The proof-of-stake protocol is designed to encourage users to lock up their tokens, but synthetic assets are bypassing the design to allow double immersion in DeFi.
As one of Forbes Asia’s 30 young people under the age of 30, Tushar Aggarwal has several jobs: he founded the encrypted podcast Decrypt Asia, Work as a risk scout LuneX Venture Capital CompanyAnd run insist, A platform that allows users to obtain liquidity rewards while staking tokens.
Aggarwal’s platform issues synthetic assets, perhaps better understood as “redemption coupons,” for mortgage tokens that can be used elsewhere to maximize returns. This method is related to proof-of-stake coins, which are not mined by machines, but accumulated to those who lock their tokens out of circulation. Persistence allows the use of these collateralized tokens.
Aggarwal comes from India. He believes that cryptocurrency has brought huge benefits to the country at the GDP and individual worker level. However, because the Indian government is hostile to industries that can benefit a lot from it, he works in Singapore.
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Liquid mortgage
The 28-year-old Aggarwal started his crypto journey as an investor in 2017, and soon founded and hosted the Decrypt Asia podcast, where he interviewed “various participants in the ecosystem-fund managers, investors, Entrepreneurs and service providers”.Podcasts act as a kind of springboard for Write About the cryptocurrency revolution Asia Technology“The equivalent of Western TechCrunch.” Agarwal is an authority.
In 2018, he was contacted by a venture capitalist who had been exposed to his books and podcasts. The venture capitalist sought advice on behalf of his company, Golden Gate Ventures, which is seeking to set up a crypto fund. “I basically asked them for a job on the spot and became the first employee of the Golden Gate Crypto Fund-the fund was called LuneX Ventures,” he recalled. Aggarwal still serves as the venture capitalist of the fund, which he describes as “the only regulated crypto fund among Southeast Asian venture capital funds.”
After a series of hackathons, he founded the Persistence platform in 2019 because “I want to become an operator, not a capital distributor.”
The functionality of the platform is based on Skin rejuvenation Algorithm, which means it accepts proof-of-stake coins, for example insist, REN, LUNA, CRO, IRIS, BAND and KAVA. The magic is that even after staking, synthetic assets based on tokens can be deposited into decentralized exchanges as liquidity to earn fees, while the original tokens are still “staking in the background, and you can also get staking rewards”.
“We allow you to pledge in one place, but will issue you a representative coin that can be used elsewhere.”
Therefore, “liquidity mortgage” is an appropriate description because liquidity provision and mortgage are combined. This process is beneficial because token holders do not have to risk liquidity fees or collateral, thereby providing a higher rate of return on capital. Although the “original” tokens are pledged, the representative tokens used to provide liquidity are 100% backed by the pledged assets, which means that “the person who ultimately holds the representative tokens will eventually obtain” the relevant assets.
“Liquid Staking can basically solve the problem of 10,000-100,000 people who hold PoS tokens and are familiar with the working principle of staking.”
Golden years
Although he described his parents as normal Indian middle-class civil servants, Agarwal spent his teenage years at the foot of the Himalayas with “the children of truly powerful politicians and the people who manage Indian companies.” Five years”. Dunn’s School is “India’s Eton School, which has trained prime ministers, military officers, journalists, film stars, government officials, and businessmen,” he explained, comparing his school to a famous British boarding school with a similar reputation. Since this school was founded when India was a British colony, “it still supports many ideals that may be a bit old from today’s perspective,” Aggarwal meditated.
In 2010, he went to Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, “I think this is one of the top five universities in Asia”, where he studied business administration and promised to stay in the country for three years after graduation. In exchange for a 60% tuition waiver. Aggarwal explained that this bond arrangement is part of “Singapore’s policy to attract young talents”-a successful policy because Aggarwal has not yet returned to live in India.
After graduating in 2013, he worked in private equity at PricewaterhouseCoopers for two years, and then transferred to Sia Partners, a boutique consulting firm specializing in financial services in France. This position allowed him to spend time in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, while working with the private banking divisions of European banks operating in the region.
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— PSTAKE Finance (@pStakeFinance) August 21, 2021
As a travel consultant, most of Aggarwal’s daily expenses are borne by his employer, which allows him to have enough savings to deposit. “This is a very Indian and Middle Eastern thing-every penny you save is invested in gold or real estate-this is what I did,” as his parents taught him. Instead of buying an apartment that “only has so much room for growth”, he focused on the larger long-term prospects and focused on the land itself.
After selling some properties at the end of 2016, Aggarwal considered new investment avenues. He first studied angel investing, but soon “when I encountered cryptocurrency, I basically went all out.” He said that he was in the right place at the right time and explained that when he invested in 2017, “crypto was in Singapore Very popular”, and then listed multiple projects at the time, such as Republic Protocol, OmiseGo, and Kyber Network. He was lucky to have gained financial independence in just a few months.
“By the end of 2017, I had done well enough to quit my job and start podcasting,” he said.
Opportunities in India
“I originally came from India; our entities are all in Singapore,” Aggarwal told me, making it clear that he wanted to “be careful because I kind of crossed Singapore and India.” The problem at hand was that even though his team was there, “India There is a lot of regulatory uncertainty.” Therefore, Singapore has benefited from Aggarwal’s success.
“This is the importance the Indian government attaches to cryptocurrency, because it is very easy to transfer your capital around the world. Once it enters the wallet, basically, it is not subject to any jurisdiction.”
Capital controls are one aspect of keeping entrepreneurs like Agarwal away from his hometown of India. “If your money is in India or China, you can’t bring out more than a certain amount of money,” he explained. In contrast, if you are in the United States or Singapore, “basically you can take your money anywhere.”
Because of the Indian government’s “beef” of encryption, Aggarwal chose to build his encryption empire from Singapore.Until recently, the Indian authorities Abandon the plan to ban Bitcoin thoroughly. “We are just using India as a base for acquiring talent,” he admitted, referring to Persistence.
“We are a bit like building from India, but building for the world. Our target market is not India,” he said.
Indian tech workers are building a decentralized future, while their country is trying to attract direct investment in the industry. Aggarwal believes that the unfortunate status quo is a natural continuation of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, in which the digital machines of many large multinational companies are “operated by Indians” who provide cost-effective labor.
Indians have a long cultural tradition of investing in gold for retirement and inheritance. In order to celebrate the holiday, even relatively poor families will regularly buy small gold jewelry and small accessories for permanent collection by the family. In 2015, the Indian government even launched Gold monetization plan Encourage people to deposit gold and earn interest.
As this tradition of preserving hard assets takes root in society, it is easy to imagine that a large number of Indians will leap into “digital gold”. At least, this is easier to imagine than in a country like my hometown Finland, where saving for retirement is not a universal concept, and most people prefer to deposit their savings in a cash account.
Aggarwal explained that although only 3-4% of Indian households invest in stocks, compared to 30-40% of American households, “Indians hold approximately US$50 billion worth of crypto assets.” If the government allows India People are fully involved in the crypto economy, and he expects the floodgates to open. He cited Dream11, a fantasy sports betting application that has accumulated 100 million users in a population of 1.4 billion, as an example of what might be brought about in the future.
30 under 30
Featured Recently by Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Aggarwal has made great progress in a short period of time. Aggarwal believes that “the three major levers that any individual or company can use are technology, media, and capital.”
Today, Aggarwal focuses on these three advantages to develop his business: insist on including technical leverage, and LuneX Ventures allows him to allocate funds to other promising projects. In terms of media, he combined it with his podcasts and other articles.
“Asymmetric betting-down by 1 times, up by 100 times. I know very well that I want to place asymmetric bets in a place.”
In addition to this leverage, asymmetric betting is another technique that Agarwal sits idly by. From the beginning, he knew that if there is an industry that can make such an unbalanced bet, then it must be a cryptocurrency. When asked how much money is enough for him, Aggarwal turned to philosophical, explaining that all money does is to buy opportunities to reach good people, time, and spiritual space.
As Agarwal pulls all the levers, I doubt how much time he can have. However, it is clear that he insists on choosing the right method.
