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9) But, OK, still, DeFi is growing, right? I actually really like the anecdote that DeFi traded ~2x Bitfinex today. Bitfinex is famous of many things--most of all an anonymous enemy on Twitter (remember when bitfinex'd was a big thing?).

10) But ask

, and you'll hear a different set of things. Among them: a strong aversion to substance-free volume. Bitfinex fees are relatively high and they're proud of that because it means their volume is real and their trades really wanted their trades.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

11) In fact, Bitfinex has processed billions of dollars of fiat/stablecoin trades this year (creations/redemptions/USD deposits/withdrawals). But those don't show up in their 'volume', because they don't consider it to be real, substantial deltas changing hands.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

12) Sure, Bitfinex only traded $35m today. But it probably made around $50k on that (leo.bitfinex.com). DeFi exchanges traded $100m and had a revenue of..... $0. FTX also had similar stablecoin trading volume today to DeFi. But we also didn't count it.

leo.bitfinex.com

iFinex's UNUS SED LEO Token

Get the latest supply, burn and market data live

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

13) Instead we classified them as deposits/withdrawals--depositing USDC and withdrawing TUSD, 1:1. Which, I guess, would correspond to infinite TLV on a stablecoin:stablecoin pool.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

14) Where is that DeFi volume coming from? Well, looking at curve.fi and coingecko.com/en/exchanges/u, it was mostly stablecoins, and governance tokens of platforms trading and locking.... stablecoins.

coingecko.com

Uniswap (v3) Trade Volume, Trade Pairs & Trust Score | CoinGecko

View Uniswap (v3) 24h trading volume, trading fees, pair list, fee structure, trust score, most active trading pair, and other cryptocurrency exchange info.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

15) And how about the locked volume? Again, it's all stablecoins. Compound, the largets, is mostly people borrowing DAI from themselves; Curve is basically all stablecoins. Most of DeFi right now is people locking, trading, and lending stablecoins against each other.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jul 19, 2020

16) Why? Well, because at this point any project with their salt has liquidity incentives. The total notional per day is around $1m (!!!). So people are buying, and selling, and borrowing, and lending, and locking their stablecoins for pay.

Replying to

and

1) Thanks for a thoughtful thread Sam. I will need to re-read it to reply on some points, but a quick note would be that in general comparing Bitmex / Fcoin case with what's happening in DeFi is absolutely wrong.

Replying to

and

2) I understand that for you it's an example from real life. But those are conceptually different. With bitmax, the wash trades were made by them effectively misleading traders In DeFi, it's the real ppl generating volumes. We can compare them to deposits / withdrawals in cefi

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Replying to

@rezoshm

BitMax and FCoin were also mostly that--airdropping their exchange tokens on traders which incentivized them to trade with each other for no edge (or negative edge) to trading mine the coin

2:45 PM · Jul 20, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

and

Yes, but defi works without what you call "airdrops". What has drawn attention now are the "airdrops" from compound. And yes, >90% who get the COMP will never use it for governance. There are a lot of "if"s and " how"s here, but defi is a growing dinosaur