What Does CZ Think Is Next For Binance & The Crypto Ecosystem?
All Access with Emin Gün Sirer | Solana Outage | FTX Going After Grayscale's Bitcoin | Optimism’s Superchain vs Cosmos | Introduction of IPOR Labs
Attention degens, this is your Daily Bolt briefing.
Today we bring to your attention several brief research reports on the latest macro and institutional news. Later, we discuss CZ’s goals for Binance, his thoughts on AI, and what countries he thinks are the most bullish for crypto.
Additionally, we have published our 20th breakdown, featuring none other than Balancer - the well-established, adaptable liquidity-pool platform.
Over and out.
Key Discussions Happening Today
1/ Avalanche - All Access with Emin Gün Sirer - Ep. 51
Preview: Emin Gün Sirer discusses the latest news from Avalanche including Hyper SDK, Loco Partnership, L2 protocols and the future of DeFi. Click here to listen to the full episode.
Length: 61 mins | OUR NOTE: 3 mins
Here are some key takeaways:
Hyper SDK is a new software development kit for building customized virtual machines, designed to accelerate custom virtual machine development.
Loco is the biggest Esports streaming provider in India, with about 50 million users.
Loco has chosen Avalanche to support their streaming platform, which could potentially convert Loco's 50 million users into Avalanche users over time.
2/ Marinade Finance - Kamino Finance, Cogent Crypto & Solana Outage
Preview: Cerba from Marinade Finance, Marky from Kamino Finance, and Ben from CogentCrypto discuss and introduce the protocols, the recent Solana outage & more. Click here to listen to the full episode.
Length: 61 mins | OUR NOTE: 7 mins
Here are some key takeaways:
Kamino is a decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana that allows for concentrated liquidity, where liquidity providers can define specific price ranges for their assets.
Marinade is a project focused on minimizing the impact of MEV (miner-extractor value) on blockchain transactions, especially during periods of high network traffic.
Marky from Kamino Finance explains that during the outage, the strategies are frozen, which can pose a risk for participants in DeFi and market makers who may need to move prices.
3/ Real Vision - Why is FTX Going After Grayscale's Bitcoin?
Preview: Ash Bennington is joined by Aron Woolman, portfolio manager at RenGen.io, and Jake Boyle, director of crypto brokerage Caleb & Brown, to discuss the latest news. Click here to listen to the full episode.
Length: 43 mins | OUR NOTE: 6 mins
Here are some key takeaways:
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX says its affiliate, Alameda Research, is suing lots of parties, Grayscale, its CEO Michael Sonnenshein, Grayscale's parent company, DCG, and its CEO Barry Silbert. Grayscale is the operator of GBTC, the largest Bitcoin Trust.
While FTX and Alameda aren't directly going after the SEC, their case is indirectly doing the same thing, the same argument that Grayscale is presenting as well.
While the court of public opinion may not really care about whether Grayscale is able to convert the Trust into an ETF, the fact that they have the claim of harm against so many innocent retail investors making its way through could potentially sway things.
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4/ Bell Curve S3 Ep. 6 - Optimism’s Superchain vs Cosmos
Preview: Mike and Myles discuss Optimism's recent "Superchain" rebrand and the similarities between the OP Stack and Cosmos SDK. Click here to listen to the full episode.
Length: 60 mins | OUR NOTE: 6 mins
Here are some key takeaways:
Optimism rebranded to the Super Chain, which looks like the app chain or app space thesis on Ethereum.
The Super Chain is a horizontally scalable network of chains that share security, a communication layer, and an open-source development stack.
Cosmos and Ethereum are building towards a future with app-specific block space, but Ethereum relies on a single final source of truth, while Cosmos does not.
5/ blocmates - Introduction of IPOR Labs and Current Situation of DeFi
Preview: Jedi from blocmates meets with Darren Kamas, the CEO and co-founder of IPOR Labs, a protocol that aims to bring stability and predictability to the DeFi credit markets. Click here to listen to the full episode.
Length: 55 mins | OUR NOTE: 6 mins
Here are some key takeaways:
Darren explains that the current construction of the DeFi credit markets is overcollateralized credit markets with a borrower paying interest to the lender.
However, there is no yield curve or term structure, which makes it difficult to predict the rate of return in the future, and it limits the potential of attracting large-scale capital.
To solve this problem, IPOR Labs proposes a solution with two constructs from traditional finance and credit markets.
On the Revelo Intel platform, we’ve summarized these 5 episodes and in total, would have saved you: 4 hours and 12 minutes!
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Note of the Day
Binance CEO CZ AMA - March 8, 2023 - Updates, Goals & More
CZ, CEO of Binance gives the hottest and latest updates on Binance, He also shares his view regarding the geographical regions that shows positivity regarding crypto.
Read our notes below to learn more.
CZ Insights on Binance Nigeria
There is a conversion to a cashless society.
The bank in Nigeria doesn’t work with cryptocurrency exchanges. Most people do peer-to-peer transactions.
Nigeria is a big market, there are a lot of users there.
The banking penetration in Africa is quite low.
With that low access to traditional financial services, people will move to blockchain financial services.
Africa is a very low-revenue market. They don’t actively trade, people use things like Binance pay.
Stocks in the Future
Binance doesn’t have plans to implement stocks in the future.
FTX did that first. FTX was offering stock trading tokens.
The guys who want to trade stocks are in the stock market.
Stocks and Crypto are very different. The trading profiles are very different too.
Crypto traders are much more international and retail-driven.
There is no advantage for crypto exchanges to offer stocks.
Working with Another Stablecoin Issuer
Binance is working with multiple stablecoin providers.
BUSD is not issued by Binance, it is issued by Paxos.
CZ wants to see more non-USD-backed stablecoins.
Binance is not exclusive to one partner.
It is beneficial to see more and more stablecoins being promoted.
Binance is working with multiple algorithmic stablecoins.
Do Kwon has the right idea, he is just not transparent enough about the risk of algorithmic stablecoins.
Binance Feed
Binance Feed is a new feed style at the bottom of the Binance App.
The news is mostly contributed by others that work with Binance.
CZ is not a news kind of guy but he will be into it.
AI Applications in 2023
AI has many wide implications, especially with the recent latest iteration of Chat GPT.
Binance has been using AI in its products in a few areas.
CZ’s team recently integrated Chat GPT in Binance Academy.
Binance Academy is a free educational platform on Binance that talks about crypto and stuff.
Binance is using AI to fill their support customer’s desks.
About 75% - 76% of Binance’s customer inquiries are solved by an AI bot and humans take care of the 25%.
Binance uses AI for risk monitoring. It is a different type of AI that looks for market manipulations, hacker attempts, risk-based approaches, etc.
Binance is applying AI alongside compliance tools.
BNB Chain Spaces
CZ will be happy to jump into the BNB Community.
CZ is not deeply involved in the BNB development, there are different teams working on that.
As a decentralized ecosystem, it is better for the community to develop what they want to develop.
Binance did help funds many of the BNB chain projects.
CZ spent most of his time in centralized exchange since it is his core expertise.
If CZ has free time, he will contribute more to the BNB ecosystem.
BNB Ecosystem Funds
The BNB Ecosystem fund is managed by the BNB Chain foundational team.
Binance Labs is the venture arm of Binance.
Binance is trying to help more with funding.
Binance moving away from Fiat-backed Stablecoins
Fiat-backed stablecoins will continue to exist for a long time to come because it is the easiest to understand and verify.
Stablecoins are going to evolve.
Algorithmic Stablecoins have different risk characteristics.
When they use one asset as a collateral asset, there is always a possibility of de-pegging.
Stablecoin today is backed with a single currency. Almost every single fiat currency they know is devaluing rapidly.
There are ways to trade based on inflation bond curves to exactly got the inflation rate and if they attach a stablecoin onto that, that stablecoin is pegged to the inflation rate. Going up in value over time versus the native fiat-backed stablecoins.
After 10-20 years, people will see non-fiat-backed stablecoins taking over.
CZ Personal Goals & Binance Goals
CZ is not a very goal-oriented person.
CZ always encourages his team to do their best.
CZ and his team use the Objective and Key Results (OKR) system for soft goals.
CZ and his team are not trying to be goal-oriented, they will just do their best and provide the best product.
CZ expects that this year is a recovery year.
If people will at crypto history, there is a very distinct 4-year cycle.
Every 4 years there is an all-time high that is higher than the previous one.
After each of the all-time highs, there is a short decline of 1 year and 2 years recovery then another 1-year all-time high to complete the 4-year cycle.
CZ is not saying that history can predict the future but or the high probability case, this year should be a recovery year.
CZ is preparing his platform for recovery.
CZ’s personal goal is to have 6 packs of abs.
KYC Process
The Binance Know Your Customer (KYC) process is nowhere near perfect.
In different countries, there is a different ID system, address systems, KYC databases, government databases, etc. CZ and his team are trying to integrate as much as they can.
CZ and his team are dealing with some nefarious hacker.
The easiest way to give feedback is through Binance customer support.
Geographical Region showing the most promise in Crypto Adoption
CZ knows that they are doing the right thing, protecting its users.
If they are doing the right thing for the right reason, everything else is just noise.
CZ knows that what he and his team are doing is super meaningful for the community.
Singapore is quite conservative on crypto now compared to 2-3 years ago.
This year, the U.S. is not looking good. Many different agencies are scrutinizing crypto most likely because of the FTX issue.
Binance is still committed to Voyager and helping the users.
In a regulatory landscape, CZ thinks that Europe is mixed. France is favorable.
Latin America is waking up quite a bit.
Hong Kong is very positive towards crypto.
Japan is positive now.
Binance acquired a licensed entity in Japan, the Sakura Exchange Bitcoin (SEBC).
Legal Team of Binance Against Binance FUDs
According to CZ, there is no legal team.
In the U.S. or Western-based mainstream media, the laws there protect the journalist like crazy.
Whether the reporting is fake or intentionally misleading there's nothing much they can do about it.
Hong Kong has a strong defamation law.
It is much better for the Binance legal team to focus on compliance and regulatory advocacies.
When people create FUD about Binance, they can’t attack without mentioning the names. The media keeps talking about Binance and CZ which gives more exposure and publicity.
The user base of Binance becomes more loyal because of those attacks because the users feel that they need to protect Binance.
FUD is temporary. There is so much FUD that happened and Binance always proves that wrong.
BNB Chain Growing in the Industry of DeFi
According to CZ, Binance and himself is not a lead role. They are supporting roles. It should be a decentralized ecosystem.
CZ sees a lot of projects migrating to BNB Chain including Uniswap.
DeFi is definitely going to stay.
NFTs are not in their final form.
CZ is happy to see the community developed and he wants Binance to be in the supporting role.
Highlights in Binance Ecosystem
Chat GPT integration on the Binance Academy.
AI-Generated NFTs in NFT Marketplace called Bicasso.
Binance Tax tool and User feedback tool.
Binance launched ZK SNARKS proof of reserves, this is a privacy-protected and blockchain-verifiable proof of reserves. Actually suggested by Vitalik.
Binance Pay is going quickly in Africa & Latin America.
NFT marketplace has 2 million traders.
The Binance Gift card is going out.
There’s a trading Heatmap which allows people to see the top cryptos.
On Futures, there is a brief mode that allows people to edit their orders in the chart on the trading page.
In Binance P2P, there is an online status for merchants so that people can see who is online.
On the NFT side, there is an aggregator listing.
On loans, Binance introduces a more wide range of flexible loans.
On the company updates, the industry recovery initiatives have now 18 organizations participated.
Binance founded 14 projects last month or so.
$11 million was donated to Turkey.
Binance charity funded 36,000 scholarships in 2022.
The events team of Binance did hundreds of events in 2023 already.
Binance also hosts more events in small cities instead of just big cities.
Binance Academy funds more than 10,000 MoU with top educational institutions.
Binance invested 3 law enforcement training per week, to understand crypto and not hate crypto.
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