Really liked DeFi 101 course and my opinion is that in the future of DeFi it will have problems with transaction fees that keep getting higher due to gas fees. Or did i catch that wrong somehow because i mentioned while you are getting money ( accumulate through savings, lending or playing lottery ) there is always some fee for every single transaction you make. Do fees become higher as the currency that is used in process or are they fixed by protocol of MakerDAO( since everything is built upon it )
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I know that this is probably the most known one, but I really fell in love with Cardano.
Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform: the first to be founded on peer-reviewed research and developed through evidence-based methods. It combines pioneering technologies to provide unparalleled security and sustainability to decentralized applications, systems, and societies.
With a leading team of engineers, Cardano exists to redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins â to individuals â and be an enabling force for positive change and progress.
Hereâs a quick history lesson about Cardano:
The platform began development in 2015 and was launched in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum and BitShares. According to Hoskinson, he had left Ethereum after a dispute over keeping Ethereum non-profit. After leaving he co-founded IOHK, a blockchain engineering company, whose primary business is the development of Cardano, alongside the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo. The platform is named after Gerolamo Cardano and the cryptocurrency after Ada Lovelace
The currency debuted with a market cap of $600 million. By the end of 2017, it had a market cap of $10 billion, and reached a value of $33 billion briefly in 2018 before a general tightening of the crypto market dropped its value back to $10 billion. According to Mashable, Cardano claims that it overcomes existing problems in the crypto market: mainly that Bitcoin is too slow and inflexible, and that Ethereum is not safe or scalable. Cardano is considered a third-generation cryptocurrency by its creators.
here are some of the creators quotes:
The mission:
The opportunities:
I really think that Cardano, together with Polkadot, will be able to maybe steal a little of the limelight that ETHEREUM has accumulated, deservedly, throughout the years. I donât believe they wonât be able to co-exist, on the contrary I think each could solve different problems and a complementary use of the three would benefit us users in a great way.
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I agree CARDANO and Polkadot. But i also recommand PANCAKE Swap. This is also wonderful oppotunities on the BSC
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Automated Market Makers (AMMs) provide a completely new model for decentralized exchanges (DEXes), using liquidity pools and pricing set by an algorithm rooted in supply and demand instead of conventional order books. Users effectively trade with smart contract based liquidity pool rather than directly with other users. Itâs an elegant and user-friendly solution to trustless crypto trading that avoids the problems and complexity of moving traditional exchangesâ systems onto the blockchain.
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Maker Dao Strong Holder Offering (SHO). Very interesting.
https://medium.com/daomaker/presenting-the-rsho-refundable-strong-holder-offering-e750ea0b8f36
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Yes indeed 
this one is referring to DAO Maker though - something to keep in mind not to be confused with makerDAO
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Yes it is. Thanks for pointing that out 
Hey everyone, Iâm having troubles understanding how the DAI auctions work.
You have an auction thatâs started by an Auction Keeper (AK) - person or bot - once collateralized funds equal the liquidation ratio (which I understand). Then, other âauction keepersâ (can you call these guys auction participants or something?) bid on how much DAI to give for the collateral. E.g. if collateral fell down to $10 in ETH, then Bob bids 5 DAI, Alice 8 DAI, James comes through with the big 10 DAI, and the AK says âSOLDâ
So far so good, but this is the bit I donât understand.
James doesnât trade the collateral for DAI. Instead, the AK goes âskadiddle skadersed, the actionâs now reversedâ to try and get as much collateral back to the vault user.
Does the AK now say âokay. For the 10 DAI, we want $10 in ETHâ.
Then nobody puts their hand up.
AK goes âokay, $9 in ETHâ.
Nobody puts their hand up.
â$8 in ETHâ.
Boris puts his hand up. Does the AK now say âsold?â
Is that right?
What happens to the personâs existing DAI that theyâve already traded for other things/tokens/coins? Why not just sell the ETH at the market price to the market? Why the extra step of selling collateral for DAI and then buying collateral with DAI? Arenât you literally saying âBuy this thing for $5 from me. Okay, now can I buy it back for $4 please?â? Iâm so confused. I know itâs something to do with DAI but I have no clue whatsoever. Also, are both the auction person and the participants known as auction keepers? (because thatâs the case in the whitepaper of MakerDAO).
Is there a video that explains this graphically? The deep dive into MakerDAO lecture is just a powerpoint presentation with words and then an example of how to get DAI yourself. Iâm still incredibly confused as to how this all works and how it all makes sense, and I read the whitepaper but itâs so confusing too.
During the course, Iâve learn that there are plenty of opportunities in the DeFi ecosystem.
However, if we want to achieve adoption and financial inclusion, we should find ways to enable people to buy crypto assets without relying in the current banking system, with lower transaction costs, and with easy access to cash out their local FIAT currency.
I really believe that latin american SMEs may trade their products and services worldwide, at competitive costs, via crypto assets, and that our governments would be less reluctant to allow this kind of business if those transactions are not directly related to USD (if we develop a network with its own coin, and where they can get taxes properly when converting our coin to their local FIAT without any relation to USD, this will affect positively their macro indicators, as this will lower pressure over USD value)
Other interesting building block is to build a synthetic asset over certain cryptocurrencies, aimed to new investors (pretty similar to ETFs). For instance, we may create a asset which is indexed to money market tokens (considering MKR, AAVE, COMP), other with blockchains (BTC, ETH, DOT, ADA), other with trading tokens (UNI, 1INCH, SUSHI), and so. Even those tokens may be backed by users that bring liquidity to the system, and the minting of those synthetic assets may be restricted to the stock of the required currencies, in the percentage that they must be available.
Deep deep topic. Defi definitely is the way forward. We need trustless protocols to truly engage what customers need not decided by middle men.
I recently came across this new DeFi that seems interesting.
https://www.xion.global/defi-xgt/
It seems to be a build off of uniswap.
They create their own tokens called XGT and you can use those to buy products off of their page with up to 100% cashback. The XGT token is also deflationary as time goes on as well.
From researching it, it seems like they are trying to tackle the difficulty problem for new users. They want to create a platform that will be easier for new users to get involved.
Great course Amadaeo!! You definitely taught me so much DeFi itâs coming out both my ears! This is really an interesting space and will be going over all my notes and different reading materials you shared all throughout the course and will be playing around with all the different protocols. I greatly appreciate all you have done!
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Looking forward to reduced fees and increased speed, for now I think a lot of people are losing money to fees, slippage and wallet connection issues.
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Thanks Amadeo for the course, it was an eye opener for what kind of opportunities as well as risk we will be facing ahead.
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This course helped clear up a lot of the buzz words I have been hearing on crypto twitter. I subscribed to the bankless newsletter so hopefully I can stay on top of this exciting DeFi world.
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At this point, I would think we are on the way to not only reduced fees but faster transactions as well with the recent Ethereum protocol upgrade/improvement announcements. However, those are two pain points that we need to solve to scale as much as is needed for the space to flourish.
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I like KAVA as an upcoming DeFi project. It is focused on being safe, secure & reliable with an emphasis on the long-term
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Amadeo,
Thank you for giving us all of this information into DEFI. It is an ecosystem with great potential which is being crippled by insane gas fees on the Ethereum network. How can we fix this? Many smaller investors myself included would love to take part in some of these protocols. It seems to weaken the potential of DEFI when the fees to Use DEFI networks can cost as much as you are investing at times.
I hold several DEFI tokens at this time and it was literally going to cost me more to swap them into DAI than they are currently worth. That is simply unsustainable and it pushes new investors out of the space rapidly. In the last Assignment thread we had many posts discussing this and many of our course participants also stated that they were unable to actually take part due to the fees involved.
I simply dont have enough Eth to pay the fees at these prices. I understand that earning the interest will eventually bring it back to some extent. But at the end of the day I want to explore this space before jumping in head first. I cant do that it if cost me 50 dollars in gas to mess around with 100 dollars in DAI. Or rather I dont really want to to be honest. That is just too expensive for a smaller investor which shuts the door on a lot of potential participants in the space.
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The essential I got was how many opportunities lie in defi to let money grow, borrow it, insure it, etc and I am grateful that I know about this now so I can do it too.
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I think using Cardano and Compound are in my future, and those two probably arenât the only ones I will use. But I still feel an incredible need to learn a lot more to @LenoraElâs point earlier before I do anything further. A lot of whitepapers are going to be on my reading list.
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