"I would love to see more rigorous fact-checking..." (Matteo Leibowitz)
"I would love to see more rigorous fact-checking..." (Matteo Leibowitz)
“fake-news” in crypto and how cool DAI is
Hello DeFiers,
Our guest is a research analyst for one of the most successful media outlets in crypto in 2019, The Block, and an expert in Open Finance. We are excited to present you the 3rd edition of My Two Gwei by dex.blue with Matteo Leibowitz.
Enjoy reading!
A chat with Matteo Leibowitz
Who is Matteo Leibowitz?
My Two Gwei: For those not too familiar, can you give us a quick introduction on yourself?
Matteo: I started getting involved with crypto, predominantly Ethereum, in early 2016. I then managed, published and wrote an Ethereum focused newsletter called CryptoChat for about a year and a half. Also, I briefly launched and ran an Ethereum-based venture called NashHash, which was a platform for p2p games using real economic incentives. Even though we didn’t necessarily get too far there, I think there is definitely a lot of potential around the idea!
And in January of this year, I joined The Block as a research analyst. Here I mostly focus on Ethereum and the Open Finance space.
My Two Gwei: I know you’re widely invested in crypto, but can you give us an idea of how much of a trader you are?
Matteo: I am a terrible trader! *laughs* I did a lot of trading back in 2017, but after I got my tax bill, I realized that it really wasn’t worth it. I have learned my lesson!
Occasionally I’ll still do some margin trading and when I see a real trading opportunity I’ll try and take advantage of it, just to prove it really exists. But generally, I stay away from active management and just hold some long-term positions.
Matteo on the shift in crypto news
My Two Gwei: You mentioned that you launched your newsletter CryptoChat in 2017. Why did you think this was the way to go in the crypto space back then?
Matteo: Back in 2017 there wasn’t a particularly sophisticated research and media landscape in crypto. The best content was distributed over Medium, Reddit and the project-specific forums. So, my idea was to curate content and research across the space to then add my personal opinion and thoughts on top of that. Over a course of a year, I managed to build a subscriber base of about 2.000 people in both the crypto industry and the more tradition finance space.
It was also an educational experience for me; Staying up to date with the industry and thinking formally about these topics helped me form my own opinion.
My Two Gwei: In the past year or so, we have seen a shift in the landscape of crypto news, also in terms of where to find trustworthy news. What’s your opinion on these changes?
Matteo: I’ve been in this industry for four years now, so I have a historical context that allows me to filter by quality, but when you’re new it’s difficult to know which sources are truthful and accurate and which aren’t. I think it helps to know the context of the organizations themselves. That means knowing the investors behind them and what their motives and interest are. I think the best content comes from independent authors and small organizations like yourself.
Generally, media in crypto is still very fragmented, but over time we will see more and more consolidation.
My Two Gwei: As you said it can be difficult when you have less experience in the space, is there still something beginners can look out for?
Matteo: Unless you have the expertise to go out and verify sources yourself there isn’t much you can do. And that’s probably the main inefficiency at the moment.
We have this problem in the wider media landscape too – seeing the whole “fake news” hysteria in the last couple of years. Clearly, there is distrust coming from the difficulty of actually verifying news. So, I would love to see more rigorous fact-checking in crypto.
My Two Gwei: Now that the space has gotten more professional where are the undervalued news that you used to find in subreddits and forums?
Matteo: Most of my insights and ideas come from a Telegram group that is still fairly small and honestly, I like it that way! There is this law called Dunbar’s Number, it states that you can only ever know a certain number of people and after that, it’s not possible to maintain any further personal relationships. This rule definitely applies to Telegram groups as well!
Also, what really helps, and I can’t emphasize this enough, is to have the right network – it’s invaluable! When I started in this space, I was so reliant on the Ethereum subreddits. r/ethereum is still pretty good, but apart from that, the signal-noise-ratio on Reddit is quite unfavorable.
What is Matteo excited about?
My Two Gwei: As a last question: Is there anything you are currently especially excited about in DeFi?
Matteo: There are a few things, like Interest Rate Swaps, that I would really like to see implemented.
It is tough for me though, because I’m so intimately involved in the industry, that I often take these projects for granted and then every couple of months I step back a bit and suddenly realize how unbelievable these legacy projects really are. Like DAI is probably the coolest thing in this industry! The fact these things work today and do over $100m of transfer volume is absurd!
Stepping back more broadly is something I am working on with the Open Finance Index idea. I think we need more accurate ways to quantify activity in the space and I’d really like to see more sophisticated products around this metric!
My Two Gwei: 2019 was DeFi breakout year, any challenge going into 2020 that the DeFi space could face?
Matteo: There are a number of risks that come to mind. From potential DeFi front-end hijacking to tax and accounting being still so clunky for DeFi users to how DEX margin trading will affect less sophisticated crypto traders.
Last but not least, as DeFi projects grow in size and relevance, there will be more and more contentious decisions to be taken which can impact the whole ecosystem. For example, as DeFi projects like MakerDao become too big to fail, to what extent do its governance decisions affect base layer development direction? This opens up the idea proxy formal governance in rough governance system: the communities of some of the most influential projects can and do have a clear impact on base layer debates but are we missing any unaccounted second-order effect?