Ep 55, Secure Autonomous Earnings Through Staking and Defi—With Tim Ogilvie of Staked

DeFi and staking are classified as two different animals. And yet, both facilitate a protocol-level interaction with a smart contract that pays a yield over time. For that reason, Tim Ogilvie and the team at Staked are playing in both arenas, helping customers put their idle crypto to use.
Tim is the Cofounder and CEO of Staked, a crypto platform that helps institutional investors reliably and securely compound their crypto assets. On this episode of Wyre Talks, Tim joins us to share his team’s mission around creating an easy-to-generate yield button and offer a high-level overview of the Staked infrastructure. He walks us through the metrics the team uses to judge its performance in terms of security and reliability and explains how his experience as a validator has changed his view of the space.
Tim goes on to address Staked’s first DeFi product, Robo Advisor for Yield or RAY, discussing how it outperformed several other competitive rebalancing products and why the team wants RAY to be an open standard rather than staked product. He also weighs in on the current share of alpha that Staked earns, how that benchmark rate is defined, and the decisioning models the team uses to determine their potential market impact. Listen in for Tim’s take on KYC/AML and learn the benefit of smart contracts in terms of money operating like a pool—without being truly mixed.
 
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Today’s Topics
[0:20] Tim’s 20-year career in entrepreneurship and what drew him to crypto
[1:16] What inspired Tim’s transition from Wall Street to the risky world of startups
[2:44] How Tim’s work on a debt derivatives desk informs his work at Staked
[4:01] Where Tim thinks the crypto space is headed in terms of financial products based on interest rates
[5:45] The volatility of forward yield markets and the subsequent challenge around defining a risk-free rate in Bitcoin
[6:30] What Staked looked like in the beginning
[7:51] A high-level overview of the Staked infrastructure
[8:38] What metrics Staked uses to judge itself and other stakers
[9:31] The Staked team’s mission to make it easy to take advantage of passive opportunities in crypto + what customers need to show up with to facilitate that
[10:37] Why Staked runs its servers on a combination of public cloud and on-premise infrastructure
[11:12] Why Staked does not charge fees for individual pieces of infrastructure
[11:42] Determining which proof-of-stake coins require high-performance infrastructure to run a node based on performance, security and decentralization
[13:17] How Tim’s experience running validators has changed his view of the space
[14:41] Tim’s insight on the relatively low operating costs associated with PoS networks + why secure enclaves are much more expensive
[16:41] Tim’s take on the profitability of a staking-as-a-service business model
[18:36] How Staked benefits from running several different networks at once
[20:17] The fee pressure among validators on Cosmos + why validator fees are rising in general
[21:50] Other products and services Staked might provide in building a premium product
[22:46] How the common theme around putting idle crypto to use inspired Staked’s DeFi vision
[24:36] Staked’s first product in the DeFi space and how it works
[25:22] How RAY might evolve to support more sophisticated pricing and evaluate risk
[29:11] The DeFi opportunities the Staked team might add to RAY (i.e.: staking, liquidation tools)
[29:51] How pricing is likely to evolve for RAY’s option to bid on underwater loans
[31:10] How RAY outperformed several other competitive rebalancing products + how it will be better able to take advantage of opportunities and service new markets as its pool increases
[33:51] Tim’s thoughts on KYC/AML + the advantage of smart contracts in terms of money operating like a pool without truly being mixed
[36:19] How RAY is creating SPVs to bridge centralized lending services
[37:10] Why the Staked team wants RAY to be an open standard rather than staked product
[38:46] The decisioning models the team uses to determine their potential market impact
[40:11] How RAY earns revenue in lieu of fees
[40:46] The RAY token model and Staked’s approach to developing a decentralized product
[41:50] The current share of alpha that Staked earns and how the benchmark rate is defined
[42:48] Tim’s vision for the future of RAY + its potential distribution play to wallets and exchanges
[44:52] Opportunities around forwards, spot prices and other DeFi functionalities that developers are exploring with the latest Staked tech
[46:05] The most-requested features Staked customers are asking for
[46:50] Tim’s prediction that the space will move toward a fixed interest rate model
[48:24] How Tim thinks about Staked’s role in helping protocols define their own risk properties
[49:41] How customers maintain their role in governance while Staked serves as a technical pass-through
[50:19] Tim’s insight around smart contract insurance and the challenges associated with pricing it effectively
[51:57] The demand for building an effective borrowing product
[52:22] Tim’s view of early exit opportunities as the next big thing in the passive income space
[53:16] How validators think about the nuances of high inflation vs. low inflation coins
[56:34] Tim’s advice around recruiting capital for hobbyists interested in running a node
[57:42] Why Tim is excited about projects like Cosmos, Polkadot and Keep in allowing for interchain activity