Gustavo Lobo

Introduction to Curve Curve was founded by Michael Egorov, a Russian physicist and entrepreneur who had previously co-founded an encryption protocol for big data called NuCypher, in early 2020. While serving as NuCypher’s CTO, Egorov studied the concepts of liquid staking and bonding curves, which ultimately led him to develop an algorithm designed for low-slippage […]

Introduction After years of seeking regulatory compliance, Diem, a cryptocurrency payment project from Facebook/Meta, ended abruptly in 2022. Its assets were sold off, including the underlying blockchain network. In its wake, a trail of talent was left behind. Sui and Aptos were the fruit that came from the collaboration among former Diem employees. Cumulatively, both […]

Key Take-Aways Key Terms  Term Description Hard-Pegged Stablecoin Does not allow for fluctuation in its value and is freely exchangeable for a specified amount of the asset to which it is pegged. Soft-pegged stablecoin Similar to hard-pegged, soft-pegged stablecoin is an exchange rate mechanism used to maintain the value of a currency against a fixed […]

Introduction Lending protocols in DeFi aim to create decentralized, permissionless loans, which enable capital-efficient strategies for users. Users can lend their money out and earn interest yield. Borrowers can then take out a loan if they’re willing to pay the interest. Like all forms of leverage, the most front-facing risk comes in the form of […]

Introduction With the Solana and Nomad hacks over the last week, the demand for a secure and scalable blockchain has become increasingly apparent. Our previous report discussed Aptos, a blockchain founded by Meta (former Facebook) employees that runs on the Move programming language. That said, Aptos isn’t the only new kid on the block (pun […]

Introduction After years of seeking regulatory compliance, Diem, a cryptocurrency payment project from Facebook/Meta, ended abruptly in 2022. Its assets were sold off, including the underlying blockchain network. Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, two former Meta employees, were unwilling to accept the fate of the project they spent nearly three years on. Therefore, they decided […]

Introduction: In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned the first distributed public ledger (database). This system was built upon cryptographically stored blocks of data. Each of these blocks of data secured the other, ultimately creating a network of immutable and tamper-proof databases.  The initial use-case for this distributed ledger technology was directed toward creating digital currencies. However, […]

Introduction In our previous paper on oracles, we dove into the intricacies that make up these networks, both old and new. Among the oracles discussed was Chainlink, the decentralized oracle network whose Total Value Secured is currently sitting at $37.3bln, making it the current leader among blockchain oracle solutions by a landslide (Figure A).  Earlier […]

Introduction A blockchain oracle is a third party data-feed that serves as a bridge between blockchains and data that exists off-chain. In our last piece, we talked about what blockchain oracles are, the problem they’re looking to solve, and why they’re a crucial part of the reliability and scalability of smart contracts. The immense growth […]