TradFi embraces DeFi? Not quite.
Plus: market tension, fund manager concerns and more
Hey everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves.
I’m having eye surgery tomorrow 😖, and while I was hoping to be able to publish anyway, I’m being told that’s ambitious – so, rather than promise something and not deliver, and to give myself time to have a good freak-out practice my deep breathing before I head off to the hospital, I’ll make this the last newsletter of the week. Back on Monday. So looking forward to getting this over with. 😎
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IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
TradFi embraces DeFi? Not quite.
Markets: tension builds
Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on the overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. Plus links, a music recommendation (‘cos why not?), and more.
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WHAT I’M WATCHING:
TradFi embraces DeFi? Not quite.
I’m starting to feel like my role here is to weekly publish something along the lines of “no, it’s not quite like that”, as pushback against the inevitable breathless hype when a large institution does anything in the crypto arena. I’m also well aware that this makes me not much fun at parties, and it’s a good thing I don’t go to crypto events anymore – but someone has to put things in context, right? For now, it seems that’s me.
You might have noticed that last week, BlackRock’s BUIDL token got listed on decentralized exchange Uniswap. Headlines and posts proclaim this as “It’s happening!!! TradFi embraces DeFi!!!!” and, well, no, that’s not what’s happening at all.
To be fair, “TradFi tentatively embraces a gated and centralized version of DeFi” just doesn’t have the same ring to it – but the nuance matters a ton.
