> These days I read a lot of cross-disciplinary commentary on the crypto asset bubble, and what strikes me as particularly strange is the sheer level of disconnect between people’s lived experience of this mania.

Rather than do an investigation or analysis of some of the broader trends and successful applications of crypto, this article proceeds to make sweeping accusations devoid of earnest research.

Here's what I would suggest to the skeptics, to research and understand this space better and why it continues to keep on ticking in spite of the snarky commentary:

Uniswap (xy = k) https://docs.uniswap.org/

the constant product model that Uniswap introduced made automated money markets practical. It's an elegant solution to the problem of creating an on-chain marketplace with a sub-1000 line smart contract. Uniswap has since improved and introduced concentrated liquidity for better capital efficiency. The exchange does multiple billions in volume each day and the best part is: it's immutable.

Curve (https://curve.readthedocs.io/exchange-overview.html)

While Uniswap is optimal for a long tail of asset swaps, Curve allowed for higher capital efficiency among stable base pairs (such as swaps between two stable coins like USDC and USDT). It achieves high capital efficiency for deeper trades with low slippage. It is decentralized and powered by a DAO.

Gnosis Safe (https://gnosis-safe.io/)

Gnosis is one of the most battle tested asset management and multisig smart contract platforms. Each Gnosis Safe is highly configurable, allowing participants to set up any m of n multisig arrangement and even reinvest treasury funds. A multisig can be seen as a light DAO and allows for participants to manage funds in a transparent way across distances and jurisdictions. This helps with coordination and development. The whole world of DAOs is interesting in and of itself, with many different organizational structures being tested and iterated on.

Aave https://aave.com/

Aave is a lending and borrowing platform that allows users to deposit and lend out their assets. The platform is kept solvent by oracles, which watch the price of the collateral backing the loans to liquidate them if they approach a danger zone. Currently holding nearly $30B in assets.

Chainlink (https://chain.link/)

An oracle platform that allows for off-chain data to be integrated with smart contracts in a maximally (but not entirely) decentralized way. This allows for anything from stock prices to weather reports to credit checks to verifiably random numbers to be integrated with smart contracts to influence their execution and state in a maximally autonomous and tamper-proof way.

If you interact with the above protocols, you'll learn more than reading any op-ed thinkpiece. There really is something there there, the decentralized finance movement is burgeoning and it is qualitatively better than what options exist today. It's more powerful, more universal, more programmable, even more antifragile than the systems in place today. It will win in the long run.

There are other movements too, with DAOs and NFTs. DAOs will reinvent all sorts of organizations and will make internet native communities self-funded and self-sustainable.