By: Erika Badalyan, Weikeng Chen, Annamira O’Toole, & Jay Tipirneni

In the United States, obstruction of privacy has regularly been used as a way to observe citizens by government agencies. Bitcoin, the most widely used cryptocurrency, is built upon blockchain technology and allows for the possibility of an open, inclusive, global financial system. In their infancy, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were unregulated. No rules had been invented, and thus it was a space free of scrutiny. It was, as lawmakers often said, the “Wild West”. Interest in moderating the space has exploded in the last two years, as lawmakers have realized the space is messy and rules must be set in place. Here at Blockchain at Berkeley (B@B), we’ve spent several months closely watching the ensuing attempts at regulating the space.  We provide this overview of crypto regulation and its implications.

Several regulatory bodies are pushing on the DeFi space, some well-known while others operate out of the headlines.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is technically an independent agency of the United States government which was established after the market crashes which led to the Great Depression in the late 1920s. Its stated role is to protect public market investors and maintain the trust of public exchanges and their listed securities. The SEC also runs a whistleblower’s program for violations of securities laws.

By: Ratan Kaliani, Darya Kaviani, & Emma Guo

Blockchain at Berkeley Grants is motivated by one core objective—to bridge the gap between students’ unbridled potential and the resources they need to manifest their vision. Our mission is to foster student-driven blockchain innovation through early-stage funding to trailblazing startups, novel projects, and transformative research.

As students in one of the most innovative academic institutions in the world, we have witnessed firsthand the unmatched entrepreneurial spirit that our fellow classmates embody. Who better to enable the next generation of builders than their own peers? Put succinctly:

The future of high-impact, student-targeted funding is students empowering students.

By: 0xmebius

This is a quick and dirty guide to MEV meant to get you up to speed on the latest in the space, nothing more, nothing less. The guide is sorted so that each subsequent topic builds upon previous knowledge, and increases in complexity as topics advance. Obviously skip things you already know. The guide is also nested depending on the level of depth you wish to explore for each particular topic. Each nested child topic represents a further niche concept in the parent topic. Most general Crypto/DeFi topics will just point you to existing high quality material (no need to reinvent the wheel) but more advanced MEV topics (and alpha) will consist of everything I know and what I’ve learned along the way. Just be warned this is effectively throwing you in the deep end. By the end of this you should be able to build your own MEV Bots. Good luck!

Overview

• Background
  • What is Blockchain?
  • What is Ethereum?
  • Smart Contract Overview
  • What is DeFi?
  • ERC-20 Token Overview
  • What are Stablecoins?
  • What are AMMs?
  • What are Decentralized Banks?
  • Forks
  • Centralized Exchanges
• MEV
  • MEV Strats 101
    • Sandwiching
    • Arbitrage
    • Liquidations
    • Frontrunning
    • JIT Liquidity
    • Long Tail MEV
  • Example MEV Bots
  • PGAs
  • Flashbots
  • Smart Contracts & Dev Tooling
  • Game Theory, Social Dynamics & Security
  • Alpha Leaks
  • Rust Resources

By: Ratan Kaliani, Annamira O’Toole & Shivam Patel

In the spirit of decentralization, DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols have been empowering their communities to guide the future of these protocols through on-chain governance. However, the ecosystem of DeFi governance and token delegation can often be hard to navigate. Here at Blockchain at Berkeley (B@B), we’ve learned a lot from running our delegation program for 4 protocols (Uniswap, Compound, Aave, Fei) over the past year . This guide intends to distill some of those learnings into a digestible format to help other delegates & future community members hit the ground running.

DeFi Governance Overview

Protocols use DeFi governance to empower community members to work together to make key decisions regarding protocol changes, launching new initiatives and transforming the long-term vision for the protocol. In the most common model, token-based governance, 1 token corresponds to 1 vote in the protocol, enabling every token holder of a protocol to participate in governance. By leveraging governance, DeFi protocol teams decentralize decision-making across the community.