Driven by Unbridled Greed
The year 2022 will likely be remembered as the year of Black Swans. Large-scale negative events that typically occur once in a blue moon suddenly unfolded in steady succession. Nobody was truly prepared. The transparent nature of the blockchain, innovations driven by unbridled greed and sometimes outright fraud bolstered by a bubbling market, formed the perfect concoction for the eventual quick unwinding of risks that has since left many crypto market participants suffering in the aftermath.
During the fallout, some structured products protocols focused on putting users as underwriters of cash-secured put options have underperformed. In some instances, users suffered losses in excess of 50% in mere weeks. Indeed, the danger of some short options income strategies expose inexperienced investors to severe losses in the worst case. This popular yield-enhancement strategy is sometimes referred to as the act of picking up nickels in front of a steam-roller.
But not all structured products are created equal. There is more to that in the world of structured products where product innovation is boundless and only limited by our imagination. On the same note, not all yield-sources are equal. Yields in Crypto have generally come from lending, staking, earning fees from AMMs, or using various degrees of yield farming strategies that thrived when incentives were abundant. Alternative yield sourced from structured products based on short options strategies (as depicted earlier) is likely sustainable only with active risk management measures in place.
There’s no doubt that structured products are a promising source of sustainable yield in Crypto; However, we believe that true sustainable yield derived from structured products needs to have a defined principal-protection mechanism at the core of the financial structuring process.
Introducing SuperHedge
We are a new crypto structured products investment platform. Our flagship products are launching as DeFi Structured Vaults ("DSV"). DSV allow our users an easy way to invest in principal-protected crypto structured products, earning regular interest coupons and boosted yields from the long structured options strategies. Based on their chosen strategy, investors are able to hedge against Black Swan events or express their directional view.
Ownership of investors’ deposits are represented as self-custodied NFTs (ERC-1155) that are tradable on our secondary marketplace. Investors can offer their NFTs for sale anytime after primary issuance, potentially unlocking liquidity prior to maturity.
Our plan is to keep it simple and accessible at launch. We will be offering USDC stablecoins denominated DSV that have three directional biases: Bullish, Bearish and Ranging. The long vanilla option structures that express these views are Call-Spreads, Put-Spreads and Butterfly-Spreads respectively. The underlying markets for the options are ETH/USD and BTC/USD.
The options will be hedged on Deribit exchange or with whitelisted options market makers. Source of yield at launch includes vetted yield protocols such as Moonwell and Curve Finance. In the future, we would introduce new DSVs with variations in denominations, underlyings, tenor, leverage, derivatives (exotics options, swaps, perps) and yield-sources.
We plan to progressively serve retail investors, LPs, Hedgers and DAO Treasuries.
Multi-chain deployment
We are building first on Moonbeam to leverage its native cross-chain infrastructure. This will enable our platform, and therefore our users, to access the best yield sources and liquidity across all connected EVM chains. Subsequently, we will work towards a multi-chain deployment on other EVM / Layer 2 chains.
Team:
Our team has decades of experience in TradFi, DeFi and Technology sectors working in global investment banks, asset management, trading houses, technology ventures and Web3.0/Crypto companies. Our co-founders are Jason (CEO), former FX Structurer at Lehman Brothers; and Chris (CTO), former Technology Engineer at Goldman Sachs.
Motif and Mission:
The Ibex is our brand motif. We associate their sure-footedness with the ability to navigate tough market conditions and also make gradual and calculated ascent regardless of the landscape.
Our mission is to provide investors with the best risk-adjusted returns by offering them easy access to principal-protected structured options strategies that are built on our core principles of honesty, transparency and community education.
We will be prioritising those who support us from an early stage when it comes to our upcoming incentivised Testnet. To get involved, stay tuned and join the conversation across our socials - Twitter, Telegram and Discord.
Please reach out to us for collaborations. Thank you!
