The Part Time Economist

The Solana blockchain narrowly averted another network outage as cloud service provider Hetzner turned off 40% of the nodes with the flip of a switch. The issue isn't unique to Solana, and centralized providers host up to 70% of Ethereum's nodes. Cryptocurrency is built on the premise of decentralized participation, but there are strong economic incentives that push many node operators toward centralized hosting solutions. In today's post, we will examine why centralization is so common in an ecosystem that prides itself on being decentralized. #sol #eth #crypto

Play-to-earn gaming (P2E) leverages blockchain technology to allow players to earn real-world rewards for simply playing their favorite video games. Play-to-earn gaming sounds like a utopia that pays players for having fun, but could there be a dark side to P2E gaming? In today's post, I'll discuss the controversial theory that it is only possible for play to earn gaming to be profitable if there is either a constant inflow of money from new investors or if the development team can extract increasing buy-in from existing players. #crypto #playtoearn #p2e

Contrary to popular belief, having a limited or fixed supply does not make a cryptocurrency or other asset inherently valuable. Rather, price is determined by both supply AND demand, and assets that are produced in small quantities (limited edition NFTs, deflationary cryptos) can still decline in value if there is no demand. In today's post, we will explain that true scarcity in the economic sense depends on both supply and demand. Further, we will analyze why deflationary assets don't always go up in price. As always, this is not financial advice and is simply a best-efforts attempt to explain basic economics. #crypto #defi #nft

Non Fungible Tokens, also known as NFTs, are a fantastic way of representing assets as we move to an increasingly digital world. Because NFTs leverage the power of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, it's possible to have an immutable public record of who owns what, but it's also possible to sell and trade assets on decentralized marketplaces. But what if there were times when we didn't want people to be able to transfer certain things? What are some examples of why we would want a Non Transferrable Token, and how would they work? That's what we're talking about in today's video.

Many cryptocurrency experts recommend keeping your cryptocurrency offline in cold storage for maximum security, but what happens when you do send your crypto to a third-party cryptocurrency exchange? What goes on behind the scenes, and how do cryptocurrency exchanges keep track of who owns what? Just as important, how is it possible to trade on crypto exchanges with virtually none of the fees associated with blockchain transactions? Join me in today's video as we take a deep dive into the omnibus wallet model of cryptocurrency storage. We will discuss how the omnibus wallet model works, some of the risks of the omnibus wallet model, and finish up with some examples. #crypto #blockchain #cryptocurrency

Stablecoins are one of the most fundamental building blocks of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Without stablecoins, trading on most crypto exchanges would grind to a halt, and DeFi would be incredibly risky. We know that stablecoins are important, but why would a company want to issue a stablecoin? Join me in today's post where we discuss how stablecoin issuers make money and how much money stablecoins issuers make. We will also discuss the stablecoin business model and some of the possibilities for future improvements. #defi #crypto #usdc

After being hacked for around $570 Million, the Binance Smart Chain did what any other self-respecting, decentralized, permissionless, unstoppable blockchain would do...they coordinated with all validators to collectively freeze transactions and halt the blockchain. To the dedicated crypto fan, this action seems neither decentralized nor irreversible. The Binance hack, and subsequent reaction, highlights a paradox. Many people cheer for the irreversibility and decentralization of cryptocurrencies as a way of escaping the burdensome regulation of the existing financial system. As soon as something goes wrong, however, they want the security, regulation, and insurance of the traditional financial system. In today's post, I'll explain the basics of the Binance hack. I'll use this recent event, and other examples, to describe how many people don't want full decentralization. I'll also discuss how the concept of decentralization should be viewed as more of a spectrum than an absolute quality. #binance #defi #bsc

People often say that Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is like "money legos" and that the composability of cryptocurrency is the key to building a new financial future, but what does this mean? In today's post, I'll explain how different DeFi protocols can seamlessly work together to create synergies. We will also take a look at some non-crypto examples to explain why composability and interoperability are so important to building increasingly advanced systems. #defi #crypto #eth

What if I told you it was possible to guarantee that you would NEVER sell your Bitcoin for less than $100k regardless of the bear market? Or, what if I told you that even during the next bull run, I could guarantee that you wouldn't pay a penny over $500 for ETH? Although that may sound too good to be true, it's possible to lock in a specific price by using advanced order types such as limit and stop loss orders on cryptocurrency exchanges. As with all things that sound too good to be true, there are a few catches and considerations to keep in mind. In today's post, I'll explain the benefits and tradeoffs of using advanced order types on cryptocurrency exchanges. #crypto #btc #eth

With thousands of different cryptocurrencies and hundreds of different blockchains, there are almost limitless ways for crypto investors to put their capital to work earning a return. Unfortunately, not all blockchains have the same level of features, and cryptocurrency users will occasionally want to use a cryptocurrency from one blockchain on a different blockchain to gain access to additional features. For example, many users "wrap" Bitcoin so that it can be used for lending on DeFi protocols on Ethereum. This is made possible through a concept known as bridges. Join me in today's video where we discuss what cryptocurrency bridges are, how cryptocurrency bridges work, and some of the reasons why people use cryptocurrency bridges. #crypto #defi #btc