This is a bait, son.
Clicked anyways? Well, that's the thing about curiosity, it doesn't understand a sign that reads “don't follow through.”
At this point, everyone is tired of seeing layer 2s popping off every two days and all seemingly trying(claiming?) to solve the same problem.
Heard Uniswap is launching one too, where do I short this all as narrative?
At this point I have to smack my head against the wall each time I see another funding news of a layer 2, you know, just to be sure I'm not simply stuck in some deep dream state with my brain slightly shifting certain parameters to trick me into believing it's all real.
Well, if it wasn't obvious, the only thing I realize each time I do that is that I'm weirdly curious, in the right bits, to intentionally give myself a headache over another tech company from the same founding brothers(cousins?) solving, yet again, the flaws of Ethereum.
Makes me really want to cut the Bitcoin maxis some slack.
But you know the saying: twice a coincidence, three times, a pattern.
It's a game of hunting short term gains, it should have been quite obvious by now.
The DeFi on Ethereum is really just VCs and Core teams making money.
Layer 2s are just VCs flipping companies
This is not even a conspiracy, just have a look at the data and you'll see that these chains are just made for VCs to profit off of.
Saw a report some hours ago about Optimism token unlocks and when I looked closely at the data, figured that over $53 million in OP tokens is being unlocked every month, and will continue for the next 1 year, 6 months, that's appropriately $966 million, all going to “core contributors and investors.”
What's the marketcap of OP again?
$2 billion, that means 2.57% of the marketcap is being dropped each month, and what's even funnier is that OP isn't a very liquid asset , there's barely $17 million in bids on centralized exchanges to buy it at the time of writing.
While this makes it seem like it'd be difficult for VCs and Core team to liquidate, I promise you, there are really a lot of ways to secure an exit without straight up dumping on the open market.
That deserves a separate post to address.
Bitcoin Is DeFi, don't get burned on L2s
Layer 2s are on slow death anyways.
Bitcoin isn't just DeFi, it's the most liquid form of DeFi and that's what makes it great.
Coming from someone that's called numerous bitcoin flaws, you know it's not a shill. There's really no competition when it comes to this.
The problem, however, is that Ethereum has managed to trap users into the concept of “smart contracts” being an indicator of what's “DeFi” but that's false.
If anything, smart contracts bring the complexity of traditional finance, on-chain, then automates it.
Based on this point, smart contracts automate finance, not decentralize it.
Judging by how these things are designed, there's significant evidence that they generally centralized finance into a contract with 3-5 nerds holding ownership keys to fuck things up when necessary.
Real DeFi is your Bitcoin(any decentralized crypto really) in your wallet, void of any complexity or connected Dapps.
For those who've been paying attention, this is why stablecoins will be a major player in onboarding the masses to crypto because all these lending, yield farming and the rest and not consumer-facing products or services.
But stablecoins, in your wallet, for global transactions, freely? Now that's DeFi, and consumer-type shit.
No consumer cares about smart contracts, no consumer cares about restaking or liquid staking. Yield farming on its own sounds like a polished scam hence the absence of significant retail, it isn't even profitable to be there as a small fish.
This turned out to be a rant, maybe it's just me but frankly speaking, this wasn't the literal direction I thought this post would follow but oh well, points made.
Buy Bitcoin if you want DeFi. Smart contracts ≠ DeFi.