Argent Newsletter - Issue #15

gm everyone - in our last newsletter, we said everything had been turbulent. If only we knew what we do now. We won’t focus on that in this issue. Instead, we’ll keep it positive.

TLDR:

• It’s the season to be donating to public goods
• Celsius reaffirms why self-custody matters
• DeFi shows its strength

Now let’s get into it all and more! 🚀

💰 ‘Tis the season to be generous 

The latest Gitcoin round went live earlier this month. This is a great opportunity to fund ‘public goods’, such as open-source software, journalism, and educational resources. 

Gitcoin uses a process called 'Quadrating Funding,' which matches your donations with contributions from sponsors. This means lots of small donations can have more impact than larger single donations, regardless of how big or small the project may be. 

Gitcoin is at the core of web3, with previous rounds funding projects like Uniswap, POAP, and WalletConnect.

In Issue #8, we went in-depth on public goods, covering Gitcoin’s, Kevin Owocki, and their podcast - GreenPill. It’s all about building a better future, using crypto to solve today’s problems. If you’re interested in learning more about it, we recommend you check it out. 

🔒 Be in control of your money

The business models for yield-generating centralized companies like Celsius often rely on lending out customer funds to generate yield. It’s risky, and their users aren’t in control of their funds, even if Celsius states otherwise. Now with the market cooling, they’re unable to continue generating the same yield and are now facing financial issues. 

This became apparent this week when Celsius blocked withdrawals and, at the time of writing, has yet to enable them. With over a million users, many cannot access their funds, manage their debt, and are rightly concerned about their money and whether it’s still there. 

This is why self-custody matters. You should be the only person in control of your money. Not anyone else. 

🤝 DeFi shows its strength

Despite everything happening across the market, leading DeFi protocols are still working transparently and efficiently. Most of the issues we’re seeing in the market come from large centralized businesses. You can’t audit their assets or see what they’re doing. It’s hidden. DeFi, in contrast, is working as intended. 

📚 What we’re reading and listening to

Some ways to use ZK-SNARKs for privacy - by Vitalik Buterin 

Staking, pegging and other stuff - Cobie

Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth - Dan McCrum 

Last, I wanted to share this episode of DarkNet diaries, a podcast about true stories from the dark side of the Internet. I love it and can’t get enough of it. The latest episode covers some of the recent cryptocurrency hacks, like the Ronin Bridge exploit. It’s a great listen.

💭 What’s happening at Argent 

Last week we had our quarterly meeting, where the team got to meet in person, see new faces and work together. We had a great time, and it’s exciting to see the team continue to grow (we’re hiring). Each department worked on their roadmaps for the rest of the year, and we have lots in store. Expansion. StarkNet. zkSync. Content. Events (online and offline). And much more... 

Besides that, we released the latest version of our mobile app, with some small but important changes. And on the topic of supporting public goods, we minted some Pooly NFTs to help raise funds for PoolTogether in their upcoming lawsuit, which is an attack on DeFi.