One of the key innovations of bitcoin is that it solves something called the double spend problem. This means that every bitcoin is provably scarce — it can’t exist in two peoples’ wallets at the same time. This is a big deal because it’s actually pretty hard to make sure digital files don’t get reproduced and propogated. Just think of what Napster and Limewire did with digital music files or what Pirate Bay and Popcorn Time did with movies.

But just because cryptocurrency can’t be “double spent” on a technical level doesn’t mean it can’t be in two places at once — used to create leverage.

In this episode we dive into credit. We run through a brief history of lending, credit’s components, and innovation in credit markets.

Cryptocurrency markets have recently seen products like Maker DAO, Compound, Dharma, dYdX, Marble and others develop around lending. What are the implications? What are the problems here that remained unsolved?

Find our extended show notes on Medium: https://medium.com/what-grinds-my-gears/episode-8-living-on-borrowed-dai-d5fcb5a013d8

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