DeFi and Beyond: The Yield Machine of 2022
DeFi yields beat returns everywhere you look. What does it take to tap into these returns consistently without risking everything? Join us to learn how Kenneth Estes, CEO of fund management company Diffuse identifies where to get the most attractive yields across chains, how Figment builds the infrastructure that puts DeFi yields on autopilot, why FalconX created a full-service execution suite that helps DeFi investments scale, and how Brevan Howard is deploying their capital into digital assets to capture the rise in DeFi and other high yield crypto strategies.
- Yields: Are these wild west DeFi yields real, scalable, and here to stay?
- Custody: Emerging coins generate the most attractive yields, but how can allocators profit without putting their capital at risk?
- Risks: Hacks and scams, how do you build a digital fort?
- Technology: What infrastructure would propel DeFi to an institutional level?
- Trends: Where do you find and take advantage of the most attractive yield generating opportunities of 2022?
Event Recording
DeFi and Beyond: The Yield Machine of 2022
Speakers
Shalin Madan
- Title
- Co-Founder @
- Company
- Formidium
- Role
- Moderator
Shalin Madan is the Co-Founder of Formidium, a global leader in technology enabled fund administration, and CFO of Runday.ai, a company enabling conversational generative AI. He was formerly Founder of Bodhi Tree Asset Management, a quantitative equity hedge fund that generated a top-10 globally ranked performance in 2020. Prior to Bodhi Tree, he was a Managing Director at Strenta Investment Management, an SEC-registered investment adviser for a major family office, where he was responsible for all aspects of investment and portfolio management in a multi-asset class portfolio. Prior to that, Shalin was a Vice-President at Ivy Asset Management, where as a Portfolio Manager, he oversaw the firm’s flagship multi-manager hedge fund portfolios. He began his alternative assets career 21 years ago at Dome Capital Management, a hedge fund advisory firm for European institutional and super high net worth investors. In addition, Shalin has personally supported multiple highly successful Silicon Valley based tech startups as an investor and board advisor. Shalin holds an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a BA in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley. In his spare time, Shalin practices yoga and meditation.
Kenny Estes
- Title
- CEO @
- Company
- Diffuse Inc.
- Role
- Panelist
Kenny was one of the first high-frequency traders (when he was 18) with Getco, a pioneering HFT company that is now Virtu. While (and after) helping grow Getco into a 1,500 people strong public entity, Kenny launched 7 investment funds, spanning capital markets, real estate, and venture capital. Through his unique experience, Kenny spotted an opportunity to apply his tried-and-true capital markets strategies to one emerging alternative asset class in particular - digital assets.
Kenny founded Diffuse Inc to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities across alternative assets and Diffuse Digital to give investors access to differentiated digital asset strategies.
To capture the compelling returns generated from Decentralized Finance “DeFi” (the bleeding edge of crypto) Diffuse Digital launched two Defi Funds - StableFi (high yield market neutral) and MaxFi (high yield market long) investing stablecoins and blue-chip cryptos in emerging DeFi projects.
Kenny holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, two BS degrees (Math & CS) from Truman State University, and is an active member of the Global Digital Currency Association's Policy & Regulatory Committee.
Alyson Russ
- Title
- Business Development - Staking @
- Company
- Figment
- Role
- Panelist
Alyson began her career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs constructing investment portfolios across asset classes for institutional and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. She later joined Morgan Stanley as a Vice President in its Private Wealth Management division.
Alyson joined the Business Development team at Figment in 2021 where she supports venture capital, hedge fund, and traditional asset management clients investing in Proof of Stake blockchains. She is a CFA charterholder.
David Martin
- Title
- Product Manager @
- Company
- Falcon X
- Role
- Panelist
David joined the product team at FalconX in 2021 to primarily focus on the creation of products geared towards new crypto entrants coming from traditional finance. Prior to joining FalconX, David was charged with building OMS/EMS solutions at Ridgeline, a front to back-office suite geared toward buyside asset managers. He founded Blockforce Capital, a quantitative crypto hedge fund, and held quantitative trading and portfolio management roles in traditional finance, focused on market-neutral returns in volatile asset classes and derivatives.
Brad Koeppen
- Title
- Portfolio Manager @
- Company
- Brevan Howard Digital
- Role
- Panelist
Brad Koeppen recently joined Brevan Howard Digital as a Portfolio Manager. Brad started his career as an equity options market maker on the floor of the CBOE in Chicago. After spending 8 year with IMC he moved to CMT, originally to trade options but he also spent 5 years on the equity and ETF high frequency trade desk before moving full time into crypto in 2017. Brad ran the digital asset trading desk for four years at CMT Digital and worked very closely with the venture capital team during that time.
About
Diffuse Inc.
Diffuse Inc is an alternative fund platform offering differentiated investment products.
Our flagship offering is Diffuse Digital, a family of products for investors who want exposure to the potentially attractive returns in digital assets.
All our funds are represented by Wall Street respected service providers and adhere to tight compliance, risk management, and investing processes.
Formidium
Formidium is a global fund administrator powered by its proprietary cloud-based fund administration application, Seamless, an award-winning, integrated, fund accounting and investor reporting solution that is available to both the traditional and alternative investment fund management community.
Seamless software processes high-frequency trading volumes to deliver daily NAV for digital assets funds, hedge funds, SPVs, private equity and venture capital funds, impact funds, commodity pools, mutual funds, and mortgage funds. Formidium’s operations and technology are SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3 audited, and it currently has over 1,000 global staff under its employ.
Formidium’s clientele invest in the most innovative and complex digital assets strategies, ranging from cryptocurrency trading and venture capital to high-frequency arbitrage.
Learn more at www.formidium.com
Figment
Figment’s purpose is to build a better Internet by increasing usage of the next generation of Proof of Stake blockchains.
These efficient blockchains give people greater control of their data, more privacy, and increase financial inclusion. By eliminating intermediaries they also limit the power of centralized data monopolies, rent seeking financial institutions and anti-social algorithms.
We bring our mission to reality by helping investors stake their tokens; earn yield and participate in securing the blockchain. Our Hubble and Prime applications as well as our governance expertise allow token holders to analyze, monitor and make informed decisions. We build Web 3 developer communities via our Learn education program and then make it simple for these developers to launch applications and manage smart contracts via our DataHub platform. And finally by building and operating The Graph based indexers we enable the efficient search and querying of blockchain data.
Brevan Howard Digital
Founded in 2002, we are a leading global alternative investment management platform, specialising in global macro. We manage assets for institutional investors around the world including sovereign wealth funds, corporate and public pension plans, foundations and endowments.
We have over 350 team members and over 95 Portfolio Managers/Traders/Sub-PMs with offices in London, New York, Geneva, Jersey, Hong Kong, Edinburgh, Austin, the Cayman Islands and Singapore.
The firm is led by CEO, Aron Landy.
Falcon X
FalconX is a digital asset trading platform that provides clients fast, secure and reliable execution using data science to eliminate slippage and hidden fees.
We’re fortunate to be backed by a wide range of investors including: Accel, Fidelity, B-Capital, Tiger Global, Accomplice, Coinbase, Fenbushi Capital, Flybridge Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others.