Instructor's notes - before lecture
Blockchain basics
Concept of maintaining a shared, public, immutable ledger
Bitcoin: blocks, chain, consensus, transactions
Smart contracts: Bitcoin pay-to-script, Ethereum
Decentralized Finance
Exchanges
Precedent: centralized/trusted exchanges
Automated Market Makers, e.g., Uniswap
Constant product formula
Pricing function
Infinite liquidity
Oracles
Review: the need for oracles, centralized oracles
Decentralized oracles: e.g., ChainLink
DAOs
Goal: fully on-chain organizations
Purposes: many in principle
DAO example: community investment
On-chain funding
Often: anyone can join, contribute
On-chain governance
Proposals, voting (see E-voting next week)
Issue: software bugs (see DAO)
Issue: centralization of control, takeovers
Issue: controlled evolution: upgrades?
next time: explain better how The DAO actually worked
E.g., how users put funding in, propose, vote, etc.