Evgeny Gokhberg | Building a DeFi Power User
The Curious Learners Ep. 29
Hi everyone. I continue to interview people from the crypto industry for The Curious Learners podcast.
As those of you who follow the crypto space are aware, the market is going through tough times again! This time though, things are different from the previous ‘winters’. Traditional financial markets and the real economy are also in turbulence, largely driven by inflation across the globe. This is very much an untested macro backdrop for crypto, as we have been riding a bull run in traditional markets in the last decade or so since crypto emerged.
In the middle of this uncertainty, one piece of good news is the fact that decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to stay robust. Some of the largest DeFi protocols, including Uniswap, Compound, Aave, etc. perform perfectly well per their smart contracts architecture.
My guest today is Evgeny Gokhberg, who is perfectly positioned for a discussion on DeFi. He is the founder and managing partner of Re7 Capital, which is an investment firm focused on decentralized finance strategies.
Evgeny is not only an investor in defi, but also a deep thinker about the technology behind it, the future of crypto and how traditional finance and DeFi would work together to build a whole new financial world.
Our conversation touched upon (of course) his entry into crypto, the current state of markets, his firm Re7 Capital and the future of DeFi. Here are some highlights from the episode:
Most exciting about DeFi?
It is a technical ability to build financial processes and a whole new financial system
DeFi in the context of recent market turbulence?
Market crash is completely unrelated to the technical performance of the technology, which continues to work well
Real use case of crypto for an ordinary person the street?
First and foremost, financial freedom that enables you to participate either as a creator or simply passive holder. And on top of that, there comes payments, leverage and many more features
Sustainability of financial returns in crypto?
Everyone's favourite question:) A likely benchmark is certain level of premium over high yield bonds. Risk profile in DeFi lending / borrowing pools is similar to that of high yield bonds
Security assessment in DeFi investing?
Evgeny and his team spend 90% of their time thinking about the security risk of protocols and smart contracts, because what is behind DeFi is currently a beta software
Current 'winter' in crypto?
Hard to expect people to rush back into crypto with their hard earned money in particular in the context of high inflation unless all of a sudden there is a super interesting use case
Future of DeFi?
Solid cross-chain bridging infrastructure would help unlock amazing use cases such as different blockchains optimised for different use cases (e.g. Blockchain for NFTs or for order book based derivatives trading)
Vision for Re7 Capital?
Growing even more technical and being at the forefront of the global innovation driven by Blockchain technology
Most curious about?
Deeper technical understanding of ZK Rollups (it is a scaling solution for the Ethereum network)
Please enjoy my conversation with Evgeny Gokhberg.