Smart Contracts/Gas/Oracles

This video is part of the "Decentralized Finance: DeFi Infrastructure" YouTube course. The playlist for the entire course is https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1Vu6ctbqa61FqJmPDnoPzDqrnyILHRm . This is one of four courses posted to YouTube. Course I: DeFi Infrastructure https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1Vu6ctbqa61FqJmPDnoPzDqrnyILHRm Course II: DeFi Primitives https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1Vu6ctbqa5kIXZCCpkAJxkI66dXzy61 Course III: DeFi Deep Dive https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1Vu6ctbqa7Df5YJgMtH1xCcy0yX_dri Course IV: DeFi Risks and Opportunities https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1Vu6ctbqa7eZK2gychKr1RGZ3t1qf8S Course I Description: In the first course in the series, DeFi Infrastructure, we begin by exploring the origins of DeFi and take a broad historical view from the earliest barter economies to present day. Indeed, barter was the first example of peer-to-peer exchange. The course also looks at historical examples of money having value even though it is not officially backed. We then focus on the key infrastructure components: blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts, oracles, stablecoins and decentralized applications (or dApps). This includes discussion of the mechanics of the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains including cryptographic hashing. Next, we focus on the specific problems that DeFi is designed to solve: inefficiency (costly, slow, and insecure today), limited access (1.7 billion are unbanked), opacity (we need to trust regulators to monitor banks and the regulators have mixed records), centralized control (financial system is oligopolistic imposing higher fees than we would have in a competitive market) and lack of interoperability (it is difficult to move funds from one financial institution to another today). The course closes by exploring many of the myths about the crypto space.