on the crypto
Alex Pack, former managing partner of cryptocurrency investment firm Dragonfly Capital, has joined the Huobi Group as a corporate investment advisor, to help the company that operates the world's leading centralized exchange for derivatives trading volumes To invest in decentralized finance, DeFi.
"Child's play"
“When I left DragonFly earlier this year, Huobi was stepping up its commitment to internationalization and its practice of investment corporate, ”Pack said in an interview.
“I thought Huobi had the potential to be one of the most impactful companies in the cryptocurrency space. When I was contacted by my old friends to help them, I thought it would be a breeze ”.
Pack's new role in Huobi will largely focus on expanding Huobi's holdings in DeFi projects in Western countries, after Huobi's new venture capital investment division began pouring money into DeFi projects in Asia.
Huobi wants to take his place in DeFi
In his previous role at DragonFly, Pack was an investor in many major crypto projects when they were still in their infancy, including the DeFi MakerDAO and Compound Finance protocols. He left the cryptocurrency investment firm in April, due to "a difference in vision on the direction of the company," although he remained as a part-time partner.
Huobi, along with other large centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, is rushing to reposition itself as an integral part of the DeFi industry explosion. Some semi-decentralized blockchain-based lending and trading platforms have amassed more than $ 10 billion in total locked-in value, most of it in the second half of 2020.
Unlike Binance, the world's largest decentralized cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, which built a public blockchain to support DeFi projects, the Huobi Group has focused more on incubating DeFi projects, leveraging its established base. of users.
Pack's future vision
"Today there are two things:" CeFi "(centralized finance) and" DeFi ", in the crypto language," Pack said. "In the next 10 years, I think they will merge ... and you will see companies that have portfolios - Huobi already has large wallet - build decentralized exchanges and decentralized versions of everything they offer.
And you will see decentralized finance grow and also embody many of the aspects of centralized finance exchanges ”. While current DeFi projects are still mostly focused on lending protocols and stablecoins, Pack said he will initially look specifically at those DeFi projects that develop synthetic assets on blockchain.
Pack said Huobi's strong presence in Asia is one of the reasons he decided to join the project. “Most of the users and most of the business model's information and infrastructure are located in Asia,” he said.
“Yet, by far, the most interesting technology and the new frontiers of technology are developing in the West. And I've always tried to be a bridge between these two areas. "
