Hey Mariano, The Infinite Machine is more of a story than the recent developments in Ethereum I would say. Good if you’re interested in the history, the key people behind it and how the community was built. Thanks for the resources, I’ll check them out!

I think once these tokens provide some real competitive advantage over the traditional way of doing things, the progress will be exponential. But this remains to be seen. Sure, removing the middleman when exchanging a currency is nice in theory but it has to come with concrete advantages, lower fees for instance! It has to justify the switching costs.

There is a website called Nuggets News that also has a YouTube channel that covers a lot about DeFi. The Aussie that runs it is always providing interesting material to read or tokens to learn more about.
In regards to something adopted by the public, I’m guessing you mean when a lot of people start to use it? I don’t think there is anything at the moment that has been widely adopted, hence why the big opportunity on digital assets. There is a still a big chance to get something relatively cheap, that could grow exponentially in the future. The uses could be endless, from UniSwap becoming the next generation of exchanges, Aave the next lending platform and Dfinity, the next Amazon (Mostly AWS).
I guess the biggest adoption I’ve seen and quite obvious is on the gaming industry. They’re used to tokens and I can see that same logic being applied to the ‘real world’ in the not so distant future.

Is ‘The Infinite Machine’ any good? Sounds like a nostalgic title for the behind the scenes Ethereum story.

@Mariano very good points. Can you point me to some learning resources about DeFi? that’d be great. There’s a lot of financial experimentation which Ethereum started but I have yet to see something *really* adopted by the public.

I recently started listening to the audiobook “The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-Hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum”. But it’s more about history.

@Andrew I think Elon Musk should be banned and fined! He has clearly manipulated the market both ways. I also don’t like the new cryptos emerging every single day. I guess one reason for that is that we don’t have a clear use case for one yet. It’s like hundreds of startups trying to solve a problem with different coins while trying to get rich in the making. Or some of them creating solutions without a problem :) Still too early to say.

I also think Elon Musk, the master crypto manipulator, is a bit hypocritical saying he will only increase Tesla’s crypto investments once they are produced by renewable energy. What about all the dirty Bitcoin in their account already? And how will he control or know which fuel source powered the power stations the miners (say in China) hook up to? “Green” electricity could be better used elsewhere.

I would like to give a few comments on my experience reading, trading and investing with crypto:

– If you don’t understand it or can’t see any real future use on crypto, then stay away. You might make a profit, but going blindly into something is a bit risky. There are a lot of sources about DEFI and BTC to read about.

– Bubbles mean there’s an interest on something and several ‘bubbles’ in the past have seen tremendous growth (the Internet bubble for instance). On this one, only a few companies ended up being successful in the end though.

– Twitter (or any other social media) shouldn’t be the trigger to buy or sell. Having an strategy in place helps on emotional times.

– Retail is clearly driving the prices up, but it is somewhat expected if you picture a lot of people with money to spend and nowhere to go (lockdowns), looking to beat inflation, while seeing on the news that the stock market is falling and Crypto is leaving the stratosphere.

– BTC/ETH might not be the best asset depending on your objective. There are other crypto like DFN, ADA, DOT that are doing very interesting things and that if successful, have much more room to grow than the big ones. But as Michael said, these might be riskier as well.

Thanks again for the article!

It’s the psychological factor too. If you sell everything on the way up (as I did in December of 2017 when the price reached $20k) then it’s hard for your brain to buy gain higher in the future (it is an admission that you made a stupid trade). Rebalancing would have made the most money, as you would then buy cheap again, and then sell as the price neared $60k, while always risking at most 5% of your money.