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Risk
Risk here stacks in separate layers - price, code, keys, counterparties, liquidity and law - and each layer fails in its own way.
12lessons
91 minreading in all
Foundationwhere it starts
01
Lessons in this track
01
How to think about risk in digital assetsRisk here stacks in separate layers - price, code, keys, counterparties, liquidity and law - and each layer fails in its own way.
7 min · Foundation
02
Smart contract risk: what actually goes wrong in codeDefect classes, economic exploits and upgrade paths are the recurring shapes of on-chain loss, and an audit removes none of them completely.
8 min · Working knowledge
03
Oracle failure: when a protocol reads the wrong priceLending markets and derivatives act on numbers imported from outside the chain, and the ways that import breaks are specific and repeatable.
8 min · Advanced
04
Bridge compromise: why cross-chain links keep failingA bridge concentrates value behind a signing set or a verification contract, which has made bridges the highest-value target in the stack.
8 min · Advanced
05
Governance and admin keys: who can change the rulesMost protocols retain power to upgrade, pause or redirect value, and the practical question is who holds that power and what constrains it.
7 min · Working knowledge
06
Custody and self-custody, weighed honestlyHolding keys directly removes one category of risk and adds another, and the tradeoff is operational rather than ideological.
7 min · Foundation
07
Counterparty and exchange risk: the 2022 recordTerra, Celsius, Three Arrows and FTX failed within months of one another in 2022 through a small set of repeating mechanisms.
8 min · Working knowledge
08
Regulatory risk: the questions that remain unresolvedThe honest description of regulatory risk is a list of open legal questions and their mechanical consequences, not a forecast of outcomes.
7 min · Working knowledge
09
Market and liquidity risk: price, depth and cascadesPrice risk and the risk of being unable to transact near that price are separate problems, and the second one arrives during stress.
8 min · Working knowledge
10
Concentration risk in supply, stake and validatorsA network can be decentralized in software and concentrated in practice, and ownership, operation and governance each concentrate separately.
8 min · Advanced
11
Data-quality risk: what a dashboard number can hideSelf-reported supply, adapter-dependent fee accounting, revisions and survivorship move headline figures before any market does.
8 min · Advanced
12
Personal security: phishing, address poisoning, approvalsThe operational habits that prevent the most common losses: fake front ends, poisoned address history and standing token approvals.
7 min · Foundation
10 lessons
DeFi
10 lessons
How networks work
10 lessons
Institutional access and regulation
10 lessons
Market structure
10 lessons
Protocol economics
8 lessons
Stablecoins and payments
10 lessons
Start here
10 lessons
Supply and issuance
6 lessons
Using this site
12 lessons