Bitcoin Suisse Decrypt - Season 2020

“Black Thursday”, the Bitcoin block reward halving, DeFi hype, as well as the launch of both Ethereum 2 phase 0 and Polkadot – this year has certainly been exciting for the crypto space. What were the most important events? How did cryptocurrencies perform overall?

Debates around scalability are as old as the crypto space itself. While in 2017, the “transactions per second”-mania spawned many layer 1 protocols, the understanding and scope of the term ‘scalability’ nowadays goes beyond simple throughput.

The deposit contract for Ethereum 2 was officially launched on Nov. 4. The genesis of the beacon chain, which is at the heart of Ethereum 2’s architecture, is now likely to take place on Dec. 1. What are the implications for Ethereum? What changes, and what stays the same?

During this period of low Bitcoin volatility, decentralized (or open) finance has turned into a hype that is reminiscent of the 2017 ICO mania. Why has it attracted so much attention in a short timespan?

The incentivization of pooling liquidity on Compound through their governance token COMP two months ago has unleashed a wave of innovation in the DeFi space. What has happened since then? And what role do governance tokens play in this phenomenon?

Altcoins, and especially the ones with smaller market caps, have performed well this year. One particular group of tokens stood out: those related to decentralized finance. What is the current hype all about?

Markets are pricing mechanisms to constantly re-estimate the true value of any traded asset, and crypto markets are no different. Most coins that were relevant in 2013 have faded into irrelevance. Is true diversification possible within the cryptocurrency markets?

Airdrops of cryptocurrencies have become a regularly used tool to either market the existence of a coin, or to achieve a sufficiently decentralized initial coin distribution. Are airdrops simply “free money”? And if yes, do forks also fall into this category?

One of the core challenges for cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchains is how to achieve wide-spread adoption among the public. During the past weeks, several steps in that direction have been made. How did this impact the markets? And what are the longer-term implications?