Think Deep

Learn, absorb, explore, or just ponder.

15 Jun 2023

The Scariest Aspects of the SEC's Cases Against Coinbase and Binance (and Why Deepwaters is Safe)

Given prior statements from the SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, and the slow speed at which the SEC brings charges, these cases are likely just an opening salvo. What comes next could be worse.

09 May 2023

PFOF is Bad for Traders

Exchanges and market makers who participate in payment for order flow claim that it is good for everyone, as traders are compensated with price improvement on their orders. That claim is dubious.

15 Apr 2023

Trading On Your Own Exchange Is Bad

Certain crypto exchange execs have described the practice of trading on their own exchange as “eating their own dog food”, portraying it as a good thing. Exchanges are very different from dog food.

08 Mar 2023

Trustless 2.0: The new API Keys.

APIs enable businesses to seamlessly integrate and share data; they also present the potential of a very efficient means to siphon sensitive data away from it’s rightful owners... until now.

09 Nov 2022

WTFTX?!

SBF (the man behind one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, FTX, and one of the largest crypto-oriented hedge funds, Alameda Research) had to press the big red button at FTX.

31 Oct 2022

The need for Secure Self-Custody

If it ain’t broke, don’t throw a vanity address on it... or if one insists on throwing a vanity address on it, apply the same rigorous and ongoing cybersecurity practices one would expect elsewhere.

03 Oct 2022

PFOF is here to stay, for now…

The SEC had been considering outlawing Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and have decided it’s still kosher, for the time being.

30 Aug 2022

Demand a Level Playing Field

The more people with the privileges of High Frequency Traders, the more free and fair the markets become.

16 Aug 2022

Crypto without a NBBO

The National Best Bid and Offer is not sufficiently sensitive to time differences to be able to distinguish differences in price from lags in communication.

22 Jul 2022

What is a "fair price?"

The fact of Citadel, and similar Market Makers, routinely being able to turn a profit executing trades for retail investors speaks to their sitting on the beneficial side of an information asymmetry.

21 Jul 2022

Toxic Order Flow

Toxic Order Flow is commonly defined as a trader’s exposure to the risk of counterparties taking advantage of private or privileged information to create disadvantages for traders and market makers.

30 Jun 2022

Centralized Lending

Reliable, secure, on-chain self-custody of funds will help drive market maturity in the digital asset space.

07 Jun 2022

The definition of Insanity: Terra 2.0

Terra 2.0, a proposal to start a new blockchain, was announced on May 25th, splitting the community into Terra Classic and Terra.

18 May 2022

UST & The Great Crypto Crash of May 2022

Bitcoin, ETH and the longtail of alt-coins all took major losses the week of May 9th, while prominent stablecoins lost their peg.

12 May 2022

Gas Fees are Dead, Long Live Gas Fees

The incredible economic inefficiency of the BAYC Otherside digital land sale describes the ongoing journey to maturity for Ethereum and the DeFi ecosystem broadly.

03 May 2022

WTF is EIP-1559

EIP-1559 aims to make the Ethereum transaction fee market more predictable, by translating some of the volatility generated in virtue of demand for block space into volatility in block size.

28 Apr 2022

Understanding The Merge

The Ethereum network is planning to fully transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.

29 Mar 2022

What is Slippage in DeFi & How Does Slippage Occur?

Due to the nature of decentralized exchanges, many are particularly prone to slippage, which causes trades to execute at worse prices. We explain this phenomenon and why it occurs.

23 Mar 2022

Variable, Fixed and Stable Interest Rates in DeFi

DeFi lending protocols offer a number of options for how interest rates are determined. Rates may be variable, stable, or fixed. We explore what each of these terms means and how it affects loans.

Header image for Interest Rates Learn article.

08 Mar 2022

What are Gas Fees?

Gas fees compensate miners for the computational costs of the blockchain. Gas fees can adversely affect DeFi users, but understanding them allow users to transact more efficiently and effectively.

01 Mar 2022

What is Partial Liquidation?

Historically liquidations in DeFi have been all-or-nothing. Partial liquidations protect borrowers and provide a kinder alternative to simple binary liquidations.

19 Feb 2022

How Do Loans Work in DeFi?

The promise of decentralized finance is that the system exists to the benefit of the participants. The shift from centralized to decentralized financial platforms has been limited by many factors...