James Bachini

DeFi

  • Ethena USDe | DeFi Analysis Report

    Ethena USDe | DeFi Analysis Report

    Ethena Labs has introduced USDe, a synthetic dollar on the Ethereum blockchain. USDe is designed to be crypto native, stable and censorship resistant. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Ethena or USDe at time of writing. Do your…

  • Starknet STRK Tokenomics

    Starknet STRK Tokenomics

    Starknet is a layer 2 zero knowledge rollup which uses a STARK cryptographic proof and Cairo based smart contracts. A few days ago they released the STRK token and in this article I’ll dive in to the tokenomics. Currently at time of writing the token trades at $1.91 and has a $1.39 billion dollar circulating…

  • LRTs | Liquid Restaking Tokens

    LRTs | Liquid Restaking Tokens

    I’ve previously discussed Eigenlayer and how restaking works but let’s look at what this will look like for the majority of users. Liquid Restaking Tokens are the equivalent of stETH for restaking where users can deposit assets to gain exposure to yield from restaking using a simple ERC20 token. This is a write up of…

  • Crypto Market Thesis 2024

    Crypto Market Thesis 2024

    The crypto market has experienced significant recovery this year, with Bitcoin’s value surging from $16,500 to over $40,000. Growth was shadowed by increased regulatory scrutiny, particularly impacting centralized exchanges. The Bitcoin halving in April 2024 is poised to be a pivotal event, historically triggering market rallies. The potential January approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs could…

  • GEAR Gearbox Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report

    GEAR Gearbox Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report

    Gearbox Protocol introduces a framework for both passive lenders and active borrowers. It empowers traders with leverage that can be used to scale up trades and yield farming strategies on decentralized exchanges such as Unsiswap and Curve. With an emphasis on composable leverage, zero funding rates, and permissionless strategies, Gearbox Protocol is an compelling microcap…

  • Asymmetry Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Asymmetry Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Asymmetry Finance has emerged as a significant player in the liquid staking wars, offering an aggregated liquid staking token. This article explores the core functionalities of Asymmetry Finance and its core product safETH. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure…

  • Emergent use cases for self-sovereign identity in DeFi

    Emergent use cases for self-sovereign identity in DeFi

    Abstract The DeFi sector is facing increased regulatory pressure to de-anonymize certain transactions and user profiles, while simultaneously dealing with flagging user confidence in terms of their individual rights to data privacy. This is providing fertile ground for innovative companies to try to allow end users to be the sovereign of their own identity and…

  • eBTC How To Trade The Flippening

    eBTC How To Trade The Flippening

    eBTC is an over-collateralized digital asset pegged to the price of Bitcoin which can be minted using stETH as collateral. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to eBTC at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice.…

  • MUX Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report

    MUX Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report

    MUX is a decentralized trading platform offering slippage free trades and 100x leverage. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to MUX at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. The first thing that jumps out about…

  • Investing In Real World Assets Through DeFi

    Investing In Real World Assets Through DeFi

    Real world assets (RWA) are tokenized digital forms of traditional finance assets. A centralized entity will raise capital by selling tokens and investing the proceeds in to an underlying asset or strategy. This has become particularly popular with bonds and treasuries due to recent rises in interest rates. The market leaders in this field by…

  • Brine Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Brine Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Brine Finance is a decentralized orderbook exchange built on Starkware. They recently raised $16.5m at a valuation of $100m in a round led by Pantera Capital. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Brine at time of writing. Do…

  • Radix DLT | DeFI Analysis Report

    Radix DLT | DeFI Analysis Report

    Radix is a layer one blockchain which has recently gone live on mainnet enabling developers to deploy scrypto smart contracts. In this report I’ll explore the novelties of the technology, dive into the scrypto programming language, look at the excellent developer resources, analyze the tokenomics of the native XRD token and draw a conclusion on…

  • HyperLiquid | Decentralized Perpetual Futures Trading

    HyperLiquid | Decentralized Perpetual Futures Trading

    Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange that specializes in perpetual futures contracts. It’s seen modest growth through a difficult bear market and has a frontend remarkably similar to FTX. Let’s dive in. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to HyperLiquid…

  • VEGA DeFi Derivatives Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report 🔍

    VEGA DeFi Derivatives Protocol | DeFi Analysis Report 🔍

    VEGA is a dedicated appChain built for decentralized derivatives such as futures and options contracts. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to VEGA at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. Vega is a infrastructure layer…

  • Premia Finance | DeFi Analysis Report 🔍

    Premia Finance | DeFi Analysis Report 🔍

    In this analysis we will be looking at Premia Finance and the potential of DeFi options protocols. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Premia at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. What Are…

  • Smol dApp | MultiSafe MultiChain MultiSig Wallets

    Smol dApp | MultiSafe MultiChain MultiSig Wallets

    Smol dApp is like a swiss army knife of useful tools for DeFi. Their main offerings are: The product we are going to look at todays is their flagship MultiSafe wallets. This is a GnosisSafeProxy contract which requires a set number of wallets to sign off on a transaction before it goes through. For example…

  • ApeX Pro | DeFi Analysis Report

    ApeX Pro | DeFi Analysis Report

    ApeX Pro is a non-custodial decentralized orderbook exchange which is part of the ByBit group. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to ApeX at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. What Is ApeX Pro?…

  • Chainlink CCIP | Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol

    Chainlink CCIP | Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol

    From all the announcements at ETHcc, the release of Chainlink CCIP as a direct competitor to LayerZero for cross-chain communications and bridging technology, is perhaps the most interesting. The inherent security risks associated with bridging technology means that Chainlink are in a good position to leverage their brand and security record to gain traction in…

  • Spark Protocol sDAI | DeFi Analysis Report

    Spark Protocol sDAI | DeFi Analysis Report

    Does earning 8% on your DAI stablecoin holdings sound too good to be true? Let’s take a look at how Spark Protocol is offering this APR using MarkerDAO’s Enhanced Dai Savings Rate system. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any…

  • Tokenized US Treasuries | Ondo Finance vs MatrixDock

    Tokenized US Treasuries | Ondo Finance vs MatrixDock

    Tokenized US treasuries offer a yield on stablecoin holdings and with rising interest rates they are quickly gaining traction in DeFi markets. In this article I want to look at two projects to see how they compare and how the real world asset ecosystem is shaping up. Real World Assets In the last six months…

  • Aevo Decentralized Options Platfor

    Aevo Decentralized Options Platfor

    Aevo is a hybrid decentralized options protocol running an off-chain orderbook with trades routed through a dedicated EVM appChain and settled on Ethereum mainnet. The exchange is built by the Ribbon Finance team who plan to migrate Ribbons products to Aevo options. For traders and market makers it offers a decentralized alternative to Deribit. How…

  • Hop Exchange | DeFi Analysis Report

    Hop Exchange | DeFi Analysis Report

    Hop Exchange is a bridging protocol that facilitates cross-chain token transfers by utilizing a network of bonders. I first heard it mentioned in a keynote by Vitalik at ethGlobal Waterloo. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Hop…

  • ETHx Stader Labs | DeFi Analysis Report

    ETHx Stader Labs | DeFi Analysis Report

    ETHx from Stader Labs is a solution committed to decentralization and keeping Ethereum accessible, reliable, and rewarding. Having just launched ETH stakers earn 1.5x staking rewards and $800,000 in DeFi incentives across various protocols for the first month. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and…

  • Conic Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Conic Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    The latest development in the Curve Wars is the establishment of a new player. Conic Finance is gaining traction and becoming a significant player in the stable swap ecosystem. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not have any allocations at time of…

  • XRP Legal Case | What It Means For Developers

    XRP Legal Case | What It Means For Developers

    In this article I’m going to be breaking down the document filed by judge Torres yesterday and consider what it means to developers working in the blockchain and web3 space. Highlights From The Ruling The full document is available here:https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/SEC%20vs%20Ripple%207-13-23.pdf I’ve picked out some highlights Programmatic SalesHaving considered the economic reality of the Programmatic Sales,…

  • Uniswap v4 Hooks

    Uniswap v4 Hooks

    Hooks in Uniswap v4 are external contracts that execute specific actions at certain points during the execution of a liquidity pool. These hooks provide flexibility and customization options for developers to create additional features for liquidity pools. Uniswap v4 hooks can be used to: A 3rd party developer can write a solidity hook contract with…

  • crvUSD Curve Stable | DeFi Analysis Report

    crvUSD Curve Stable | DeFi Analysis Report

    Curve finance recently launched their own stablecoin crvUSD. I was lucky enough to meet one of the developers working on crvUSD at ethDenver and have been impressed with the product and how it has been rolled out. It is an algorithmic stablecoin with massive potential backed by one of the biggest names in DeFi, let’s…

  • 3 Ways To Raise Web3 Funding

    3 Ways To Raise Web3 Funding

    In this article I’ll explore 3 ways in which you can raise funds for your project with web3 products. Membership NFT A NFT is a non-fungible token, they are often represented as a unique image which can contain additional rights such as: To execute a NFT drop, the following steps can be taken: If any…

  • Raft Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Raft Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    This DeFi analysis report for Raft Finance follows up on my analysis and investment in Lybra Finance. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not have any allocations at time of writing to Raft or the R stablecoin. Do your own research, not…

  • Lybra Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Lybra Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Lybra Finance allows stETH stakers to mint the eUSD stablecoin which has a 7.2% APY. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post however I have purchased an allocation of LBR Lybra Finance’s governance token in my personal portfolio. Do your own research, not investment advice. Update…

  • Raising Funds For Your Blockchain Project

    Raising Funds For Your Blockchain Project

    For founders looking to raise capital there are a number of options which we will explore in this article. Private Round A private round is where a founder will outreach and pitch their concept to investors in the space. For raises under $100k angel investors can provide initial funding to get a project started. For…

  • Prisma Finance | acUSD an LST backed stablecoin

    Prisma Finance | acUSD an LST backed stablecoin

    Prisma Finance is a DeFi project that aims to maximize the potential of Ethereum liquid staking tokens (LSTs). It introduces a stablecoin called acUSD, which is over collateralized by liquid staking tokens. The stablecoin is designed to be capital-efficient and offers additional incentives through integration with Curve and Convex Finance. This is a write up…

  • Assessing Smart Contract Security Auditors

    Assessing Smart Contract Security Auditors

    A smart contract audit can cost anything from $5,000-$250,000 USD. Within this range there is a wide range of services, some offer better value for money than others. In this article I will go through the options for founders looking to hire an auditor and some of the checks you can do to ensure you…

  • Alchemix Self-Repaying Loans

    Alchemix Self-Repaying Loans

    Imagine a financial system where your loans automatically pay themselves off, interest-free and without the need for monthly repayments. Alchemix is a synthetic asset protocol run by community DAO. This is a write up of my research notes and is not sponsored in any way. I currently at time of writing have no stake in…

  • Ultimate Guide To Hire A Solidity/Web3 Developer

    Ultimate Guide To Hire A Solidity/Web3 Developer

    In this comprehensive guide, I will explore how to hire a Solidity/Web3 developer. Contractor, Partner or Employee The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to hire someone on a permanent basis or not. With Solidity development the contracts don’t tend to get updated once they are deployed so the bulk of…

  • How Wrapped Tokens Like wETH & wBTC Work

    How Wrapped Tokens Like wETH & wBTC Work

    In this article we will look at how different wrapped tokens work and where the underlying collateral is stored. What Are Wrapped Tokens? Wrapped tokens are generally ERC20 tokens that represents another underlying asset, typically a cryptocurrency or real world asset. The purpose of wrapping a token is to enable its use within the DeFi…

  • Snapshot | Gasless Voting for Decentralized Communities

    Snapshot | Gasless Voting for Decentralized Communities

    In decentralized communities voting plays a crucial role in governance and development of roadmaps. Snapshot is disrupting the traditional DAO voting model with a gas free voting platform. This is not a sponsored post and I have no stake in Snapshot, I do however like to use and promote open source tools which enable decentralized…

  • Is My Token A Security? The Howey Test For Digital Assets

    Is My Token A Security? The Howey Test For Digital Assets

    The SEC & Securities Regulations The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that is responsible for regulating securities and protecting investors. In practice they have done more to protect Wall Steet financial institutions than they have ever done for individual investors. The SEC regulates securities through…

  • Introduction to Flash Loans | Unleashing Capital On Demand

    Introduction to Flash Loans | Unleashing Capital On Demand

    In this tutorial on flash loans we will be creating a Solidity smart contract which takes a flash loan from Uniswap v3. This allows you to borrow huge amounts of capital with the catch that you have to pay it back in the same block or the whole transaction is reverted. James On YouTube Watch…

  • Uniswap Market Maker Bot | Managing Token Liquidity On Uniswap

    Uniswap Market Maker Bot | Managing Token Liquidity On Uniswap

    In this tutorial I am going to go through how I built a market maker bot to manage liquidity on Uniswap v3 for a token pair. The idea is to create a automated trading bot which buys tokens when price falls below a base line value and sells tokens when price is above the base…

  • Trading The Lifecycle Of Crypto Narratives

    Trading The Lifecycle Of Crypto Narratives

    The blockchain sector moves fast and attention shifts rapidly as crypto narratives emerge inflating valuations for sub-sectors before moving on to the next big thing. In this article I’m going to outlay my research into the lifecycle of crypto narratives to explore how we can best position our portfolios and allocate funds in a +EV…

  • Defending Against Sandwich Attacks and MEV | A Guide to Flashbots Protect

    Defending Against Sandwich Attacks and MEV | A Guide to Flashbots Protect

    By using a private mempool such as Flashbots protect, Ethereum users can protect themselves against MEV (maximum extractable value) including sandwich attacks. It doesn’t cost anything to use and is easy to setup with existing digital wallets, such as Metamask. Sandwich Attack Protection MEV refers to the potential profit that miners can extract from the…

  • How To Create Your Own Memecoin With Solidity and Uniswap

    How To Create Your Own Memecoin With Solidity and Uniswap

    In this tutorial we will be creating a permissionless, ERC20 memecoin and deploying it with a Uniswap v3 liquidity pool so users can buy it on the decentralized exchange. This tutorial is for demonstration purposes, don’t speculate on memecoins. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/-bVzqtIa0bc |Subscribe The full source code for this is at:…

  • What is Pepe | A Memecoin Story

    What is Pepe | A Memecoin Story

    The Pepe memecoin is a cryptocurrency based on the Pepe the Frog meme, which originated on the imageboard website 4chan in 2005. The meme gained mainstream popularity in 2016 when it was adopted by supporters of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. PepeToken is an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. It is widely traded across many…

  • MEV Uncovered | The Dark Side Of DeFi

    MEV Uncovered | The Dark Side Of DeFi

    MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) is a term used to describe the maximum value that can be extracted from block production beyond the standard block reward and gas fees by including, excluding, and changing the order of transactions in a block. MEV can be thought of as the economic value that arises from the ability to…

  • RDNT v2 Radiant Capital | DeFi Analysis Report

    RDNT v2 Radiant Capital | DeFi Analysis Report

    Earlier this year Radiant Capital launched Radiant v2, an omnichain lending protocol. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I have no allocation at time of writing in Radiant or RDNT. Radiant is a DeFi platform that allows users to lend and borrow digital assets…

  • Quadratic Voting | Make Democracy Great Again

    Quadratic Voting | Make Democracy Great Again

    Quadratic voting has gained popularity in recent years through adoption on applications such as Gitcoin Grants. Quadratic voting has the potential to fundamentally improve how public decisions are made. This essay will explain what quadratic voting is, how it works and what problems it solves. How Quadratic Voting Works The process of quadratic voting involves…

  • What is DVT? | Distributed Validator Technology

    What is DVT? | Distributed Validator Technology

    Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) enables a group of network validators, in a proof of stake system such as Ethereum, to act as a single validator. This can create a form of decentralized staking solution for the network which is more censorship resilient and secure. What Is DVT? The role of providing a consensus mechanism has…

  • Frax Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Frax Finance | DeFi Analysis Report

    Frax is a growing ecosystem of DeFi products built on Ethereum. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I have no stake currently in Frax or FXS. What Is Frax? Founded in 2019 by Jason Huan, Sam Kazemian & Travis Moore. Frax has a legal…

  • Web3 Investment Thesis

    Web3 Investment Thesis

    This Web3 investment thesis covers the potential disruption from decentralized permissionless computing. As blockchains scale it’s going to be possible to use smart contracts to enable users to store their own data creating the opportunity for a new era of decentralized applications. Web3 Disrupting Data Web3 disrupts the way we store data online by using…

  • DeFi Futures – GMX vs DyDx

    DeFi Futures – GMX vs DyDx

    Trading DeFi Futures products on decentralized exchanges such as GMX and DyDx has never been easier. The user experience is getting close to on par with centralized exchanges. Liquidity however, not so much… In this article we will look at how DeFi futures work, the market opportunity for decentralized futures exchanges and the two most…

  • EigenLayer | DeFi Analysis Report

    EigenLayer | DeFi Analysis Report

    EigenLayer is a protocol which allows Ethereum stakers to restake their ETH. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I have no stake currently in EigenLayer. EigenLayer is being developed by EigenLabs which is headed by CEO Sreeram Kannan. Sreeram has an academic background and…

  • GammaSwap Pepetual Futures | DeFi Analysis Report

    GammaSwap Pepetual Futures | DeFi Analysis Report

    GammaSwap is a decentralized exchange that allows perpetual leverage trading on any token without liquidation risk from price movement, while also offering additional yield to liquidity providers through borrow fees. In this article I will write up my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I currently have no stake in GammaSwap.…

  • Timeswap v2 AMM Money Market | DeFi Analysis Report

    Timeswap v2 AMM Money Market | DeFi Analysis Report

    Ricsson Ngo took inspiration from Uniswap and set out to build a permissionless money market. The idea evolved into Timeswap which recently launched on Arbitrum. In this article I’ll write up my own notes and internal research on the protocol. Note this is not a sponsored post and I don’t currently hold any stake in…

  • zkEVM | Are Zero-Knowledge Rollups The Future Of Ethereum Or A Ticking Time Bomb?

    zkEVM | Are Zero-Knowledge Rollups The Future Of Ethereum Or A Ticking Time Bomb?

    zkEVM is a zero knowledge Ethereum virtual machine, credited as being “the ultimate solution to Ethereum scaling” The Ethereum ecosystem continues to grow alongside concerns around its scalability and privacy. A new technology currently being rolled out aims to address these issues through the implementation of zero-knowledge rollups. In this article, we’ll take a closer…

  • How To Stake Ethereum | Earn More Yield With Ethereum Staking

    How To Stake Ethereum | Earn More Yield With Ethereum Staking

    Staking Ethereum has become a popular way for crypto investors to earn passive returns on their holdings. Liquid staking tokens like stETH make this process easily accessible. You can buy staking tokens and effortlessly enjoy the rewards of staking Ethereum without having to manage the technicalities of running a node. Lido Finance were first to…

  • Mean Finance | How To DCA With DeFi

    Mean Finance | How To DCA With DeFi

    Mean Finance is a DeFi protocol that enables users to dollar cost average (DCA) into a position for an ERC-20 token. In this article we will look at why dollar cost averaging is useful and how Mean Finance works. Why Dollar Cost Average Dollar cost averaging is an investment strategy that simply breaks a entry…

  • RAILGUN 2.0 | ZK Privacy Protocol

    RAILGUN 2.0 | ZK Privacy Protocol

    Railgun just announced the launch of version 2.0 this week and in this article we are going to explore the zero knowledge wallet and discuss why privacy protocols are important. In August 2022 Alexey Pertsev was arrested and he has been imprisoned without trial ever since. He was a developer on a ZK mixer called…

  • Ethereum DevCon Bogotá Write Up

    Ethereum DevCon Bogotá Write Up

    In this post I’m going to try to summarise some of the most interesting talks at from DevCon 2022. Here’s a video summary about the key takeaways from the conference. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/kgiAV7z1fwo |Subscribe The main topics for this years event were: One of the best things about the event is…

  • Aligning Founders, VC’s and Stakeholders Interests In A Smart Contract

    Aligning Founders, VC’s and Stakeholders Interests In A Smart Contract

    The blockchain sector prides itself on openness and transparency. Except that is when it comes to early stage VC deals and token allocations. In this article we are going to look at an experimental solidity smart contract which lays out terms, vesting schedules and milestone bonuses on-chain. Team Allocations and VC Unlock Schedules This is…

  • Dune Analytics Tutorial | How To Create A Dune Analytics Dashboard

    Dune Analytics Tutorial | How To Create A Dune Analytics Dashboard

    In this Dune Analytics Tutorial we will look at how the platform works and get up to speed with creating our own queries, visualisations and dashboards to analyse and present blockchain data. Queries, Visualisations & Dashboards Dune Analytics dashboards are built using a 3 step process. First we make SQL queries to pull data into…

  • Solidity Tutorial | Fixed Rate Staking Contract

    Solidity Tutorial | Fixed Rate Staking Contract

    In this tutorial we will create a fixed rate staking contract that pays out 1 token for every 1 token staked per year. The contract will be built on an OpenZeppelin ERC20 token library with additional functionality for staking. The user will stake their tokens which will lock them in the smart contract at what…

  • Zero Knowledge Proof | How ZKP Works In Blockchain Applications

    Zero Knowledge Proof | How ZKP Works In Blockchain Applications

    Zero knowledge proofs offer a method for developers to prove data validity or knowledge of data without revealing the data or additional information about the prover. Zero knowledge proofs are becoming widely used in blockchain applications from smart contracts like Tornado Cash to ZKrollups which are layer 2 blockchains on top of Ethereum. In this…

  • SBTs 👻 | Soulbound Token Solidity Example

    SBTs 👻 | Soulbound Token Solidity Example

    Soulbound tokens are non-transferable digital assets. The core concept is storing on-chain data directly relating to a specific address. This is nothing new but there is potential for a ERC SBT contract to provide a industry standard for how we manage user data. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/yCHeHI8hUY8 |Subscribe Ethereum gas costs make…

  • Solidity Interface Examples | How To Connect The Lego Bricks Of DeFi

    Solidity Interface Examples | How To Connect The Lego Bricks Of DeFi

    Solidity interfaces allow developers to call external contracts from within their own smart contract. This enables us to build on top of the existing DeFi ecosystem. In this tutorial we will be looking at how solidity interfaces work and going through some example code for common tasks. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/GWZmklp7RTg |Subscribe…

  • Why The PoS Basis Trade Will Generate $100B TVL

    Why The PoS Basis Trade Will Generate $100B TVL

    Proof of stake revenue provides a new opportunity for investors and funds to collect double digit APR’s on a PoS basis trade pegged to the USD. A basis trade (aka cash and carry) involves buying an asset and then short selling the same futures contract. Traditionally this has been to collect the funding premium on…

  • 5 DeFi Growth Metrics For Better Valuations

    5 DeFi Growth Metrics For Better Valuations

    Growth metrics have been used by tech VC’s for years to predict and monitor companies growth patterns. Terms like CAC (Customer acquisition cost) and LTV (Lifetime value) are critical to how we value startups in the traditional space. In DeFi the landscape is different and the metrics that we use are too. However on-chain transparency…

  • 3 Yield Farming Stablecoin Strategies

    3 Yield Farming Stablecoin Strategies

    Yield farming stablecoin strategies provide high returns on low volatility digital assets. In this article I explore three ways to generate yield on USD stablecoin holdings. For an introduction on what stablecoins are and the different stablecoins compared see this article: https://jamesbachini.com/stablecoins/ Note that stablecoin farming strategies are changing all the time and this article…

  • Tokenomics Boilerplate | Governance Tokens, Uniswap Buy-Backs and Staking in Solidity

    Tokenomics Boilerplate | Governance Tokens, Uniswap Buy-Backs and Staking in Solidity

    In DeFi a projects success is greatly tied to the effectiveness of the tokenomics. Governance tokens can be distributed to the users to incentivise growth and fees can be used to buy these back on exchange. In this Solidity tutorial we are going to deploy a governance token, a Uniswap v3 liquidity pool, a buy…

  • The Rise Of DyDx And Decentralized Trading

    The Rise Of DyDx And Decentralized Trading

    In May 2016 Bitmex launched the XBTUSD market, a perpetual futures contract which simplified traders ability to bet on the price of Bitcoin going up or down. Today perps are traded on the major exchanges at higher volumes than the underlying spot assets. DyDx took this concept and packaged it in to a decentralized trading…

  • Introduction To DEX Arbitrage | Intermediate Solidity Tutorial

    Introduction To DEX Arbitrage | Intermediate Solidity Tutorial

    This Solidity tutorial will provide an introduction to DEX arbitrage with real, working, profitable open-source code. Solidity developers have the ability batch multiple swaps together and if they are not profitable revert the entire transaction only paying the transaction fee. The creation of EVM blockchains which have low transaction fees has created a playground for…

  • How To Trade Crypto | Ultimate Guide To Trading Bitcoin, Ethereum & Altcoins

    How To Trade Crypto | Ultimate Guide To Trading Bitcoin, Ethereum & Altcoins

    This ultimate “How To Trade Crypto” guide is provided for educational purposes. I am not a financial advisor, not financial advice. The vast majority of active trading in crypto markets is done on centralized exchanges such as Binance and FTX. The high volumes on perpetual futures on both exchanges has proven the demand for leveraged…

  • How To Automate Yield Farming | Harvesting Rewards With A Quick & Dirty Script

    How To Automate Yield Farming | Harvesting Rewards With A Quick & Dirty Script

    Connect wallet, click button, confirm transaction. It gets old pretty quick, especially when you need to do it daily to compound returns. This tutorial takes you through the process of using a block explorer to find functions, calling those functions from a script and then executing to harvest and stake reward tokens. The aim is…

  • When Will Ethereum 2.0 Launch & The Triple Halving Event

    When Will Ethereum 2.0 Launch & The Triple Halving Event

    Ethereum 2.0 is the biggest update that the crypto sector has ever seen. A series of rollouts will include a migration to proof of stake, sharding and the highly anticipated triple halving event. This article will discuss the roadmap for these rollouts, what changes each update will implement and the possible effects. Ethereum 2.0 Roadmap…

  • DeFi Derivatives | The 13 Market Leading DeFi Futures, Options, Synths, Indexes & Staking Protocols

    DeFi Derivatives | The 13 Market Leading DeFi Futures, Options, Synths, Indexes & Staking Protocols

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance DeFi derivatives are financial contracts which track or provide exposure to an underlying asset. The most common derivatives products in crypto markets are futures and options. In crypto markets derivatives are traded at greater…

  • Crypto Oracles | Moving Data On-Chain

    Crypto Oracles | Moving Data On-Chain

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance Crypto oracles provide an essential bridge between off-chain and on-chain data. If a smart contract needs access to price feeds, random numbers or external data they will need to use an oracle because the…

  • DeFi Borrowing & Lending

    DeFi Borrowing & Lending

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance DeFi borrowing and lending differs from traditional finance where institutions will lend funds based on credit ratings. In DeFi accounts are anonymous, there are no credit ratings to assess risk. Borrowing and lending is…

  • USD Stablecoins Compared | USDT vs USDC vs UST vs MIM vs DAI vs FRAX

    USD Stablecoins Compared | USDT vs USDC vs UST vs MIM vs DAI vs FRAX

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance USD stablecoins have become big business with over $100 billion of collateral locked in USDT and USDC alone. This article dives in to how stablecoins work, the different types and looks at some of…

  • Synthetic Assets | A Regulatory Nightmare

    Synthetic Assets | A Regulatory Nightmare

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance Synthetic assets are a form of derivative product in decentralised finance. Synths are created which follow the price of an underlying asset. For example sTSLA will follow the stock price of Tesla and can…

  • The Rise Of Automated Market Makers

    The Rise Of Automated Market Makers

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance In late 2017 all the tokens were on Ethereum and it made sense that someone would eventually build a decentralised digital asset exchange. The first popular one was called IDEX and it followed the…

  • The Token Economy

    The Token Economy

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance The token economy is the accelerating migration of assets into the digital world. One of the first breakthroughs for Ethereum was a smart contract that facilitated the creation and transfer of tokens. Anyone who…

  • The Truth About dApps & Web3

    The Truth About dApps & Web3

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance If smart contracts form the back end brains of a DeFi platform then dApps or decentralized applications form the front-end that we interact with as users. In theory dApps can be compiled from source…

  • Smart Contracts Simply Explained

    Smart Contracts Simply Explained

    This article is derived from a chapter in the free eBook explaining DeFi technologies:DeFi Demystified | An Introduction To Decentralized Finance Decentralized finance is built on smart contracts. The code that enables users to lend, borrow and swap tokens is all run on Ethereum’s virtual machine. Smart contracts are written (mainly) in the language of…

  • Understanding Squeeth | A Token To Track ETH² From Opyn

    Understanding Squeeth | A Token To Track ETH² From Opyn

    Squared ETH or Squeeth is a perpetual options protocol that provides unlimited upside leverage with no liquidations on long positions. Squeeth isn’t just a tool for traders, it can be used as a hedge for liquidity providers on Uniswap and it can provide a funding rate yield in sideways markets. This article starts at the…

  • Aurora | Near Protocol’s Explosive EVM Blockchain

    Aurora | Near Protocol’s Explosive EVM Blockchain

    Money flows in and out of DeFi ecosystems like the changing of the tide. In 2021 fifteen different blockchains exceeded one billion us dollars in total value locked. The early adopters who stay ahead of the money flow tend to make the highest returns. Aurora looks set to become another billion dollar DeFi ecosystem. This…

  • The Truth About Where Yield Comes From In DeFi

    The Truth About Where Yield Comes From In DeFi

    Interest rates in traditional banks are 0.1%, have you ever wondered how DeFi yield farmers are getting 20-100% yields on their digital assets? Is it sustainable wealth creation or a giant ponzi that risks collapsing in on itself. That’s the question we are going to explore in this article looking at where yield comes from…

  • How To Make Cross Chain Transfers With Multichain

    How To Make Cross Chain Transfers With Multichain

    I’ve seen Anyswap popping up more and more in on-chain analytics reports as it’s grown to be a six billion dollar protocol by TVL. The platform just rebranded to Multichain and its fast becoming the market leader in cross chain bridges. If you want to transfer USDC from Ethereum to Polygon or Fantom or another…

  • Curve Wars | The Best Way To Gain Exposure To The Curve Wars

    Curve Wars | The Best Way To Gain Exposure To The Curve Wars

    A battle rages for control of DeFi’s biggest protocol as stablecoins fight for liquidity. Million dollar bribes being paid for votes, enemies becoming alliances and an ultimate prize at stake. This article explores why CRV is so valuable and why it likely isn’t the best way to gain exposure to the Curve wars. The CRV…

  • Crypto Market Thesis 2022 & Current Portfolio Holdings

    Crypto Market Thesis 2022 & Current Portfolio Holdings

    This article outlines my thoughts and predictions for crypto markets heading in to 2022. At the end of the article I share my allocations and plans for this year. Crypto Market Thesis Video James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/ogBcbwuasWw Bitcoin Market Outlook Crypto markets have cooled off significantly since summer 2021 but expectations are…

  • DeFi Risk | A Framework For Assessing & Managing Risk in DeFi

    DeFi Risk | A Framework For Assessing & Managing Risk in DeFi

    The high yields available in decentralised finance come with a downside. DeFi risk is real and if you are participating in the markets then you should know how to assess and manage that risk. By building a risk assessment framework for yield farms and DeFi opportunities we can better assess fair value and allocate capital…

  • How To Clone Safemoon

    How To Clone Safemoon

    In this tutorial I’ll show you how to clone Safemoon and create your own token on Binance Smart Chain. I’m going to do this without any development tools using only a web browser with the metamask plugin. Safemoon is a cryptocurrency token with a function that taxes 10% of all transactions and redistributes 5% to…

  • Crypto Index Funds | Set Protocol & Index Coop

    Crypto Index Funds | Set Protocol & Index Coop

    This article looks at the future of crypto index funds running on DeFi and in particular the Set Protocol and Index Coop. Crypto index funds known as sets provide a single token which represents a managed or fixed fund of digital assets. Index Funds in TradFi and DeFi In traditional finance index funds are the…

  • Intermediate Solidity Tutorial | Building On DeFi Lego Bricks With Hardhat 👷

    Intermediate Solidity Tutorial | Building On DeFi Lego Bricks With Hardhat 👷

    In this intermediate solidity tutorial I’ll be building, testing and deploying a smart contract to rebalance a digital asset portfolio. The idea is to look at how we can work with external smart contracts to start building our own products on the lego bricks of DeFi. The Challenge To create a solidity smart contract to…

  • How To Stake Ethereum, Luna or Solana| LIDO Staking Tutorial

    How To Stake Ethereum, Luna or Solana| LIDO Staking Tutorial

    As Ethereum moves to a proof of work network it opens up the possibility to stake our assets to gain a yield. We can do this by running our own validator node on the network… or we can use a liquid staking platform. In this lido staking tutorial I’m going to look at the LIDO…

  • 112 DeFi Definitions | Blockchain Glossary

    112 DeFi Definitions | Blockchain Glossary

    The blockchain community has its own language and abbreviations which can seem quite daunting at first glance. Here is a glossary of defi definitions and terms that you’ll want to know and understand to interact in the space. AML (Anti-Money Laundering) Regulations applicable in most international markets aimed at preventing criminal activity. Anti-Money Laundering regulations…

  • Crypto Research | Due Diligence & How To Find The Next 10x Token 🧐

    Crypto Research | Due Diligence & How To Find The Next 10x Token 🧐

    When market conditions are right there are abundant opportunities in seeking out high quality and early stage crypto projects. In this post I’ll walk-through my crypto research process from screening and researching crypto projects to due diligence and tokenomics. An Introduction To Crypto Research James On YouTube Where To Find New Crypto Projects Being early…

  • Impermanent Loss Calculator | How To Calculate And Mitigate DeFi’s Biggest Risk

    Impermanent Loss Calculator | How To Calculate And Mitigate DeFi’s Biggest Risk

    Impermanent Loss Calculator Enter the quantities for the two assets in a full-range liquidity pool and a future price ratio to find out what the impermanent loss would be: Base Asset Qty: Token Asset Qty: Future Price Ratio: Calculate How Impermanent Loss Is Calculated In this article we will look at what impermanent loss is,…

  • Testnet Faucets | 13 Testnet Details Including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana & Bitcoin

    Testnet Faucets | 13 Testnet Details Including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana & Bitcoin

    Testnet faucets provide a risk free way to experiment with DeFi and cryptocurrency. You enter your address and get testnet tokens for free which hold no value. In this article I’ll be providing the latest details for all available public testnets. At the end I carry out some analysis to gain insights into developer activity…

  • Bitcoin vs Ethereum | Everything You Need To Know About BTC & ETH

    Bitcoin vs Ethereum | Everything You Need To Know About BTC & ETH

    The Bitcoin vs Ethereum debate is passionately argued by maximalists for both sides. This article and video explains the fundamental differences in how they work, what makes them unique and why Ethereum carries more risk and potential reward. Bitcoin vs Ethereum [Video] James On YouTube Fundamental Differences In 2008 an anonymous developer using the pseudonym…

  • Crypto Portfolio | What I’m Hodling & Why In 2021

    Crypto Portfolio | What I’m Hodling & Why In 2021

    In this article I’ll go through my crypto portfolio and explain why I’m holding each of the digital assets. I’ll also be discussing the principles behind the portfolio and how I manage it. The Crypto Portfolio 2021 This is what my crypto portfolio looks like as of July 2021. I’m not a financial advisor, not…