TradFi FX markets are slow, expensive and often lack liquidity for direct swaps between different world currencies, having to route through USD pairs. While crypto could technically solve pairing through AMM pools, those needed to be arbitraged in order to reflect TradFi rates. With 15 fully-backed stablecoins, Mento is building the largest FX infrastructure, bringing world currencies onchain through its robust multi-currency stablecoin platform. In order to provide traders with accurate real-word FX rates, Mento employs FPMM (fixed-price market makers) which gather offchain data from multiple oracles. Instant settlement, cross-border, at a fraction of a cost of conventional remittance providers, while also avoiding traditional banking limitations.

Backed by strong on- & off-ramp integrations, Mento also caters towards day-to-day use cases, empowering locals and businesses to diversify their FX exposure without the hurdles of TradFi. Mento enables smooth cross-currency transactions without traditional banking limitations, unlocking DeFi yield for a wide variety of currencies.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Markus’ background, from TradFi to DeFi
• Unbanking the banked
• Starting a stablecoin protocol on Celo
• The role of stablecoins
• FX markets & Mento’s design
• FPMM vs. AMM
• Mento’s target audience
• Centralised vs. decentralised stablecoins
• Mento governance
• M0’s approach
• Integrating with banking systems

Episode links:

• ⁠Markus Franke on X
• Mento on X
• Celo on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - ⁠⁠gnosis.io⁠⁠

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Without a doubt, the introduction of stablecoins has vastly increased overall crypto liquidity, adoption and real-world use cases as they offered a safe haven against the industry’s volatility, especially during bearmarkets. However, despite being extremely efficient, the main stablecoin actors (i.e. Circle & Tether) are centralised entities. Many attempts have been made to create a reliable decentralised stablecoin, but regulations and the resounding collapse of Terra’s UST have only pushed towards more established, yet centralised, variants.

f(x) is a new generation CDP (collateralised debt position) protocol that offers on-chain perpetual trading for BTC & ETH with near-0 funding rates and a novel liquidation mechanism which protects users against hard liquidations. The leverage component is powered by emitting fxUSD, the protocol’s decentralised stablecoin, which boasts robust peg-keeping mechanisms, the main one being fxSAVE’s stability pool. The fxSAVE strategy bestows nearly 10% APY to the yield-bearing fxUSD-USDC pair.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Cyrille’s background
• AladdinDAO
• Decentralised stablecoins
• f(x) perps and sharing liquidation risks
• The efficiency of progressive liquidations
• Removing funding rates
• fxSAVE’s stability pool yields
• fxUSD’s organic adoption
• The importance of decentralised stablecoins
• Winning in the perp arena
• Opportunities in the stablecoin adoption race

Episode links:

• Cyrille Brière on X
• f(x) Protocol on X
• AladdinDAO on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - ⁠gnosis.io⁠

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.

Euler is a DeFi lending protocol built around the idea of permissionless modularity, enabling users to lend and borrow almost any crypto asset with flexible, permissionless pools, tailored to individual risk profiles. Moreover, Euler Vault Kit (EVK) and Ethereum Vault Connector (EVC) enable the creation of custom lending vaults which, in turn, can be used as collateral for other vaults. Earlier this year Euler also announced EulerSwap, a new DEX with a built-in AMM powered by Euler’s lending infrastructure and integrated with Uniswap v4’s hook architecture. EulerSwap integrates directly with Euler’s lending vaults, allowing assets to be used across multiple pools. This turns the lending protocol into a shared liquidity layer, improving capital efficiency across the ecosystem via swaps, lending yield or collateral for borrowing other assets.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Michael’s background
• The history & vision behind Euler
• The Euler hack
• Euler V2
• Euler vs. other lending protocols
• Diversifying offerings
• Variable vs. fixed rates
• How Pendle works
• Euler’s future
• RWAs
• Privacy in DeFi
• Euler roadmap
• The impact of AI in DeFi

Episode links:

• ⁠⁠Michael Bentley on X⁠⁠
• Euler on X⁠⁠

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - ⁠gnosis.io⁠
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - ⁠chorus.one⁠

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.