Critique of MakerDAO's governance structure reveals DegenSpartan's skepticism towards governance tokens and value creation.
Deep dives
The Unusual Format of the Podcast Episode
The episode features a unique format where a text interview is conducted with a mysterious guest named Edegen Spartan, known for being a significant figure in the crypto space. Despite the guest's anonymity and the text format, the conversation delves into the guest's journey from a retail investor to a major DeFi player, highlighting their financial background and transition to crypto investments.
Discovering Crypto Opportunities and Inefficiencies
The guest shares insights on their transition from traditional investments to crypto, particularly noticing the remarkable price differences across exchanges and seizing arbitrage opportunities. Their experience with manual arbitrage solidified their view on crypto markets' inefficiency and profit potential, emphasizing the unique opportunities available in the space.
The Approach to Risk Management and Investing
Discussing the guest's alter ego as 'Prudent Spartan,' they reflect on their risk management strategies, emphasizing their cautious approach to investments without specific price targets. Their investment philosophy revolves around contrarian viewpoints and focusing on niches with improving fundamentals, aiming for high-profit multiples by combining unique projects with strong investment theses.
Skepticism towards MakerDAO and Governance Tokens
The guest expresses skepticism towards MakerDAO's design limitations, lack of negative interest rates, and the tripartite system of token holders. They critique Maker's failure to incentivize die supply contraction and their token burn model. Additionally, the guest questions the value of governance tokens and their ability to create value, suggesting that token holders extracting rent may not align with the true creators of value within a protocol.
Today, I’m not only joined by a very special guest, but the format of this episode is highly unusual as well! I interviewed the man who goes by the name @DegenSpartan on Twitter and who is one of the biggest and most enigmatic Defi investors there is. I have wanted to have him on for a long time, but there was one problem: DegenSpartan, or DS in short, is fully pseudonymous and did not even want to have his voice known.
So we looked for a solution and ended up doing a text interview instead. Then I got Patrick McCorry (@paddypisa on Twitter) to speak the part of DS in the final recording, while I spoke my own part. At this point, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who reached out to us on Twitter and offered their help to make this episode a reality.
I get that this isn’t your average podcast, and you can go and read the text interview instead if you want, but I think Paddy did a fantastic job and the final product came out great. Please enjoy!
Discussed in this interview:
DS: Degenerate or prudent investor?
How he managed to recognize (and sell) the top in Defi
His approach to investing
Becoming Synthetix' patient zero
Why he dislikes Maker, YFI, and governance tokens in general
and more!
Links:
Subscribe to our mailing list for transcripts and other bonus content: https://uncommoncore.co/
DegenSpartan https://twitter.com/DegenSpartan
Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl
Patrick McCorry (as DS): https://twitter.com/paddypisa
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