Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.14.21 Solana has been down | Stacked

Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.14.21

Solana has been down all day
DeFi tokens come roaring back
SEC Gensler says Coinbase is listing securities

Solana protocol goes down amidst network issues

Just as it seemed Solana could do no wrong, the network went down early this morning and has yet to switch back on. However, it’s not exactly bad news — let us explain.

Solana went down due to what the core team calls “resource exhaustion.” In a nutshell, network validators were overwhelmed with transactions coming from decentralized exchange Raydium.

The fact is Solana failed its first true stress test owing to low decentralization but now its engineers have an invaluable case study to learn and build from. Besides, nothing says adoption like a high throughput of transactions on the network’s apps.

These are early days for Solana & the crypto ecosystem as a whole. BlockTower Capital’s Ari Paul correctly pointed out that anyone who waited for Bitcoin to achieve network stability before buying missed the first 1,000X.

So, while a network outage isn’t the best look, we must remember Solana is in BETA mainnet — a stage akin to taking the training wheels off. Remember your first bike ride without training wheels? Yeah, it wasn’t perfect.

As Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko clarified, better now than when it has a billion users.

DeFi tokens come roaring back to life

DeFi tokens are surging forward with double digit gains while NFTs cool off amidst price floor drops. Unlike the previous DeFi run, a new crop of tokens are in the spotlight.

CRV

Decentralized exchange Curve (CRV) gained TVL (Total Value Locked) ahead of Uniswap steadily at first, then parabolically as it accrued nearly 2x Uniswap’s liquidity. Despite being the DEX market leader by a vast margin, CRV remained well outside of the top 100 projects by market cap until today’s +27% move.

SUSHI

It’s been one year since the infamous Sushi debacle involving Chef Nomi. Within that time, Sushi evolved from mere Uniswap "copy pasta” to multi-chain DeFi powerhouse. Soon, Sushi’s Shoyu NFT platform goes live, adding a new source of value accruing to xSUSHI holders. Correspondingly, SUSHI is seeing a positive 17% rerating.

MLN

Enzyme Finance is a rather old DeFi project that’s experiencing something of a renaissance of late. It’s quietly been in a strong uptrend all year long while remaining firmly off the radar. However, after being added to Coinbase in June, MLN has begun picking up attention. Today’s 24% move up is confirmation.

SEC Chief Gensler thinks Coinbase may be listing securities

Before Gary Gensler took on the role of SEC chief, there were high hopes. He’d taught courses on blockchain/crypto at MIT and grasped Bitcoin well.

However, the Gensler honeymoon has quickly ended. In its most aggressive move, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if it offers users 4% yields on stablecoin deposits. They also demanded Coinbase hand over the names + data on everyone who signed up for the yield product waitlist.

The threat prompted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to publish a statement accusing the SEC of stifling innovation without clear crypto regulatory guidelines.

Now, Gensler is doubling down on claims that Coinbase is selling “dozens” of unregistered securities. He also believes stablecoins somehow fit into this scope despite their 1:1 asset-backed value.

During the hearing in which Gensler made the above comments, Sen. Mark Warner also chimed in about crypto, saying "Some of the things I see from intel side scare the dickens out of me."