Money manager Vladimir Vishnevskiy can earn a negative interest rate for holding a European government bond. Or he can pocket the annual equivalent of a 20% yield for locking up money in one of the wilder corners of the cryptocurrency market, known as decentralized finance, or DeFi.
He decided to go for the 20%. “You can’t get those yields in the traditional space,” says the co-founder of Swiss-based St. Gotthard Fund Management, which runs a portfolio designed to squeeze income out of crypto assets. The strategy is so new that even Wall Street pros may have trouble wrapping their heads around it. Take what you might know about Bitcoin—that it’s a digital currency that exists only on an online ledger governed by computer code. Now make it even more mind-bending, and imagine the code isn’t just recording transactions. It’s running lending platforms, insurers, and financial markets with little human intermediation. That’s DeFi.
Traders like Vishnevskiy can collect yields by committing in the form of crypto tokens the capital that’s needed to make these disembodied and largely unregulated financial institutions run. At the peak last month, investors put as much as $86 billion into various DeFi programs, compared with just under $1 billion a year ago, according to data from DeFi Pulse, a website that tracks the industry.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 21, 2021 من Bloomberg Businessweek.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 21, 2021 من Bloomberg Businessweek.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Instagram's Founders Say It's Time for a New Social App
The rise of AI and the fall of Twitter could create opportunities for upstarts
Running in Circles
A subscription running shoe program aims to fight footwear waste
What I Learned Working at a Hawaiien Mega-Resort
Nine wild secrets from the staff at Turtle Bay, who have to manage everyone from haughty honeymooners to go-go-dancing golfers.
How Noma Will Blossom In Kyoto
The best restaurant in the world just began its second pop-up in Japan. Here's what's cooking
The Last-Mover Problem
A startup called Sennder is trying to bring an extremely tech-resistant industry into the age of apps
Tick Tock, TikTok
The US thinks the Chinese-owned social media app is a major national security risk. TikTok is running out of ways to avoid a ban
Cleaner Clothing Dye, Made From Bacteria
A UK company produces colors with less water than conventional methods and no toxic chemicals
Pumping Heat in Hamburg
The German port city plans to store hot water underground and bring it up to heat homes in the winter
Sustainability: Calamari's Climate Edge
Squid's ability to flourish in warmer waters makes it fitting for a diet for the changing environment
New Money, New Problems
In Naples, an influx of wealthy is displacing out-of-towners lower-income workers