Igor Igamberdiev

One of the essential differences between Ethereum and Bitcoin is a Turing complete virtual machine or EVM. This machine turns the blockchain into a decentralized computing platform and is responsible for the state transition. Any transaction in Ethereum leads to a change in the current state. For example, transferring one ETH to a new wallet […]

For more than half a year, the volume of Ethereum DEXs has consistently been more than 5% of centralized exchanges volume. This figure would have likely been much higher if it were not for the bull market, in which users started actively trading altcoins not on Ethereum. In any case, volume growth on DEXs may […]

Modern blockchains like Ethereum are suitable for transferring value in a native coin form and running small applications – smart contracts. In terms of improving user experience, blockchains have the following challenges that need to be solved: scalability (reduction of transaction costs) interoperability (decentralized transfer of information and value between multiple blockchains) decentralized storage (optimized […]

Ethereum and its smart contracts have led to rethinking of what finance should look like. For example, the vast majority of popular DeFi protocols use pools as a liquidity source. Smart contracts allow anyone to become a liquidity provider (LP) on a decentralized exchange or a lender on a lending protocol by adding their assets […]

The vast majority of financial instruments in the crypto are adopted from traditional finance, and leveraged tokens are no exception. Let’s take a quick look at the transformation of investors’ desire to reduce risks into what we mean by these tokens. It is no secret that risk diversification benefits investors in the long term. Only […]

Decentralization of finance is primarily associated with the ability to use smart contracts on blockchains. However, smart contracts by themselves are not capable of supporting protocols’ operation. They do not have access to information from the outside world and also, at least on Ethereum, cannot initiate transactions. For these reasons, DeFi needs keepers who will […]

Data is the new oil, which is a huge advantage for prominent technology companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others. Before the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, people hardly understood how much influence can be gained by analyzing their data on social media. As time goes, technological progress will allow algorithms to extract even more information […]

The still relatively young DeFi sector is certainly attractive to investors because it can generate revenue in a permissionless way while keeping the operating costs very low.  The vast majority of revenue is still distributed to the supply-side, like lenders or liquidity providers. In the same vein, centralized exchanges incentivize market makers with reduced fees […]

Along with the launch of the first DeFi protocols, on-chain arbitrage opportunities began to emerge. The number of such opportunities only increased due to the poor UX of first DEXs and high market volatility, when traders did not have time to cancel limit orders. Flash Boys 2.0 authors researched on-chain arbitrage in detail and concluded […]

Currently, the cryptocurrency market is fragmented between many blockchains. The inter-blockchain era in projects such as Cosmos (Stargate release) or Polkadot (Rococo parachains testnet) has not arrived yet. And even after its start, communication will primarily be only between compatible blockchains. The largest projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum will need to wait for special […]

The Summer of DeFi offered lots of profit opportunities which resulted in an all-time high average gas price on Ethereum. However, this situation could not last forever, and APYs began to decline from five-digit to double-digit. One of the reasons for the drop in profitability was more frequent rug pulls and hacks of smart contracts. […]

The Block Research previously looked at how governance works in Maker, Compound, and three DeFi protocols, Curve, Uniswap, 1inch, which decided to distribute part of their tokens retroactively. Each of the Defi protocols, except for Uniswap, uses its own governance framework. Moreover, currently all, except for 1inch, also support off-chain governance. Having a public forum […]

The Block Research, in its recent piece, looked at how the decentralized governance works in the two oldest lending protocols, MakerDAO and Compound. Currently, decentralized governance is still relatively passive and shows signs of centralization, although Compound has made specific steps in the right direction. Following Compound’s success, many other protocols have launched governance tokens […]

In recent research, The Block Research described the governance process in one of the longest-lived DAOs: MakerDAO. The analysis found that participation in MakerDAO’s governance is relatively centralized and passive. MakerDAO’s governance framework is unpopular due to its complexity, the need to lock tokens, and the lack of a delegation function. The ability to transfer […]

Bitcoin was created as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and therefore has (by design) limited functionality. However, one of the critical building blocks of Bitcoin is the Nakamoto consensus. This algorithm created a trustless environment for implementing Nick Szabo’s idea of smart contracts. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) became one of the key areas of application […]

With the launch of Ethereum, the world received a decentralized computer that can solve any computational problem if there is enough gas in the block. However, to solve any problem, data storage is also needed. Without data storage, for example, blockchains will be unable to fully support and host social networking apps and other data-heavy […]

This research piece examines the initial phase of Eth2 and explores what's to come for Ethereum's big upgrade.