[Editor’s Note: In part one of this two-part series, Jason Jones, co-founder of LendIt and current CCO of Centrifuge, explains...
In the long take this week, I revisit decentralized finance, providing both an overview and 2019 update. The meat of the writing is the following long-range predictions for the space in the next decade -- (1) the role of Fintech champions like Revolut and Robinhood as it relates to DeFi, (2) increasing systemic correlation and self-reference in the space, which requires emerging metrics for risk and transparency, and (3) the potential for national services like Social Security and student lending to run on DeFi infrastucture, (4) the promise of pulling real assets into DeFi smart contracts and earning staking rewards, and (5) continued importance of trying to bridge into Bitcoin. Here's to an outlandish 2020!
The web of investment bank technology, there are 20 or more core vendors on which systems run. Adding Blockchain to the mix merely adds a 21st system, which is by design incompatible with everything else. Thus enterprise chain projects have been focusing on integration and proofs of concepts, not re-engineering the core. But we know how this plays out -- as it has over and over again across Fintech. Digitizing "unimportant" channels and hoping for them to succeed simply doesn't work. See JP Morgan giving up on Finn, or Northern Trust capitulating its pioneering idea into Broadridge, or any other number of examples from Bloomberg to LPL Financial. Even the struggles of Digital Asset could be used as an example of the danger of working oneself into an existing web of solutions, and trying to preserve their dependencies.
I hope that you and yours are OK, socially distanced and stocked on essentials. Whether you feel it yet or not in daily life, the world is bracing for coronovirus impact. In this week's analysis, I look at the difficult trade-offs between health and economy, and try to quantify the impact of the likely slow-down. We look at some grim but useful concepts, like (1) the value of a statistical life, (2) what happened to the Soviet economy and life expectancy after perestroika, and (3) how our financial machines (NYSE, Robinhood, Maker DAO) are cracking at the edges. If you can do one thing -- be kind and gracious with each other as some things inevitably break.
Blockchain progress through the lens of Binance’s $180MM profit and Greensill’s $1.5B SoftBank raise
Look at the difference between (1) building out the crypto asset class, and (2) operating infrastruture for a blockchain-based digital economy. There are so many little logic pot holes into which you could fall! There are so many things one could believe that make the whole thing make no sense at all! I am anchoring around two primary data points -- a Multicoin report about Binance's financial progress and its massive (though unaudited) $180 million profit in Q3 of 2019, and a post by supply chain company Centrifuge about marrying cashflow financing with the decentralized web.
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