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- According to the Winklevoss twins, the “DeFi fever” is not comparable to the “ICO craze” of 2017.
- A supposed pump-and-dump group of well-known DeFi influencers is currently causing a stir and questioning the legitimacy of the sector.
Ethereum‘s DeFi space has suffered a severe setback in the last few days. While the crypto market in general is struggling to maintain its upward trend, the largest DeFi tokens by market capitalization have posted high double-digit price losses. In the last 7 days UMA has suffered a loss of 37%, YFI (Yearn.Finance) of 32%, LEND (Aave) of 18% and COMP (Compound) of 10%.
However, the current losses do not cloud the predictions of some notable personalities. For example, the co-founder of the Gemini crypto exchange, Cameron Winklevoss, recently wrote via Twitter that the current “DeFi fever” is not comparable to the “ICO craze” of 2017. Winklevoss thus addressed a major concern of some investors that the current boom is just as unsustainable and merely driven by investor greed as the ICO boom was back then.
Winklevoss explained via Twitter that he sees decentralized finance as a revolution. According to the Gemini co-founder, back then money was raised through “shitcoin white papers“. In contrast, DeFi is no longer a theory, but works in the real world, Winklevoss said:
DeFi is not the same as the 2017 ICO craze. Back then, money was raised on shitcoin white papers written in a coffee shops. DeFi is already live and working in the wild. Billions of dollars are at work earning positive yield. This isn’t hypothetical vaporware, this is real.
His brother Tyler Winklevoss shared this optimism and pointed out the importance of the DeFi-Space:
Yield is something you used to earn from your bank. Now you earn it from a smart contract. The #DeFi revolution is upon us…
Scandal in Ethereum’s DeFi space?
Meanwhile, a potential scandal is currently causing a stir among DeFi investors. Following the success of the UNI and MEME token, a group of Ethereum influencers are said to have joined together in a supposedly closed telegram chat to discuss their plans to create a worthless token, issue it via airdrop, pump it with their influence and then dump it.
On crypto Twitter, however, screenshots appeared which revealed the screenshots conversations between some of the most prominent DeFi supporters, such as Anthony Sassano, DeFi Dude or Taylor Monahan and many others. DeFi Dude is said to have written among others according to the screenshots:
First we get the members, then we airdrop, then – we figure out what the fu*k we’re doing.
Anthony Sassano was caught saying that they “need people to dump on”. Many of the people involved in other groups dismissed their actions as fun after the leak via Twitter. Anthony Sassano said that all this was a “joke” and urged people not to buy the token as it was “worthless”.
However, sure, these statements lack context, but it still seems questionable that powerful influencers would discuss such a scam system, even just for fun. In this sense, Udi Wertheimer said:
These GOD-TIER eth influencers were screaming for 2 months about how rich they became farming potatoes how come they had to burn their reputations issuing some crappy nothingcoin NOW after making trillions of dollars? or were they LARPing all along? hmm.