It’s been a turbulent year in the cryptocurrency markets.
But decentralised finance marches on. Today on the Invezz podcast, we interview Tim Frost, CEO of Yield App (YLD), and Jon Deane, CEO of Trovio.
Yield App is a sort of one stop shop crypto platform, while Trovio is a hybrid asset manager. Together, therefore, Tim and Jon provide a unique perspective on investing in DeFi and crypto at large. Together, Yield App and Trovio have also just announced the launch of a $35 million DeFi Fund.
The three of us chat about the happenings in the market this year, with an emphasis on portfolio management. The terms “capital preservation” and “risk mitigation” are thrown around – but how is this possible in an industry where daily candles can wick down 50%? We discuss this conundrum, as well as the general strategies which both companies follow.
We also discuss macro, and how crypto fits into all this. Both Tim and Jon have been around the block (or blockchain, I should say) and hence have seen bear cycles before. Yet how does this one differ, given that it comes amid a pullback in the economy at large. Seeing as Bitcoin was only launched in 2009, I always like to stress that this is unprecedented in crypto terms – digital assets have never before experienced a wider bear market.
Nonetheless, DeFi marches on – and we discuss how it it fared through the contagion crisis that swept crypto earlier this year. Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and many other firms went under, yet this was CeFi rather than DeFi (as I wrote about previously).
But how is it investing in DeFi, an industry for which yield is so key, while interest rates are rising? This time last year, we had interest rates in trad-fi of zero and sky-high DeFi yields, yet now we have the Fed raising quickly towards 5% while DeFi has come right down. Jon, Tim and I chat about how this has affected the industry.
Of course, with the episode recorded amid the FTX controversy, as CZ’s sell order of FTT sends ripples across the industry, I couldn’t help but get their thoughts on just the latest bit of craziness in the industry.