Argent Newsletter - Issue #16

gm everyone - welcome to our newsletter, where we cover the latest updates from the Ethereum, DeFi, and NFT ecosystem. 

TLDR: 

1. We explore the potential of an industry worth over $100bn that’s  ripe for crypto disruption 
2. Is the case for CeFi dead? And has DeFi proven its antifragility?
3. zkSync pushed a major update that will significantly improve user experience, security, and more

Now, let’s get into it all! 🚀

🎮  On-chain gaming will be huge!

Over the past decade, gaming has grown exponentially, becoming an industry larger than music and many others. The problem, however, is that when gamers ‘purchase’ in-game items, they don’t actually own the item - they’re renting it from the game. True ownership means the gaming company can’t take that item away from you. But right now - they can. That’s why the gaming industry is primed for crypto disruption. 

We’re seeing this disruption emerge within the StarkNet ecosystem, as games benefit from the scalability and complex computation that StarkNet offers. 

😬 What happened to CeFi?!

The past couple of weeks have been brutal for centralized crypto lending firms. In our last issue, we covered Celsius, but since then, others have struggled.  Many have lost millions and, in some cases, billions of dollars due to the recent market downturn and the handing out of bad loans. 

Of these bad loans, it’s now reported across crypto media that some were under-collateralized loans to an established crypto hedge fund - 3AC - that used too much leverage, got liquidated and is currently failing to pay these lenders back. The knock-on effect is that many of these lenders paused customer withdrawals leaving their users unable to do anything about it.

That’s why we need DeFi. Well-established DeFi protocols, like Aave, Compound, and Maker, are working perfectly fine, despite market conditions. Shady behind-closed-door deals can’t happen all the activity is on-chain and available for anyone to scrutinize. DeFi protocols are non-custodial, meaning you’re in control of your funds, not anyone else. It’s a fairer system that works. With the distress across the markets, has DeFi proven its antifragility?

🔥 zkSync pushed a major update!

This week account abstraction launched on zkSync v2 testnet, which is very exciting! In short, AA turns every account (wallet) into a smart contract, enabling greater features that suit the users’ needs - better user experience, greater security, account flexibility, and so much more. This update only applies to the testnet, but with zkSync v2 expected to be live later this year, you’ll soon be able to experience the benefits of AA! 

Account abstraction (AA) gets us excited at Argent as we believe this will help bring mass adoption to crypto. Earlier this week, we wrote a thread explaining what AA is and why it matters. We highly recommend you check it out.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be doing more on AA and why it matters, so keep an eye out for our threads on Twitter -@argentHQ. 

📚 What we’re reading

Web3 Use Cases: The Future - Not Boring, by Packy McCormick. We might be entering a bear market, but the future of crypto is bright and will enable some pretty cool things. 

Number Three - by Arthur Hayes. How centralized cryptocurrency trading and lending businesses blew up due to too much leverage.

Setting the record straight, Or: a eulogy for bitcoin maximalism- by Nic Carter. 

💭 What’s happening at Argent 

On Friday, we hosted our first in-person community event in London. We had presentations on Argent and Argent X, a panel discussion with Ed Cooper, PO Crypto at Revolut, Lewis Tuff, VP Engineering at Blockchain.com, and Itamar Lesuisse, our CEO, on the topic of CeFi vs. DeFi, then finished with a meet and greet. It was fantastic meeting some of our community members, and we look forward to hosting our next meetup in a different city!