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Hayden Hughes
Fintech Advisor - Venture Capital - Crypto
Hayden Hughes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Alpha Impact, a social trading platform for cryptocurrency.14 He is an ex-lawyer who sold his first startup at age 25 and has held leadership roles at Crypto.com and Techemy in Singapore.1 Hughes dropped out of the University of British Columbia after two years to focus on his first startup, a services-based company in Vancouver, Canada, which he later exited.3
Alpha Impact, under Hughes' leadership, aims to democratize access to crypto trading by connecting expert traders with beginners and enthusiasts.1 The company has raised over $3.6 million from investors including Antler, LuneX Ventures, and Genesis Block Ventures.1
Hughes is based in Singapore and is known for his expertise in the cryptocurrency space.2 He regularly represents Alpha Impact at industry events, such as ETHDubai5, and has been featured in podcasts discussing cryptocurrency and social trading.46
Highlights
At a recent keynote, I spoke about the Crypto “Lehman moment” no one is prepared for. Here’s how it could happen:
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Users have locked billions of $ of assets on lending protocols like Hodlnaut Abra. In exchange for depositing their assets they get paid interest.
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Contrary to popular belief, most lending activity facilitated by these platforms is not P2P - it’s you lending direct to the platform, who then deploys your assets into more lucrative strategies, and pays you a smaller interest rate. (BlockFi is the exception here, and they act like a bank and don’t take direct counterparty risk)
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Some platforms have excellent risk management and others are terrible. There was billions worth of UST exposure that has potentially lost 80% or more of its value since May 10th.
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The underlying trading that is done to generate the returns referred to in point 2 has become substantially more challenging. Most platforms have not decreased their rates. Why is this?
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My hypothesis is that some platforms are underwater, due to staked assets (they deposited customer funds into long term contracts that have a vesting / unlock period) AND due to UST having collapsed.
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If platforms are underwater, they can’t risk lots of withdrawals in a short time because, in the words of Warren Buffet, the tide will go out and we’ll see who is “swimming naked”. So, to avoid a catastrophic collapse of those firms that are underwater, they’re choosing to leave rates unchanged and lose money slowly rather than drop rates immediately and risk a capital flight.
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Take a look at a list of lending platforms: you can see only a minority have reduced rates.
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My old school finance “tradfi” friends have been asking me which platforms to use. Although I do not trade with all of the following, I generally consider Coinbase and Gemini to be highly trustworthy with very sound risk management, and I am highly confident these firms will be around in 10 years. I / Alpha Impact have no financial interest in any of these firms.
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I have no view on most of the other companies on this list and I am not making comments on any individual firm, just sharing my observations.
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If one of the lending platforms collapses that would almost certainly trigger a crisis of confidence in all the other platforms and this could also lead to a de-pegging of #USDT. This would be a 2008-like moment for crypto, but the Fed won’t bail any one crypto firm out. I assess the risk of these events to be 50% in the next 90 days.
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How to prepare? Consider your counterparty risk. Ask your lending protocol how they manage risk. Consider moving assets to accounts you control. Consider hedging or limiting directional spot exposure. Alt coins would dump harder than BTC in such a scenario.
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To see what actual top traders are doing in real time, check out our platform to get free real time alerts: https://lnkd.in/eUK5CmZW
Note this information was accurate as at June 1, 2022.
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Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
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