Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, goes deep into yield farming, fair launches and how decentralization will upend the traditional notion of the corporation. In this episode, he talks about:

when it makes sense for a team to introduce a liquidity mining scheme, and when it doesn't
the difference between yield farming and ICOs when it comes to investing
his thoughts on YFI, as well as YAM, and the pace at which unaudited DeFi projects are
moving forward
the three advantages he sees in automated market makers as opposed to centralizedexchanges
his thoughts on Uniswap and SushiSwap and why he's not sure Uniswap will make a token
his thoughts on fair launches and whether he thinks they will threaten traditional crypto VCs
whether the CRV token launch really was instigated by someone unrelated to the team
his thoughts on the yEarn yETH vault and what it says about where the DeFi space is going
what he sees as the pros and cons of rebasing
why he sees projects like YFI as a new kind of corporation
whether he thinks Ethereum will scale fast enough to meet the demand already being put on it
why he thinks systems like Polkadot are going to expand what is possible in the same way that Ethereum expanded beyond what was possible with Bitcoin
whether he thinks the yields from yield farming will pull investors away from staking on Ethereum 2.0
what he thinks DeFi teams should do to improve security
Bitcoin on Ethereum and what he believes it could mean for DeFi in the future
the chatter around a potential public offering from Coinbase, and what's in store for Polychain in the future

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links:

Olaf Carlson-Wee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olafcw/

Polychain Capital: https://polychain.capital

Previous interviews with Olaf on Unchained and Unconfirmed: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-first-employee-of-coinbase-launched-a-hedge-fund/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/to-the-moon-and-back-with-polychains-olaf-carlson-wee/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/special-episode-with-cnbcs-crypto-trader-olaf-carlson-wee-on-why-this-crypto-winter-is-different-from-previous-ones-ep-028/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/all-things-cryptoeconomics-pt-1-with-olaf-carlson-wee-and-ryan-zurrer-of-polychain-capital/

Why trading on automated market makers has risen so quickly: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-decentralized-trading-has-10xed-in-a-few-months/

Launch of yEarn/YFI: https://medium.com/iearn/yfi-df84573db81

Dex volume over time: https://defiprime.com/dex-volume

YAM recap: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/74810/yam-token-market-cap-collapses-by-more-than-90-flaw

YAM team’s plans going forward: YAM Post-Rescue Attempt Update. At approximately 6PM UTC, on Wed August… | by Yam Finance | Aug, 2020 | Medium

SushiSwap vs. Uniswap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sushiswap-takes-on-uniswap-which-should-win-and-why/

Ian Lee of IDEO CoLab Ventures on fair launches vs. VC coins: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fair-launches-will-disrupt-crypto

And on fast-follower forks: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fast-follower-forks-in-defi

CRV token launch: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/74921/the-story-of-the-botched-crv-launch

yEarn's yETH vault: https://www.coindesk.com/yearn-finance-yeth-vault-defi-triforce

Ethereum's transition to 2.0: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-ethereums-five-year-anniversary/

Security in DeFi: https://unchainedpodcast.com/defi-security-with-so-many-hacks-will-it-ever-be-safe/

Whether Coinbase will do a token offering when it goes public: https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-coinbase-do-a-token-offering-when-it-goes-public/

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Olaf Carlson-Wee: 'If There Is a Money-Losing Exploit, the Money Is Gone' - Ep.189 01:13:35 Share

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Olaf Carlson-Wee: 'If There Is a Money-Losing Exploit, the Money Is Gone' - Ep.189