DeFi and the Future of Finance

This is basically a 300-level course on the decentralized finance revolution. It is seemingly aimed at investors already well-versed in traditional finance. It features deep dives into MakerDAO, Aave, Uniswap, Yield Protocol, dYdX, and Synthetix, as well as a succinct yet superb overview of the history, infrastructure, strengths, and weaknesses of the industry.For an investor experienced with the intricacies of traditional finance, this little book might be everything needed to get started. But for a novice looking for simplification, this book might raise more questions than answers.Although I’m primarily in the latter camp, I appreciated learning about DeFi from an insider perspective. I have confidence that something I learned here will contribute to future earnings. I just wish the examples chosen were more practical and accessible to retail investors from other sectors.Here is what I took away from the book in a nutshell.Pros: DeFi differs from traditional finance in the following ways: it’s permissionless, open access, global, composable (interoperable), and transparent. It allows anyone to benefit from the censorship resistance, self-sovereignty, and instant accessibility of cryptocurrency while preserving their purchasing power. DeFi minimizes the friction of the inefficiencies that plague traditional finance while maximizing the value to users.Cons: DeFi stability is threatened by several factors which can be categorized as follows: smart contract risk, governance risk, oracle risk, scaling risk, DEX risk, custodial risk, environmental risk, and regulatory risk. None of these risks are new to crypto investors, but the authors share their unique insight on each factor. I was especially shocked to learn about the legal front-running practices within DeFi.

This book covers the surface of DeFi, with an Aristotelian listing of many species, and a quant’s curves of yield optimization. As the book says, this is a “Cambrian explosion” of new life forms, synthetic and digital.

This book is excellent. It is a short book but it is written in a way that is ordered, clear and easily adaptable. With so much unknown about the future of financial services, its critical to study what we have seen to be effective and what would most likely succeed in the future, and build from their. DeFi clearly marks the risk that are involved but also, what opportunities there could be in this different world.Very readable and suspect that there will be more written by this group on this subject as it rapidly changes!

Well organized, walking the reader in an incredible journey of not only the underlying mechanics, but the opportunity and risk of decentralized finance

Wide and deep enough course covering Decentralized Finance (DeFi) news up to mid-2021. It mostly covers Etherium-relevant smart contracts and coins as a primary base for DeFi.

Rather than being a broad overview of DeFi, this book digs deeply into Ethereum, how it works, and potential applications. An insightful read, but perhaps a bit myopic given the title.

The book is not for some one with no crypto familiarity really technical. I can’t judge whether it’s compete or not as it way above my pay grade. Hopes once I donate it someone else will understand it.

Very interesting and well written description of the DeFi future.

It outlines the future as it may well become but for which there are still elements of uncertainty. The decentralised use cases are clearly explained. This is a space that has the potential to grow considerably and change the very mechanisms that financial activity is currently based on. This book is a necessary prerequisite to understanding this.

Excellent beginners guide to DeFi.

As someone with a finance background and no experience in defi, I found this very hard to read and comprehend. Its very technical and just couldn’t grasp it, so after 30 pages or so I had to put it down. I would have liked to see examples and cases along side the theory…

Es una introducción. Base para el curso de internet que el autor da en Coursera (DUKE)

Fué un regalo y gustó