I’m excited to announce that I will be joining the CoinFund team as an analyst, focusing on the fund’s operations, due diligence, and blockchain research. I started my career in the blockchain space in 2018 at Fluidity, the creators of AirSwap, where I became deeply engaged with the DeFi space. I spent my time there working on a decentralized exchange product and ideating new product lines connecting traditional capital markets with blockchain technology.
I became an avid follower of the blockchain space in college, fascinated by the prospect of new financial systems that were built to be more stable than, and were designed as a response to, the 2008 financial crisis. Looking back on that period of my life when I was first falling into the crypto rabbithole, stablecoins and security tokens were just coming on the radar, and I’m amazed by the pace at which products have developed.
One of the hallmarks of 2018 was the struggle of product-market fit, fast-forward to today, and the demand for on-chain financial products has exploded. In the past year, the DeFi industry has succeeded in converting passive users to active liquidity providers; assets committed to DeFi surpassed $1 billion in February of this year, $2 billion in July, and soared to $9 billion in August. On a broader scale, governments are beginning to take heed and have commenced research on central bank digital currency initiatives, and just last week, new guidance announced that US banks are now able to hold reserve funds for stablecoin issuers. More than ever, the advantage of the tenets of blockchain — open source and open competition — has become clear, and traditional establishments are working to bridge the gap.
Within the blockchain community itself, DEXes have outperformed professional and institutional venues. Uniswap is doing more volume than LMAX Digital and Coinbase Pro, two of the more well-regarded centralized exchanges. During my time in the DEX space, I witnessed the advantage that public networks have over those that are private or permissioned. I truly believe that an optimized capital markets structure is most likely to emerge on a public blockchain network.
As the blockchain space continues to mature and projects separate into verticals, the CoinFund team is in prime positioning to capitalize on this; with over 30 years of combined blockchain investing experience and strong backgrounds in fundamental investing, they have a unique perspective on sizing opportunities. As a multi-pronged approach to investing becomes increasingly important, CoinFund’s multidisciplinary expertise sets them apart — beyond capital support, they are able to offer technical support to projects and provide long-term competitive advantages.
I am entering this new role with experience across Financial, Product, and Operations initiatives. As someone who prides herself on wearing multiple hats, I am delighted to have found a team at CoinFund that is composed of like-minded individuals that take the seismic shifts we experience in this industry in stride, and roll up their sleeves to approach each problem in a nuanced, multidisciplinary way.
