Forget DeFi, digital assets need to master the basics first

Frequent readers of The Block Research likely notice recurring themes throughout each of our researcher’s content. A foundational principle behind my research and writing process can aptly be summarized by a verse from King Solomon’s book Ecclesiastes: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” 

There is a temptation when observing ‘Tokenland’ (the digital assets industry) from the outside looking in to believe that things are different this time. True to form, attention within the digital assets industry has recently shifted toward the outlandish returns and supernatural trading volumes from the ‘decentralized finance’ (DeFi) segment of cryptocurrency assets (cryptoassets).