I'm a subscriber to the Modern Finance podcast and enjoy Kevin Rose's interview with various crypto personalities. You can find what I'm listening to right now here. 

In this podcast, Kevin is interviewing the co-founder of Alchemix, a DeFi lending platform. Before listening to this podcast, I had a rough idea of what Alchemix is but didn't really understand how it was able to do it. Below is what I have learned so far in my hour or so research:

1. A user deposits a stablecoin into the Alchemix vault
2. The user is then able to borrow up to 50% of their initial deposit
3. After a period of time (depending on the yield farming rate), the loan will repay itself
4. The user can then take back their original loan amount

This all seems very compelling; especially when the loan repays itself. I'm not sure how sustainable high yields will be in the long run but perhaps in the short term this can work. 

I plan on doing more work to learn about Alchemix and its (governance) coin, ALCX. 

Additionally, Gemini this week started allowing trading of ALCX on its platform. This is positive news and I hope more attention goes into DeFi. 

Finally, here are some stats about ALCX including a calculator to show how long it would a loan to repay itself.

Well, this is a big surprise. It appears GameStop, the meme stock, just went live with their NFT website.

It doesn't have much except that they're looking to hire a team. 

What's really intriguing is that there's an Ethereum wallet address (0x13374200c29C757FDCc72F15Da98fb94f286d71e) -- a subtle nod to the gaming crowd: 1337 = leet (as in elite) and 420 = well, weed.

Clever redditors have pointed out that GameStop is looking to launch their own ERC-20 token in July. Click here for a more in-depth analysis.

I recently came across this simple to use, yet highly educational website called Case Bitcoin. It lays the case to invest in Bitcoin and also has plenty of interesting resources, including a comparison to the S&P500 and gold. 

Let me know what you think of the site: https://casebitcoin.com/

Woke up this morning to see that nearly every crypto coin is down around 30-45%. What are you doing to cope with this? I'm just sitting and watching out things unfold. I can't access my Gemini account to make any trades though; wonder if some of the downward pressure is a result of panic selling like a run on the banks. Coinbase Pro seems operational based on their status page.

Elon Must has been on a crusade this weekend to disparage bitcoin. 

First it was about the climate impact (even though his private jet and space rockets use a lot of fossil fuel):

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021

Then it was about about pumping Doge more and making crazy claims:

Ideally, Doge speeds up block time 10X, increases block size 10X & drops fee 100X. Then it wins hands down.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

And finally making fun of Michael Saylor:

He should wear outfit for Halloween, but with “Bitcoin” tattooed high on thighs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

I read an argument that if one man can have such a huge effect on the crypto market (so far down 20% overall), then crypto isn't yet ready for mass adoption; I tend to agree here. The power of crypto is that no one single person or entity can affect it -- either positively or negatively -- and Elon, whether you agree or disagree with him, has shown the crypto market is still very delicate.