Author: Meltem Demirors

Crypto lending is young, but a rapidly growing industry. A three-part series on the past, present and future of crypto-credit markets. In this article: New models for alternative credit in the world of “decentralized finance” (DeFi) today. Cryptocurrencies have a number of unique attributes that make them fascinating for lending markets — blockchain networks operate 24 x 7 x 365, and subsequently markets do as well, transactions settle with finality, and the public ledger enables verification and attestation to the state of the network and the assets on the network. DeFi takes advantage of all of these attributes to create…

Crypto lending is young, but a rapidly growing industry. A three-part series on the past, present and future of crypto-credit markets. In this article: The past and the evolution of credit markets in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The world loves leverage. Debt is the magic that has fueled economic growth since the dawn of time, and while we’ve come a long way from the days of the Iron Bank — throwback for you Game of Thrones fans — global debt is by far the largest asset class and investment category. Whether government debt, corporate debt, derivatives, consumer debt, or some permutation…

An Insatiable Thirst for Dollars, the Race for Global Reserve Currency Status, and Rates on “the Blockchain”. Many changes are underway in the structure of the global economy. Currencies, exchange rates and interest rates seem to be shaped by digitalization and innovation. At CoinShares, we’ve been watching the explosion of stablecoins in the crypto sphere as demand for dollars goes through the roof. We thought it would be interesting to share some of our perspectives, in the below excerpt from an investor newsletter. In this post, we’ll cover: The insatiable thirst for dollars The political stakes surrounding central bank digital…

At the centre of every conversation about bitcoin is a much broader conversation – what is money? And to explore that question, we have to talk about central banks. Money as a means to create empire has existed almost as long as history itself. This is not an article on the meaning of money. For that, we’d probably need Joe Rogan, a joint, and a bottle of whiskey. I digress. Julius Caesar is credited with the innovative idea to utilize coinage as more than just currency. By stamping his face on coins, Julius Caesar created one of government’s most effective…