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Partner Spotlight: Sentora
Recorded: May 22, 2025 Duration: 0:50:58Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, Centora's VP Lucas Otomuro highlighted the platform's $25 million Series A funding, its innovative risk management tools, and the growing trend of institutional adoption in DeFi. With a focus on partnerships and yield generation, Centora aims to bridge traditional finance and DeFi, paving the way for a more integrated financial ecosystem.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Hey all, we are setting up and we'll get started soon. All right, there we go.
I think we have Lucas with us already.
Hey guys, yeah, can you hear me?
Yep, that was perfect, loud and clear. Hey guys, can you hear me?
Yep, that was perfect, loud and clear.
Awesome, good to be here.
Yeah, thank you for joining us.
We'll get started really, really soon.
Well, actually, since we have done the mic test and everything. Let's just get started. So hi everyone and welcome to the
Thinker Partner Spotlight where we try to break down complex Web3 topics and make them
accessible to everyone. Today is a kind of a special episode not only because we are joined
by a fantastic guest from one of the most forward-thinking teams in DeFi, but also because it's Bitcoin
Pizza Day, which is the day we celebrate the first real-world Bitcoin transaction for two
pizzas back in 2010.
And, well, it was a moment that seemed kind of trivial by then, but now marks kind of
but now marks kind of a turning point in financial history, right?
a turning point in financial history, right?
Yeah, so we are extra excited to be bringing you this conversation
on such a symbolic day for crypto as it feels only right to be, you know,
talking about the evolution of this space and the future of institutional finance on chain.
We'll be learning a lot today, actually.
And we are thrilled to have with us a guest from Centora,
which is a newly formed platform born from the merger of IntoTheBlock
and another prominent team in the institutional DeFi space, which is Trident.
And, well, you might know IntoTheBlock for their brilliant blockchain analytics,
but Centora now represents a whole new level of ambition.
And, yeah, we'll be hearing from
Lucas Otomuro he's a VP of institutional DeFi at Centora so hello Lucas welcome to the show and
yeah to get us started could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your role at Centora. Hey guys. Yeah, so I'm Lukas, VP of Institutional DeFi at Centora, coming from the Into the Block
side.
So for us that don't know us, well, Centora is a brand new company.
We merged with Trident Digital and raised a 25 million Series A for the combined entity.
million series A for the combined entity. And basically how this came about is at IntoTheBlock,
we were very deep in the DeFi world. Our main product is what we call Smart Yields, which
allows institutions to get yields on DeFi through a suite of risk managed smart contracts. So you
can envision, you know, large crypto exchanges, lenders, funds that want
to get yield on their crypto, they would deploy into our smart contracts, and our smart contract
would rebalance if there's risk conditions like liquidations, potential bad debts, deep hacking
events, etc. We've grown that into the billions of assets deployed into our product into our project and as we grew that
we started working very closely with the Trident digital team who had been helping a lot of great
projects on their go-to-market strategy on DeFi you know stablecoins at once you can think of
very top projects and we were supplementing what their effort was by providing liquidity and helping
these projects grow early on so the synergies became very clear and basically we aligned on
our mission of growing DeFi and that's how Centaur came about. Nice, thank you Lucas and just one quick
question that's maybe a bit off script you you know, but today is a special day.
What do you think of the Bitcoin pizza? You know, would you have paid those pizzas with Bitcoin?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's impossible to know in advance, of course.
People back then weren't expecting Bitcoin to be so valuable.
I imagine most in the audience, including myself, weren't around in the Bitcoin space back then.
So, yeah, I mean, it's truly astonishing how much the industry has grown since then.
It wasn't even an industry back when Bitcoin Pizza Day happened.
So we've come a long way.
And I think now people know, you you know not to spend your Bitcoin or
really most cryptos other than stable coins yeah indeed it kind of feels like exchanging I don't
know let's say mini mini apps or mini games you know in-game points for real life stuff right
it's incredible like I often think of it was
especially a Bitcoin day and I'll be like I think personally I probably would
have spent it as well yeah well thanks Lucas and well to start things off could
you walk us through what Centauri set out to well in this case probably maybe
we should start from into the block right but yeah what Centauri set out to well in this case probably maybe we should start from into the block right
But yeah, what's Centora set out to achieve originally and the type of clients that you were serving?
Yeah
So initially at into the block we focused on
Institutional DeFi and I think for Centora we're very much aligned.
It's just the scope of those institutions has increased. So as you guys probably
know, DeFi has hundreds of billion in TVL and it's frankly mostly the
top institutions that make the majority of it. So we have a report coming up
where we state that 85% of the TV
Alonave, which is the most liquid protocol, is deployed by the top 100 wallets. We are within
our client base, many of those wallets. But the reality is in smaller protocols, the concentration
is even larger. So DeFi is very much institutional there is some retail activity
of course but the in terms of assets it's very concentrated and we realized that you know we
need to serve these institutions better because there's a lot of product friction points and
standards that weren't up to speed with what can be done with blockchain. So yeah, through smart
yields we can allow our clients to borrow stable coins against bitcoin for example, deploy those
stable coins in a higher yielding strategy and if the price of bitcoin falls it automatically
repays that. That can happen at any time of the week. So that saved our pines from liquidation multiple times and has
allowed us to grow this amount of you know TVL of sorts in our smart
contracts and so we started focusing with crypto native institutions that
would like yield on their assets and then we've expanded to protocols so you
can think of large L1s, L2s and stable coins that are looking to grow in DeFi
we can help them with their DeFi go to market strategy and advise them on on that liquidity
growth as well as you know other key metrics like volume addresses etc and I think down the line
we're already doing conversations with banks with tokenized platform issuers like Securitize and that sort of vertical
to bring the institutions from outside of crypto into crypto.
And that's the ultimate challenge, but that will unlock the next 100 billion into DeFi TVL.
Yeah, thanks for that clear overview.
It's great to hear how you guys are built on a foundation
of serving users who really need structure, clarity,
reliability, of course,
in an otherwise kind of chaotic market.
And yeah, that brings me to the next logical step right
which is understanding um what sparked the transformation into centaur because into the
blog is uh well known right brand and also it's been serving uh users for quite long i mean
especially having in mind you know how recent still you know how reason the
the whole crypto industry is so yeah i mean i've been you know talking about it since we started
you've recently undergone a major transformation right and um of course if we can get the insights
right of what happened there but what drove the decision to merge and launch centora and
what does the name represent in terms of vision yeah the the last part is a good one but i'll
start with the first of but basically uh we realized there were a lot of synergies you know
as cliche as a term that is these days uh but uh the advisory of helping grow these projects is very complementary to
the liquidity provision and risk management that we had. So we got along very well with the team.
A lot of the Trident team come from Coinbase and had actually been back in 2021 clients of
Into the Block. So we had a very strong relationship um yeah that grew over the years so
we were aligned in this broader vision uh and i think we were able to uh complement a lot of the
aspects that into the block was missing unlike the compliance and operation standpoint and trident was
missing perhaps more of a technical layer that we provided um and yeah we we basically got investors on board
um and then risked a series a uh with it with a combined entity so it's pretty exciting i think
uh it's probably the first merger of its kind you know we've seen a lot of acquisitions in crypto
recently but this one is you know a merger of two entities that expand the horizon of what we can do.
And with regards to the name, our VP of Marketing, who's joining probably under the Centaur brand,
I believe it's, you know, credit to him, is basically a metaphor with the Centaur,
where the Centaur is, you know, half man, half horse. And, horse, and it has sort of the speed of the horse,
but like the brain of the human.
So it's very akin to what we're trying to do
with between DeFi and TradFi, if you will,
where we want to bring in the security
that TradFi now offers into DeFi
and also attract the capital from TradFi into DeFi to the
point where this becomes just finance, you know, this combined version where we're pushing the
boundaries in a way that finance wasn't possible before. Wow. Oh, sorry. Sorry about that um yeah really interesting uh especially the intentionality
you know behind the brand and the platform and i think that's uh oh sorry ah just uh i was having
some coffee and i went to the wrong place um so it's refreshing nice yeah sorry about that
So it's refreshing.
Nice.
Sorry about that.
So I was saying it's really interesting,
the intentionality behind the brand
and, of course, the platform as well.
And props to the shout-out to the marketing VP
that you mentioned.
And, yeah, it's refreshing also to hear about a merger
that's more just, you know, than strategy.
And yeah, it's about identity as well, long-term alignment.
And I had no idea you guys had, well, such a, you know, story that comes from long ago.
And yeah, of course, thanks for breaking that down.
breaking that down and it definitely sounds you know like a cool story um now just you know zooming
And it definitely sounds, you know, like a cool story.
out a little bit uh to talk about maybe the broader defy landscape right we've seen a lot of changes
lately uh but yeah i would love to know how um all that looks from where you see it right and
um one thing i'm really curious about is because when you visit comment sections, you know, forums, Reddit, Telegram, Discord, calling, whatever, right?
We always hear the term whales, you know, institutions, big investors, blah, blah, blah, etc.
So how active are these big investors in DeFi today, right? And what does their activity look like? What kind of things do they require from DeFi that are different from, well, from us, right?
The retail users and part of the retail group.
Yeah, I mean, they're extremely active, really, perhaps less so as the institutions with their
own treasuries.
But individually, I think there's a group of people
within every crypto company, at least that we've spoken to, that are interacting with
DeFi, at least on a monthly basis.
And with their treasuries, it's probably something like 15 to 20%.
A Coinbase survey came out earlier this year.
I'm misquoting the numbers, but the big picture will be the same.
You know, something like 20% of crypto institutions are using DeFi now, but expect that number
to be to 75%, you know, roughly three quarters, remember, it was in two years.
So activity of institutions adopting DeFi is on the uptrend.
And I think, you know, liquidity right now is comparable with CeFi and even with TradFi.
I was looking that Aave would be a top 50 bank by deposits right now in the U.S.
So we're getting to the scale where it really matters.
And the crypto institutions already know it.
They already use DeFi.
We're trying to simplify that journey for them.
And in that process, the TradFi institutions are also learning about the upsides of it.
You know, we see the launch of World Liberty coming.
That's, you know, very linked to the Trump family. So it's not just
tradify institutions, but also governmental institutions that are beginning to use DeFi.
That might be maybe 5% of that scope of companies, but it will continue accelerating and we're here
for it.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess that institutional players also,
they clearly bring a different level of expectation, I assume,
and also caution.
It seems, well, sounds like, you know,
their needs are shaping the way of DeFi, right?
And how it's evolving
yeah thanks for laying that out and actually we have a question from Sheldon in the comment section
which is what are the plans for including retail in your products I think it's quite you know
interesting yeah I mean we've we've been very methodical, I guess, with our approach to go to market.
Frankly, a reason why we didn't touch retail initially was the regulatory uncertainty.
Now that there is more, you know, tailwinds for the industry opening up, we're increasingly working B2B2C.
So basically, with a lot of large exchange earned programs,
Centora is underneath powering that yield.
These exchanges already have millions of users.
So through that mechanism, we're already working with retail
and then increasing percentage of our portfolio.
And I would expect that to continue growing.
I'm not sure if we'll have a standalone app for retail, you know, that's still under
discussions.
But so far, our retail exposure has been through this vein of B2E2C and, you know, we announced
this Lombard Vault right after the Centora launch.
And now, you know, LBTC depositors from Lombard LBTC earn about 6% APY through Centora underneath.
All right. Thank you, Lucas, for the insights and for, you know, your reply.
And Shailen, I hope that well that answers your question.
And if you have any other follow upup questions, please just either request to speak
or send it to our comment section.
And if it's not covering my list of questions,
I would introduce it wherever makes sense.
So yeah, thank you for that, both Shailong and Lucas.
And yeah, now my next question will be,
oh, just let me go through the list once again.
Sorry, my man.
So Centora positions itself
at the forefront of institutional DeFi, right?
So how are you specifically redefining
how institutions interact with DeFi?
Of course, what you can share with us publicly.
what you can share with us publicly.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, of course.
So, you know, there's two or three types of institutions.
There's a lot of institutions that have enormous amounts of Bitcoin.
You know, with Bitcoin at all-time highs,
I think we are near 2 trillion market cap,
if I open my CoinGecko here.
And basically exchanges have a good
amount of that um yeah 2.2 trillion that's insane um anyways so basically we're we allow institutions
to borrow against their bitcoin and there's a lot of defa liquidity so they can do so at low borrow
costs and we mitigate the liquidation risk so that's one huge unlock for like the institutions that are more Bitcoin oriented.
And then there are other types of institutions that have more stable coins or ETH.
And those are more focused on, you know, higher yielding strategies, beating benchmark rates.
So that's, you know, the ETH staking rate and treasuries for stable coins.
We can do so through multiple
strategies so you know we do some leverage staking strategies that we've posted some articles on.
We do for stablecoins also like PT looping that is increasingly popular on Aave.
We also provide liquidity on DEXss even in derivatives we provide some strategies so
you can think of Centaur as that layer of intelligence that automates the complexity of
DeFi translates that into yield for our institutional clients or just a more cost-efficient
way of borrowing but more of the focus is on the yield generating aspect, as you know, there's a lot of opportunities in DeFi and we're sort of bridging the gap of knowledge and technical know-how.
that our Centora HQ handle has shared in the comment section.
So yeah, if you would like to give it a check,
you can find them pinned in this session.
And well, for those who might be listening to a replay
after we are finished, I think with the newest X app version,
it stays there in the replays as well.
But if not, you can stays there in the replays as well but if not
you can find it in the comment section yeah thank you again Lucas appreciate
the insights it sounds like you're not just giving them some tools right sounds
like you're giving them as well frameworks to operate within a new
ecosystem and yeah I think that's great, you know, like, honestly. Now, speaking of
structure, right, we'd love to talk a bit about how Centora handles capital allocation,
strategy designs, etc. And it might come in as a bit of a basic question. And, you know,
I'm sorry if it's overly basic um it's something that
i've been wondering as well which is how are centauras votes and strategies different from
you know just let's say depositing into a d5 protocol directly yeah no we gotta ask this
question quite a bit um and the reality is our uh strategies are a segue into a protocol that counts with a layer of automation
and risk management on top. So for example, you can think of a strategy as providing liquidity
into a DEX pool and curve as something pretty straightforward, you know, USDC, RLUSD or whichever stablecoin pair.
The reality is on paper that should be relatively low risk.
But we've seen historically many stablecoins, DPEG, which of course, Terra being one of the best examples.
And so we provide that automation that, you know, if clients want to exit these pools, say, 98 cents, they can do so automatically.
And, you know, that's the beauty of smart contracts.
You can program values and have the money, you know, execute based on those commitments that are previously defined.
So it's that layer of intelligence.
That's one example.
But, you know, I also gave the other example of how we prevent liquidation risk. defined. So it's that layer of intelligence that's one example but you
know I also gave the other example of how we prevent liquidation risk. We can
also do it in like a multi-strategy way where we can rebalance from one side to
another based on certain parameters. So that's the level of robustness that we
bring to the table and you know that's why institutions feel more comfortable
deploying through Centora than into DeFi directly.
Frankly, there will be some cases where, you know, if the risk is so low, like, you know, just applying USDC into Aave, we won't do that for our clients.
Like if they offered, I guess we could.
It's very easy for us to do so.
But they don't typically offer because we charge a fee, of course. And, you know, for just applying USCC and Toave, it's probably not worth the effort.
So, yeah, we basically are best suited for slightly riskier strategies while mitigating those risks.
Yeah, interesting. And thanks for the breakdown, Lucasas and you know you um you came up with a
with an example right which is depositing usdc into ave um and i think you know that also has
some added value although um you know probably those who are listening or those who have been a few years in in crypto right that
seems basic and um also maybe even a bit given for granted right at some point for for these og
crypto people quote unquote um but still i think you know at some point uh we will have people who
who want to mitigate that risk as well and yeah definitely
you know you are removing that friction and all kinds of friction and well just wanted to say
in my opinion that also definitely brings value and you guys you know are the ones who have this
amazing brand and who can you know help blockchain and crypto you know as a whole to gain trust from
from institutions and from new players and yeah I just think that's that's great appreciate it
and yeah it definitely is a big step forward you know if when platforms offer curated strategy-based products, and of course, don't expect users to DIY everything.
There's a huge leap forward, in my honest opinion.
And yeah, now a topic that excites me, which is, well, let's get into one of the standout innovations, right, that you've launched.
Something I think everyone in d5 should be
watching which is um the risk polls so for those that are unfamiliar uh what is it why is it such
a game changer for risk management in d5 um yeah i mean basically, it's that layer of automation, again, that previously didn't exist.
We saw that as an opportunity early on, and we're expanding the functionality of it further and further.
All right. Yeah, I mean, sounds powerful, you know, especially in our environment, right, where risk isn't just about volatility.
We have another follow-up question from Sheldon, which is there are rumors around an AI agent that might be linked to Centora.
Well, I think there's an obvious typo in here.
But yeah, I assume they're referring to Centora.
Are these just rumors or is it something you're currently working on?
No, I mean, we use AI on some of our models and we've played individually with some AI
agents.
But as a company, we don't have any agentic frameworks that we're building just yet. Of course you know we're in the space and we see
the value on the growth of this but DeFi is a complex world and agents right now I think
are a solution finding a problem in many ways. Like we've seen some agents that claim that they
can rebalance and ignore permanent loss or trade
for you and i think for me those are just glorified creating bots and are not really agents so i think
there's still a bit of work for the industry to mature before we can really explore agents on the
company level and the individual level you know we were having some fun here and there a few
of us all right yeah um thanks lucas for the you know amazing uh breakdown and well um shillang i
hope that answers your question and if not just feel free to you know, send the, sending a comment again. We had a request to speak, but I see them,
I think they're in the listeners, you know, right now. I think it was, sorry, I don't remember
exactly the username. But yeah, we are leaving these, you know, voice questions to, yeah, once
we are done with the list of questions that I have,
since I don't know what you're going to ask, and maybe it's a question that, you know, we are going
to, or a topic that we are going to cover in the upcoming ones. There are a few left, so yeah,
please bear with us, you know, and well, if you find it's already being answered by Lucas,
feel free to, you know, sending a follow-up question, whatever.
Yeah, we are here for you.
And yeah, thanks again, Lucas.
So let's take a step further
and look at risk polls in action.
So could you maybe share an example
of how a team or institution,
and you don't have to, you know, say the name, but how they are using risk polls today to stay ahead of potential threats or, you know, OK, maybe no threats, but how they make informed decisions with that tool?
The RiskPulse is a very exciting product because it's that extension of our capability of managing risk in our strategies, but open sourced for anyone to access.
So basically we partner with many of the large protocols like Aave, Curve, Athena, Etherfy and more for them to be able, for their users to be able to look at risks transparently of these protocols.
And we're actually starting to integrate those within their websites themselves as well.
So a user of say Athena, for example, which is one of our most viewed dashboards can keep track
and have notifications based on the Athena tag. They can track the reserve fund which is used in case funding rates go negative for a prolonged time and have
notifications based on that slippage for example if they want to swap out of
Athena you know it's a risk that large sizes won't be able to handle so they
can monitor that and also again automate with our API.
So this is very useful for sophisticated retail, I would say, not your meme coin trader, but for the retail that wants yield on their assets and wants some layer of
automation that they can build themselves.
We have this API for the risk radar and that will help you do a lot of the functionality
that we do for our institutional clients. So in a way, we're sort of cannibalizing ourselves here,
but we think it expands the market and makes our product more accessible. So this is free to use,
so if you guys can share the link, it'll be useful. You'll get an idea of the level of depth that we go through in our dashboards.
And then you can ask for the API if you're interested.
All right, yeah.
Thank you, Lucas.
It's been shared.
And thanks to the social media manager or whoever is today behind the Centora main handle.
You can try out the Risk Bulls product here.
As Lucas mentioned, it's free to use.
DeFiRisk.IntoTheBlock.com.
Just feel free to check it out.
out and yeah thanks Lucas for the great case studies you know seeing tangible
Thanks to Lucas for the great case studies.
outcomes I think makes it click you know for for some people as well and yeah
definitely agree that the speed at which some risk unfold you know really shows
how necessary these kind of tools are and again appreciate the example
appreciate you know your answer the details the details that you shared with us.
Yeah, now just moving to the retailer POV a little bit,
because I believe not all of our listeners are institutions.
I would say probably a big part of our listeners
are actually retail, me included.
And what are some of the maybe best practices,
tools they can use to stay ahead of risk and DeFi?
Of course, risk pose being number one.
Yeah, I mean, of course, to your diligence
before deploying into a protocol.
We, you know, before deploying into any protocol,
we do thorough analysis of how battle-tested these protocols are.
So usually we would advise not being, you know, one of the first depositors into a new protocol,
especially if it's like brand new code, looking at if it's being audited at least twice, would say so it's a standard now um and then evaluate what risks you're um
basically underwriting so if you're supplying liquidity into the protocol uh you can look on
chain you know when you're going to deposit into a contract you can check that contract, what activity it has. Usually you can even see how concentrated the liquidity is.
So if it's like one address supplying 99% of the liquidity, well, that's clearly a red flag.
We offer that type of things for like VEX pools.
So that's available in the risk radar very easily.
But even if it's not supported in
the risk radar you can do that yourself and then yeah the risks of course vary depending on the
type of protocol so if it's a dex protocol you're more worried about impermanent loss risk and
potential de-pegging events if it's lending you're more cautious about uh about that if
you're lending you're cautious about liquidation if you're borrowing so keep track keeping track
of you know the volatility of the assets that you're providing uh making sure that the assets
that you're lending against are relatively liquid so that there's no manipulations um i mean there's a lot of variables um i think
crypto retail is increasingly sophisticated so we're in a in the right track um you know
it's still complicated so it's not one size fit all solution but we're trying to help provide
more of this transparency throughout the DeFi risk radar.
And, you know, if you guys have any requests on how we can add more features
and make it easier for retail, we're happy to evaluate.
Thanks, Lucas.
And, you know, some solid advice, simple, practical.
Now, most importantly, I think it's within the reach for anyone trying to navigate this space.
And we have so many new tools nowadays.
It's a lot more friendly, in my honest opinion.
Thank you for including the wider community in all these.
And yeah, so many that that you mentioned um it's refreshing i mean
back in the day in in 2021 uh really early 2022 maybe i was uh you know also working in some some
defy kind of protocol and uh had to translate some some some documents, you know, had to learn at the time,
all of them concepts, really refreshing to hear them again.
And, yeah, we also, and this is a question that focuses a bit
on how we are working together,
because we often get questions from the community asking like,
okay, so we see or
we hear we read that you're partnered or collaborating with XYZ you know but how
exactly is anchor supporting them right and typically maybe it's a bit more
straightforward or repetitive because well we often, you know, announce these partnerships, collaborations with blockchains.
And many times it's the endpoints, you know, the advanced API or the validator kind of different validator programs, etc.
But how is Anchor supporting Centora's work under the hood and can you explain how or talk a bit you know
about how Anchor contributes to Centora be data infrastructure be analytic
capabilities yeah it's a bit of the data side and a bit on the validator side as
well so I think we have great API usage from you guys on the more raw data than we used
to construct more advanced indicators.
And then on the validator side,
we have some strategies with like Anchor ETH
and some other of your products
that we've offered to clients.
So that's the extent.
And so far I've heard good reviews
from our engineering team and clients.
Oh, good to know. Always good to hear the specifics, you know, how both companies collaborate under the surface.
And yeah, I guess it's easy to take infrastructure for granted.
to take infrastructure for granted.
But yeah, we really try and, you know,
try to do our best to, yeah,
to be the backbone of these innovations.
So thanks for giving us a peek, you know,
of what's behind the scenes.
And yeah, quick question on the future
since we're, you know, also hitting these one hour mark.
Looking ahead, what can we expect from Centora in the future since we're you know also hitting these um one hour mark um looking ahead what can we
expect from centora in the future maybe in the coming months yeah so you can expect a lot more
products coming and a lot more distribution so we're going to be launching with more
d5 protocols basically allowing their users to get easier yield and more risk managed yield.
Then we're also looking to partner with some very large chains.
You know, we can't announce it yet.
Of course.
To get yield on like some of the largest assets that don't earn yield natively.
So keep an eye out for that.
We have some exciting news coming. And other
than that, I think we're, you know, just focused on growing DeFi. So we'll continue attracting
institutions into the space. We're already working with an increasing amount of, you
know, traditional tech investors and traditional funds accessing DeFi
so we're helping grow the space and then ideally also we'll be looking at growing the retail
security into the space even further all right thanks Lucas One thing that I'm particularly interested in is when you mentioned providing yield for protocols or sorry, I don't remember exactly if you said protocols or tokens that don't natively provide that. Could you tell us a bit more about how that works?
provide that could you tell us a bit more about how that works so basically there's many approaches
to it um one is you know you can borrow against an asset you can use that asset as security for
another network which is you know how restaking has come about or you can like provide liquidity
on that asset those are like the main ways to get
yield on an asset that doesn't naturally earn yield and we're exploring basically all three
and making uh i would say large improvements versus what's already currently available
oh wow okay sounds um amazing and sounds like you've got a lot on the horizon.
And well, it's exciting to hear, you know, and we'll see as well that Centauri is playing a long game in a space that's often and unfortunately, right, too short-term focus.
So yeah, thanks for sharing what's next, you know.
So yeah, thanks for sharing what's next, you know.
And yeah, I have one last question finally,
which is what advice would you give to institutions, teams,
you know, navigating the increasingly complex DeFi landscape?
Yeah, and it ties back to your previous comment.
I think it's, you know, take the long-term picture.
The space is growing quite a bit and will continue to do so
over the next foreseeable future.
So it's never worth risking too much.
You know, use battle tests and protocols,
make sure that while you're depositing into protocols,
you're willing to lose in worst case.
And that ultimately you're, you you know not just getting yield but optimizing
your operations through DeFi. I think right now the focus of course is on DeFi, it's on the yield
side of DeFi but it'll increasingly be also like getting more utility you know automating your
investments and like even payments for like salaries. So it's a very robust architecture.
So any institution should start looking at using DeFi more and more
while, you know, not taking any wild risks.
And yeah, we're happy to be in this journey to grow DeFi together with you guys and hopefully
get to trillions in TVL before the end of that decade.
I think it's more than feasible.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, I'm hyped.
You know, it sounds, it definitely sounds feasible.
So yeah, as a conclusion, no YOLO, no FOMO, right?
Good summary, yeah. Yeah, so a conclusion, no YOLO, no FOMO, right? Good summary, yeah.
Yeah, so okay, okay.
I'll try to do that.
But nah, just jokes aside, it's definitely wise words.
Back in the day, I think I have, well, I wish I had somebody like Lucas
who would tell me not to do these things, not to invest where I shouldn't,
not to put money too early
in things that haven't even been built.
So just for context, Lucas,
I joined crypto, the space,
during the ICO craze.
So at the time, it was just a white paper
and then you threw your money in there
and hoped for a nice outcome didn't work too
well for me i knew i know it worked well for for some people but yeah i wasn't among the lucky ones
and yeah thanks again lucas for the wise words and yeah defy can feel overwhelming but hey i think
your advice helps you know frame as a journey of education, preparation.
And of course, now with all the tools and resources
that are available online, you know,
it's definitely different.
And well, also now not just speculation, of course.
And yeah, thanks for wrapping it up
and on a such thoughtful note.
And just one last thing before
we hop
off, at Anchor
at the Partner Spotlight, we like to
give our
partners or guests the final word
before we wrap up
and whether it's a quote
a piece of advice, well you have already
given us a lot of advice today
right? Or just a simple advice message message oh yeah of course not financial advice yeah
whether it's a it's a you know quote or just a goodbye message yeah yeah it's
all yours thanks for having us this has been great yeah make sure to follow us
at centora you know we're here to help grow the DeFi space.
It has a lot of potential.
Thankfully, you know, we're getting more regulatory certainty and we're getting UX to get a lot better.
So we're here in this journey to help grow DeFi with you guys.
And, you know, we're excited.
So I think we have a lot of news that we'll be sharing in the next few months that will help us continue growing the space.
So, yeah, I think we can wrap it up at that.
And thanks, Sergio, for having us and to the Anchor team.
Yeah, thanks, Luca, again.
That brings us to the end of this episode of the Partner Spotlight.
Big thank you again, Lucas and the centora team as well for joining us today
especially on bitcoin pizza day uh so yeah which reminds us how far crypto has come and how far we
still have to go and um yeah if you found this conversation insightful please share it with a
friend and give us both a follow um until next time everyone, thank you.
