David Schenz

Vulnerabilities in DeFi contracts led to 44 separate incidents of eye watering losses in 2022. Read about the top four classes of vulnerabilities.

The crypto winter is upon us again. The prices of the primary DeFi building blocks, Bitcoin and Ethereum, have dropped by 70% and 78% respectively since highs in November of 2021. Moreover, we’ve witnessed the spectacular implosion of Luna – a ‘stable’ coin that was pegged to the US Dollar via financial and algorithmic trickery. While much of the rise in 2020 and subsequent fall in crypto prices track with the massive cash injections into the world economy, crypto has shown little resilience in the face of the downward pressure. Investors in crypto/DeFi startups are realizing that crypto still has three fundamental problems that make it unattractive. Until these problems are solved, the crypto winter will continue.

Basecamp’s policy changes around diversity, employee communications, and benefits provides a case study in how not to perform organizational change management after 30% of their employees quit. Jason Fried and David Hasson should have been careful to limit the scope of their changes; been thoughtful in their communication plans for major changes; and been realistic on employee response to those changes. This bungled change contrasts highly with that of Coinbase where the similar “No Politics” rule was applied with much less fallout.