reserve banking have been proposed, but not implemented. Largely because private individuals lacked the tools to build alternatives to commercial banks, or central banks.
Today, the advent of DeFi and cryptocurrency has changed that. We now have in our hands, the tools to seize a historic opportunity to build an on-chain alternative to fractional reserve banking.
This is one example of how a design might work.
This design will eliminate the creation of liquid liability claims against illiquid assets, and prevent bank runs — without having to eliminate banks’ ability to make loans, or impose deposit withdrawal limits in times of crisis.
By separating liquid funds (e.g., “checking account”) that people use for transactions from funds people are willing to risk more for investments, this design provides transparency and assurances that people’s funds are actually safe being kept safe and not being commingled for other purposes. In addition, because liquid assets are being held in self-custody solutions like wallets, there is no need to have trust in another third party like a bank.
All of these features can be automated, and enforced via smart contracts. It removes the need for attestation or independent audits, and minimizes the difficulties of banking supervision and oversight.
Conclusion
What has occurred over the past week with Signature and SVB hopefully will spur a re-examination of our current banking system at a foundational level.
While on-chain finance and DeFi are still in their nascent stages in technology and economic design, they have the enormous potential to solve the deep structural issues of our banking system and create a new one more compatible with our modern digital society.
[Editor’s Note: This article does not represent financial advice. Please do your research before investing.]
The Real World Assets (RWAs) narrative is heating up, and this could be the pivotal moment for the mass adoption of crypto and blockchain. It is common knowledge that TradFi is plagued by antiquated and fragmented technology, resulting in an inefficient fiat banking and securities system. The inevitable tokenization of real-world financial assets seeks to remedy this long-standing problem as TradFi, and physical assets are represented as digital tokens on-chain.
Asset tokenization represents the conferred rights of ownership to physical and financial assets as digital tokens on-chain. The tokenization of real-world assets enables them to be traded with greater ease, faster settlement and reduced costs with self-executing smart contracts, increased transparency and improved liquidity for traditionally illiquid or semi-liquid financial instruments.
Crypto Narratives Alpha Series 04
The Real-World Asset (RWAs) narrative in DeFi is grossly underrated.
The question is, are you paying attention?
Here's a deep-dive into RWAs, and some emerging players to add to your watchlist: ↓
Notable Protocols that have made significant strides in Adopting RWA
Notable Protocols That Have Made Significant Strides In Adopting RWA
1. MakerDAO
MakerDAO is a blue-chip DeFi project that hardly requires any further introduction. In the past year, MakerDAO has actively worked on diversifying its reserves and establishing other revenue streams. RWAs account for 75% of their revenues and have accumulated over US$600M in RWA collateral.
Key milestones for them include their US$10M partnership with Huntingdon Valley Bank where RWAs are bridged and serve as collateral when lending out DAI, and the recent partnership in December 2022 with Block Tower to fund US$220M of real-world assets via Centrifuge.
2. Ondo Finance
Ondo Finance announced tokenized funds that allow users to be shielded from crypto’s volatility and earn sustainable returns. These tokenized funds enable stablecoin holders to invest directly in TradFi instruments through three separate RWA funds, subject to fees of 0.15%.
The Ondo Short-Term US Government Bond Fund (OUSG) invests in short-term US treasuries through the Blackrock US Treasuries ETF (SHV), the Ondo Short-Term Investment Grade Bond Fund (OSTB) invests in investment-grade corporate bonds through the PIMCO Enhanced Short Maturity Active ETF (MINT). In contrast, the Ondo High Yield Corporate Bond Funds (OHYG) invests in high-yield corporate bonds via the Blackrock iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG).
Following defaults and a radical overhaul, Maple Finance has distanced itself from uncollateralized lending and leaned towards RWAs to make a comeback.
They removed traditional DeFi over-collateralization thresholds for borrowers as long as they have RWAs to back their debt. Maple has partnered with London-based AQRU to devise new pools that invest in US Treasury bonds and insurance refinancing with yield-generating strategies adopted from TradFi.
Maple provides the blockchain-based technology required to set up and maintain the pool, whereas AQRU is responsible for managing the pool and loan book. For a start, the new pool has a target yield of 10% per annum with a minimum notional of USDC 500k and a 45-day lockup period.
To align with regulatory requirements, the pool will be available only to accredited investors such as asset managers and DAO treasuries that comply with KYC/AML standards.
Phuture Finance is building one of the largest crypto index funds, it leverages traditional index funds to create one of the largest decentralized crypto index funds. Phuture Finance has three core products, Phuture DeFi Index (PDI), Colony Avalanche Index (CAI) and USDC Savings Vault (USV).
Similar to how traditional index funds are structured to provide investors with exposure to a financial market index instead of a single stock to diversify risks, PDI and CAI are market capitalization-weighted indexes that offer exposure to the top DeFi protocols in the Ethereum and Avalanche ecosystems, respectively.
USV is a vault that generates interest on depositors’ idle USDC. $PHTR is the native token primarily used for governance and incentivizing users.
Mass adoption is coming to crypto, but it’s only a matter of when
Indexes are going to be huge and few players are already taking advantage of that.
Backed charges on the issuance and redemption of assets are held in designated collateral accounts with their custodian. Backed serves as a service provider and does not engage in any form of investment activities, their primary target group is also accredited investors.
Backed currently does not have a native token and has no plans to launch one. The platform went live recently and received an overwhelming response for its first token, the Backed Core S&P500 or bCSPX. The tokens are expected to be fully collateralized by the underlying assets and fully transferable.
"DeFi cannot grow its collateral assets by 100x without RWAs. The securities market, which is over a $100 trillion market, offers the potential for much greater growth."
Global institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Siemens and KKR strive to bring traditional real-world assets on-chain. This bodes well for the crypto and blockchain industry, as these assets are worth trillions of dollars. If done right, mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain is no longer a far-fetched dream.
However, it is noteworthy that TradFi is a highly regulated industry, and greater regulatory clarity is critical to propel financial asset tokenization forward. It is a win-win situation for both TradFi and DeFi, DeFi gains by having another source of collateral option for lending protocols which can, in turn, improve liquidity and mitigate risk, while TradFi benefits from increased liquidity and efficiency as lower operational costs.
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