Top DeFi Newsletters

With so much going on in DeFi, it can be hard to keep up with all the news, updates, and trends emerging in a rapidly growing sector.

For those who don’t know, we recently launched This Week in DeFi – a newsletter recapping top news and changing interest rates we share right here on DeFi Rate.

With this in mind, it’s important to recognize that this industry is full of talented reports, analysts and thought leaders driving the narrative of permissionless finance in a variety of ways. In this article, we’ll dive into some of our top choices that you should keep in mind for a holistic DeFi experience.

Top DeFi Newsletters in 2020

Bankless

Cost: $115/yr or $12/mo

Predicated around the theme of “going Bankless” Ryan Sean Adam’s and David Hoffman’s publication Bankless offers a deep dive into all things DeFi. With different segments such as Market Mondays and Tactic Tuesdays, Bankless readers not only benefit from insights on wider macro trends, but also from tailored tutorials on how to participate in DeFi’s endless exciting products. Backed by a suite of leading talent frequently making their way to the newsletter in the form of guest posts, Bankless is your one-stop-shop for staying up DeFi’s most important narratives. Just last week, Bankless also rolled out custom POAPs, entitling subscribers access to a private Discord channel and claims on future community drops and governance polls.

Subscribe to Bankless

Our Network

Cost: FREE

For those who haven’t noticed, DeFi is largely data-driven. Underpinning the narratives of composability and trustless liquidity are key metrics like Total Value Locked (TVL) and unique on-chain interactions, all of which serve as crucial backers to show that this emerging sector is far more than just talk. To this, Spencer Noon’s community-run newsletter Our Network is the perfect place to receive tailored insights on protocol and application growth – both on Ethereum and beyond. As you could have guessed, DeFi protocols are a frequent feature on the newsletter, although readers also benefit from insights on other Layer 1 protocols which is both refreshing and worthwhile as we consider what DeFi could look like in 3-5 years from now.

Subscribe to Our Network

The Defiant

Cost: $100/yr or $10/mo

Lead by former Bloomberg financial journalist Camila Russo, the Defiant offers “the latest news, exclusive interviews with the space’s major players, op-eds from its deepest thinkers, and a weekly recap, so that you never miss a thing.” In recent weeks, I’ve been most impressed by the Defiant’s News Briefings, namely from industry professionals breaking down developing stories like the dForce hack to not only educate readers on what happened but how it happened and what we as a community should learn from it. Paid subscribers also receive access to a private chat where they can voice their feedback on new stories and make suggestions on who they would like to see feature don future pieces.

Subscribe to the Defiant

EthHub

Cost: Free

For anyone who’s dipped their toes in the Ethereum ecosystem, you’ve likely heard of EthHub,  a leading outlet ran by Anthony Sassano and Eric Conner. Supplementing their prestigious weekly podcast Into the Ether is a fantastic newsletter that recaps all the most important trends within Ethereum. Packed with awesome segments like a community spotlight, ecosystem bits, interesting tweets, and even a meme of the week, EthHub is a fantastic (and free) way to stay up on the most pressing trends in DeFi and Ethereum at large.

Subscribe to EthHub

The Delphi Daily

Cost: $250/yr or $25/mo

As a part of the wider Delphi Research package, Delphi Digital offers tailored insights in the form of Delphi Daily – quick stories delivered right to your inbox. With both market commentary and wider insights on crypto trends beyond just DeFi, Delphi Digital is doing a fantastic job at showing why they’re one of the leading consulting firms today. Authored by a team with extensive amounts of experience in legacy financial markets, Delphi Research brings refreshing nomenclature for those looking to understand DeFi through the lens of traditional market indicators.

Subscribe to Delphi Research

DeFi Weekly

Cost: $100/yr or $10/mo

Looking for a breakdown of how different DeFi protocols work under the hood? DeFi Weekly’s author – Kerman Kohli – does a fantastic job at illustrating leading systems with detailed explainers as to how these primitives are shaping the trends which we talk about so frequently. From the different ways of how players are brining Bitcoin to Ethereum to how people used Flash Loans to make $350k in 60 seconds, DeFi Weekly covers the industry’s most pressing trends in an intuitive and thought-provoking manner. Plus, with the recent announcement of the Initial Kerman Offering, we suspect that Kerman will be doubling down taking his newsletter to center stage in the coming weeks.

Subscribe to DeFi Weekly

Token Tuesdays

Cost: $50/yr or $5/mo

Just as the name suggests, Token Tuesdays offer insights into the larger crypto ecosystem every Tuesday. With a strong focus on DeFi, DAOs, and the intersection of the two, Token Tuesday’s breaks down leading DeFi tokens with narratives and data to back the growth rising projects have seen in recent weeks. Authored by Fitzner Blockchain Consulting, Token Tuesdays looks to offer nontechnical users with high-lever trends to stay up on DeFi without being forced to do a deep dive.

Subscribe to Token Tuesdays 

Week in Ethereum

Cost: FREE

With a larger focus on the wider Ethereum landscape, Week in Ethereum is perhaps the most holistic way to stay up on the industry-leading protocol from extremely technical updates to more general industry trends. Led by Evan Van Ness, Week in Ethereum has been a leading publication for years on end, more recently migrating to a sponsor-based model as Evan branched away from Consensys to run the newsletter in a truly sovereign fashion (opinions have always been his own). As it relates to DeFi, the annotated version of the Application section now comes with an arbitrary “How much of this section is DeFi” count, symbolizing just how rapid this sector is growing.

Subscribe to Week in Ethereum

Consensys Codefi

Cost: FREE

For those who recognize the value in risk management and better user toolings, look no further than Conensys Codefi – the creators of the DeFi Score and Inspect. With a strong emphasis on maturing DeFi through open-source risk grading, Codefi is quickly stepping up to take lead on information which will play a major role in the adoption of DeFi at large. Underpinning these developments is the Codefi blog, covering everything from ETH2.0 staking surveys to token standard analysis and protocol trends. With a frequent focus on DeFi, this is a great newsletter to keep on your radar.

Check out the Codefi Newsletter

Closing Thoughts

With so many newsletters to choose from, which ones should you stay up with? Depending on your interest, we’d like to say this list provides a pretty diverse range of angles for DeFi insights, regardless of your budget.

Please take note of the costs associated with many of these top picks as nearly half of what we mentioned in this article is completely free. As a general rule of thumb, those which are paid come with perks that allow you to get more involved in the conversation whereas those which are free act as a form of public goods.

What’s important to remember here is that newsletters can save you hours of scrolling on crypto Twitter, so definitely don’t sleep on them!

Until then, we’ll end the article with another shill of our newsletter – This Week in DeFi.

Cooper Turley

Cooper is the Editor of DeFi Rate. He is an ambassador of Set Protocol and an active contributor to MetaCartel where he seeks to find emerging consumer-facing applications that propel the Ethereum ecosystem. He often works with projects as the Director of Fitzner Blockchain Consulting where he coauthors the weekly publication Token Tuesdays.

Like my writing? Drop me some gwei @ coopahtroopa.eth ??