You follow me to get technical insights on cutting edge financial instruments. So here is one that the cabal will never tell you: Aave is NOT risk-free. When you deposit $$$ into a lending market, you get interest paid by anyone borrowing from your dollar deposit. "Borrowing" means they literally withdraw the dollars into their wallet. Your dollars are in fact no longer deposited in the lending market. They're in some random person's wallet. What you see on the UI is a LIE. You can also think of it as an IOU. But wait, I hear you cry, "they had to deposit collateral in order to borrow!" That's right. The collateral is indeed there. But let's run a thought experiment. BTC is at $120k. You deposit $60k on the lending market. I deposit 1 BTC and borrow $60k against it. The lending market now has 1 BTC and 0 USD in it. BTC crashes to $100k and you want your USD back so you can buy the dip. But there is no USD in the market currently, only BTC. How does the lending market handle this scenario? That's something lending markets differentiate themselves on and something you should consider when choosing one. On Aave for example, interest rates skyrocket as the pool's "utilization" increases, effectively triggering flash liquidations of otherwise healthy positions. Morpho's architecture somewhat mitigates that by allowing vaults to manage risk independently. Other providers can implement additional mechanisms to disincentivize bank runs. At the end of the day, the USG can print infinite dollars. Aave cannot print infinite dollars—and that's why it is NOT risk-free.
why would i lend money unsecured to the US gov for 5% when i can lend it to aave for 4.5%?
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