Ethereum gas costs come down and Maker's end game

Plus Odds & Ends + Thoughts & Prognostications

Jun 3

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Tweet of the week: Maker tries to reinvent itself (again)

Robert Leshner @rleshner

I'm so pumped for the @MakerDAO Endgame Plan by @RuneKek 👏 Complex, but in some sense, "back to the basics" of what Maker was intended to make; new synthetic assets. forum.makerdao.com/t/the-endgame-…

The Endgame Plan parts 1&2The Endgame Plan is an ambitious initiative that aims to create a finite roadmap for MakerDAO that step by step leads to a predetermined, immutable end state many years out in the future, while significantly improving governance dynamics and tapping into the raw power of modern DeFi innovation. I h…forum.makerdao.com

Compound founder Robert Leshner commending a post by Maker Founder Rune Christensen’s ambitious post on a new path for Maker, involving synthetic ETH, a new DAO (and token) and a major overhaul to how governance operates.

Maker is still the most talked about project in DeFi. Its hard not to be frustrated by its struggles - token price, USDC reliance, real-world assets, yet fall continue to fall in love with its undeniable promise - a bedrock stablecoin credit facilitiy for the new DeFi world. At the moment, the Degen Spartan’s of the world are winning the narrative, but Rune’s plan aims to shake up the Maker governance stasis.

Chart of the week: Gas prices plummet

While much of the world is dealing with record high gas prices, in Ethereum land, gas costs have gone way down as the chart above at The Block via CoinMetrics. In dollar terms, gas prices are the lowest they’ve been since last summer (revisit a classic DoD “Gas is too damn high” from May 2020 when DeFi’s growth pushed up gas fees).

Obviously, a lot of the dollar drop is due to the decline in the price of ETH, which all Ethereum transactions are denominated in, but the average price in gwei terms has also decreased considerably with daily averages below 50 gwei for the first time since last summer. This is unsurprising given the recent market fall and the drop in trade volume (and arbitrage opportunities). NFT volume has also receeded, even though Open Sea is still the top gas guzzler.

The lower gas prices are good news for Ethereum L2s, which can now boast transfer and swap costs under $1.00. Some ways to look on the bright side in this market.

Odds and Ends

Public MEV explorer Link
TVL in Ethereum bridges declines 60% in one month Link
Sen. Lummis introduces far-reaching crypto bill in US Senate Link
Decrypt: Vitalik muses on crypto-skeptic letter to US Congress Link

Thoughts and Prognostications

Technical notes on problems with the $OP airdrop [Norswap/Optimism]
The Merge (Part 1) & (Part 2) [Hasu, Danny Ryan, Tim Beiko, Stephane Gosselin/Uncommon Core]
The state of Uniswap governance: A paradox of minimization [Other Internet]
On Web3 Games [Joel John & Siddharth/Decentralised]

That’s it! Feedback appreciated. Just hit reply. Written in Tennessee, where its lush and green.

Dose of DeFi is written by Chris Powers, with help from Denis Suslov and Financial Content Lab. Caney Fork, which owns Dose of DeFi, is a contributor to DXdao* and benefits financially from it and its products’ success. All content is for informational purposes and is not intended as investment advice.

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