The DeFi Uprising — BLA2020 Event 2 Recap

Who’s building the lego blocks in DeFi? — Ecosystem, NFTs, Stablecoins and Project evaluation.

5 min readSep 23, 2020

BLA2020 will be focusing on the recent trend in blockchain, DeFi. Decentralized finance is one of the sectors that has been trying to shake the traditional financial ecosystem, providing solutions such as lending, staking, exchange of derivatives and many more! However, the barrier of adopting DeFi as a platform remains, as the general public does not understand the concept of DeFi well. Therefore, BLA aims to educate the masses about the potential of DeFi and inspire mass adoption of this technology.

😍Thank you to all speakers, sponsors and attendees for participating in Event 2!

If you’ve missed Event 2, fret not! We will be sharing event highlights and below!

Block Live Asia Event 2 Schedule:

Lisa JY Tan, Lead Economist of Economics Design on Introduction to DeFi ecosystem and Landscape
Jesse Johnson, Co-founder of Aavegotchi on How can DeFi be used with NFTs?
Doo Wan Nam, APAC Business Development of MakerDAO on What is DAI and how does MakerDAO works?
Jeremy Khoo, Partner at CRC Capital on How evaluate DeFi projects?
Q&A session

Block Live Asia Event 2 Full Video

Introduction to DeFi ecosystem and Landscape

The question of money supply and creation is starting to gain traction during COVID19 as the cracks in traditional “centralised” finance are beginning to widen. This strengthens the concept of decentralised finance, with the purpose of giving back power to consumers and provide financial services without the need for an intermediary. Lisa JY Tan shared about 9 different segments in finance and compared the differences between DeFi and traditional finance.

How can DeFi be used with NFTs?

While the focus is on DeFi in 2020, the popularity of NFTs has also spiked considerably! Instead of jumping straight into the bandwagon of farming governance tokens, innovative projects are breaking free from the norm and introducing exciting new products.

Such example is Aavegotchi, NFTs powered by DeFi. Each Aavegotchi will be backed with the interest-bearing aTokens that run the Aave dapp, therefore increasing the value of each Aavegotchi over time.

Jesse Johnson, Co-founder of Aavegotchi gave an in-depth introduction of the project and shared about staking Aave yield generating tokens into Aavegotchi digital collectables.

P.s. Congratulations to the team for the successful $GHST launch on the same day!

What is DAI and how does MakerDAO works?

Dealing with crypto’s volatility is a problem. That’s where stablecoins step in. However, the risk of many stablecoins pegged to USD is that users have to trust that the custodial solution actually has the correct amount of USD and not creating artificial inflation.

On the other hand, DAI is backed by the value of ETH through smart contracts, unlike USDT. This makes DAI a fully decentralized cryptocurrency, earning its place as the standard currency within the DeFi ecosystem.

During Block Live Asia Event 2, MakerDAO APAC Business Development, Doo Wan Nam shared about what is MakerDAO, DAI and the current state of DeFi.

How evaluate DeFi projects?

Although you’ve probably heard of some traders making high returns in the DeFi sector, it’s crucial for everyone to understand that identifying profitable cryptocurrencies and capitalizing on opportunities is a learned skill. DeFi is dangerous. Jeremy Khoo from CRC Capital shared his valuable insights on how to evaluate and pick the right projects in the current DeFi market.

Q&As — Speakers Engaging with Attendees

Last but not least, here are some of the quality questions asked by BLA2020 attendees. Thank you to our beloved attendees for your active participation!

Block Live Asia Event 3 (28/09/2020)

Meanwhile, don’t forget to sign up for BLA2020 Event 3 on 28th September (19:00–21:00 GMT+8). Limited tickets available!

Event 3 All-Star Line-up:

Nathaniel Hindman, Head of Growth at Bancor

Fernando Martinelli, Co-founder of Balancer Labs

Michael Egorov, CEO of Curve Finance

Lisa JY Tan, Lead Economist of Economics Design

Robert Sharratt, MD at CrescoFin

Nicolas Arqueros, CTO of Emurgo and CEO of Brandmarks

About Block Live Asia

Organised by Grounded.Work, Economics Design and First Wave, BLA 2020 is a three-part digital event focusing on the recent trend within the blockchain and finance industry — DeFi. The #DeFi economy has grown massively this year as the total value locked is inching towards $10 billion. One day in DeFi is indeed 7 years in traditional finance.

We believe that DeFi is more than a short-term trend and it fundamentally innovates our existing financial system, giving the world access to an unlimited number of financial products and services.

BLA2020 Agenda-
Day 1 = Defi Introduction (31st August 2020)
Day 2 = Project Introduction (14th September 2020)
Day 3 = In-Depth Technical Explanation (28th September 2020)

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