‘FTX was not crypto’ — DeFi Dad sets the record straight

In the fourth episode of Hashing It Out podcast series, Cointelegraph’s Elisha Owusu Akyaw discusses the evolution of decentralized finance (DeFi) with DeFi Dad, a DeFi educator and investor at Fourth Revolution Capital (4RC).

DeFi Dad got into the cryptocurrency industry in 2017; however, things really took off for him after the bull market top in early 2018. Despite the downturn that followed, he decided to double down on crypto with a specific focus on decentralized finance. His love for DeFi translated into somewhat of an addiction, which led to the creation of a series of educational videos to onboard new users into the space.

The DeFi content maker describes decentralized finance as money-related applications which are permissionless, trustless and without geographic limitations. DeFi Dad emphasized the trustless nature of DeFi while showing the difference between decentralized applications and centralized applications like FTX, which he calls a bank:

“FTX was a bank that specialized in handling crypto, and unfortunately, it turned out that they didn’t even operate and uphold the terms of services you would expect from a bank.”

According to DeFi Dad, for regular users, the latest issues have made a convincing case for DeFi. From an investor’s perspective, DeFi continues to develop despite the crypto market turmoil. DeFi Dad said that his investment company had received more pitches from new startups building decentralized services. However, he worries that some of these creators might be unable to launch due to declining capital funds in the sector.

Elisha also engaged DeFi Dad in a conversation about the future of decentralized finance. According to DeFi Dad, there will be an exponential increase in economic activity in the DeFi space, starting with people employed by decentralized platforms, to a potential increase in the total value locked to a trillion dollars in the next five years.

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In the episode, Elisha and DeFi Dad also cover:

• The Ethereum ecosystem and the popularity of layer-2 platforms.
• The use cases of DeFi
• The emergence of real yield
• Potential regulation of DeFi platforms in the United States of America

Hashing It Out is a new crypto podcast covering innovations and important stories in the blockchain industry, featuring interviews with thought leaders in the space hosted by Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy).

For more discussion with DeFi Dad, listen to the full episode of Hashing It Out on the new Cointelegraph Podcasts page or Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or TuneIn.