Dear Bankless Nation,
Mark Cuban is a billionaire celebrity that’s done his homework on crypto (proof: listen to our podcast with him).
He understands crypto. He’s on the frontier with us. He’s using and investing in DeFi apps and writing smart articles on DeFi.
I give him massive credit for this. 🔥
And like many on the journey he had a strong appetite for risk. He was yield farming a new algorithmic stablecoin on Polygon called Titan earning some serious yields earlier this week. Then BAM! Mark Cuban got rug pulled. He lost his money along with everyone else involved.
But it wasn’t the classic rug pull—there were no outright theft. Instead, the actual economic mechanism of the algorithmic stablecoin broke, driving the price to literally zero. A bank run.
A few takes on this:
- There’s no way around it Titan was as degen as it gets—an uncollateralized meme-backed “stablecoin” is pure ponzi economics, brand new project, unproven model, and it all played out on a sidechain—layers and layers of risk here.
- If you’re making bets like expect to lose it all—look, even long-running DeFi protocols can get nuked, so for Titan class projects it’s expected—Cuban knows this “Even though I got rugged on this, it’s really on me for being lazy.”
- No, we don’t need regulators to tell us Titan wasn’t a safe investment. We need to take responsibility for the capital we risk. We need to stay educated. If you don’t know what you’re risking in DeFi—don’t risk it.
This is the wild and free frontier. Everything is an experiment. If you want remarkably average returns with gatekeepers telling you what’s safe then stay in your Schwab account. They even protect you from bitcoin ETFs. Nice and safe.
We came from that world. We’re not going back.
Every rugpull, every bust, every hack, every bank run—each of these makes DeFi smarter, more resilient, and yes…more safe.
The market learns through pain.
If you’re risking capital in this world you’re getting outsized returns because you’re willing to take on these risks. Their financial system socializes losses. Ours doesn’t.
You don’t think Titan should be called a stablecoin?
Neither do I. So let’s write articles, make educational content, and do the hard work to convince the community to come up with a better term.
Kudos to Mark for taking risk in this new frontier along with us. Here there’s no difference between a celebrity billionaire and a 19 year old college kid with a few hundred dollars to their name. That’s beautiful.
We’re all on the journey to build a better financial system for the world.
Our killer advantage—we level up every single week. Here’s next week:
- Macro analyst legend Jim Bianco is coming on the podcast (early access here)
- William continues our AMM tactics with all things Sushiswap
- Ben diving into Compound
Should be good.
- RSA
P.S. If the recent Chrome update is messing with your Ledger + Metamask combo,you should try Ledger Live—lets you stake, borrow, lend, and more with security in mind :)
Recap for the week of June 14th, 2021
🎙️WEEKLY PODCAST EPISODE
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ACTION RECAP
- Execute any good market opportunities you saw in Market Monday
- Learn how to use Balancer V2
- Explore the Convex, Yearn, and Curve war 🔥
- Understand whether productive DeFi tokens are better
- Discuss how much of your net worth should be in crypto
WATCH & LISTEN
- 🎙️ Listen Asking the questions: BTC & ETH | Preston Pysh
- 📺 Watch El Salvador Adopting Bitcoin | Nic Carter
- 📺 Watch Mark Cuban Titan | Metamask Institutional | Alchemix alETH
METAVERSAL 🧙♂️
BANKLESS DAO 🏴
Weekly Subscriber Perks 🔥
Bankless premium members get access to perks like these:
- Win the Beacon Book raffle—all 2020 and 2021 badges are eligible
- Early Access Facing the Frontier | Jim Bianco
- Exclusive Debrief Episode | Preston Pysh
- Full Access Laser Eyed Presidents
Launch your own raffle for Bankless Badge holders! Go ahead. We can’t stop you.
📺 Episode 50 of State of the Nation
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