Continuing our growth trajectory over the Thanksgiving and Holiday Period

Liquidity Update

• As of December 9th, gross funds deposited have exceeded $51m. Alkemi Earn has ~$31.4m in deposits across the ‘Verified’ and ‘Open’ pools
• 115 liquidity providers have been onboarded to the ‘Verified’ pool, a 15% increase since October
• Combined market utilization in the ‘Verified’ pool is ~55%, with ~$14.8m in current outstanding borrows

Partnerships & Integrations

South East Asia’s favorite crypto app/exchange Zipmex has included ALK token in their ZLaunch program, where holders of ZMT, Zipmex’s pool token, use their tokens to earn ALK rewards. Within 8 minutes, $2.6m worth of ZMT have been locked — probably nothing.

We have partnered with BNPL Pay, who is on a mission to disrupt the global credit markets by creating a unique uncollateralized lending protocol. Combining our ‘Verified’ DeFi liquidity pools with BNPL’s Banking Nodes, we are solidifying the potential for uncollateralized lending.

Earn ‘Open’ Pool now offers the WBTC market to all protocol lenders & borrowers. WBTC standardizes Bitcoin to the ERC20 format, creating smart contracts for Bitcoin. This makes it easier to write smart contracts that integrate Bitcoin transfers.

Leading DeFi portfolio aggregators Zapper and DeBank have added Alkemi Earn to their tracked protocols, enabling users to view their lend/borrow positions as well as earned ALK rewards directly from their apps.

Community & Press

• Tokenist → Institutional DeFi: Why Trusted Counterparty Liquidity is the Key to Adoption

The key is to fuel adoption without constraining innovation. The inherent composability of DeFi will lead to a wealth of financial utility although that will inevitably bring more complexity, further raising the barrier to entry for newcomers. To lower the barrier, we need more bridges connecting the old school to the new, that can deliver the traditional finance platforms into the decentralized financial ecosystem.

• TabbFORUM → CSO Brian Mahoney continues the Institutional DeFi conversation with Tabb Forum’s Bruce Morris

• DACOM Summit 2021 → Head of Ecosystem Engin Erdogan was a panelist at the NFTs and The Future of Defi Panel

• #CryptoGivingTuesday → Participated in the donating with crypto event

Alkemi Network on Twitter: "#CryptoGivingTuesday is here! 🎁We wanted to share a little love with our friends over @TheGivingBlock - today is the day to hop on over to their site and choose your fund. Such a great way to donate to multiple charities and support the ecosystem.🌎 https://t.co/6zXUVQLy9F / Twitter"

CryptoGivingTuesday is here! 🎁We wanted to share a little love with our friends over @TheGivingBlock - today is the day to hop on over to their site and choose your fund. Such a great way to donate to multiple charities and support the ecosystem.🌎 https://t.co/6zXUVQLy9F

• ‘DeFi Insights’ newsletter → 16 editions and counting. For an opinionated pulse of DeFi, subscribe here

Team Update

We have held our team offsite in Las Vegas, where the majority of the core team members got together. It was amazing to meet and work *in person*, plan the road ahead, and have some fun along the way.

What’s next

As a result of our team offsite, we have made further progress on defining our roadmap for 2022. Below is a quick list of priorities discussed — we will be sharing more detail on each of these in the upcoming weeks.

• Composability and interoperability in institutional DeFi through proactive, standardized compliance processes across partners and stakeholders
• Increasing capital efficiency through protocol refactoring, improved token utility, and dynamic collateralization
• Addressing the needs of large borrowers with features that provide flexibility for on-chain credit terms
• Activating community governance through facilitating proposals and incentivizing voter participation on key protocol decisions

Ways to Participate

ℹ️ Have a question? We are here to help. Book a time

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

🖖🏾 Share our one-pager and promo video

Join the Alkemi community

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Ecosystem Update — November 2021 was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

ALK token is live! And Happy Halloween! 🎃 👻 🍬

TLDR

• ALK token → The Alkemi Network governance token ALK was generated on the Ethereum blockchain September 9th 2021
• Liquidity → Gross funds deposited on Alkemi Earn have reached $47m; 100+ institution-grade liquidity providers have participated to date.
• Team → Peter Gray joined Alkemi Network as Integrations & Partnerships Manager
• What’s Next → Planning v2 release roadmap targeting Q1 2022
• Ways to Participate → Interested in lending/borrowing assets? Email us

ALK Token Generation Event Done!

200 million Alkemi Network DAO Tokens (‘ALK’) were minted on 9th September 2021. Read details of this event in our Progressive Decentralization Update post.

See ALK token activity by following links below:

• Scanners: Etherscan, Ethplorer
• Trackers: DEXTools, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, Defi Llama
• Markets: Uniswap, SushiSwap, 1inch

Liquidity Update

• As of October 29th, gross funds deposited have reached $47m. Alkemi Earn has ~$37.4m in deposits across the ‘Verified’ and ‘Open’ pools
• 100+ liquidity providers have been onboarded to the ‘Verified’ pool, a 43% increase since July
• Combined market utilization is ~42%, with ~$15.7m in current outstanding borrows

Community Updates

Alkemi Network held the first quarterly network update, discussing the new roadmap.

Ben, Brian and Engin participated in various AMA sessions with local and international communities facilitated by Gem Hunters, AltcoinBuzz, Global Coin Research, and Decentralized Club.

Competitions & Airdrops

• As part of the Alkemi Network Airdrop Competition, $100k USD equivalent of ALK tokens were distributed to participants (distribution details).
• Audience members of the first quarterly network update participated in a quiz competition, where 1500 ALK tokens were also distributed.

Events

Max joined the CryptoAM event in London as a panelist to discuss how institutions are set to fuel the next phase of DeFi adoption.

Engin and Brian ran a marathon of work sessions and meetings at the Messari Mainnet Event in New York.

We presented at the Minneapolis Blockchain Meetup and Congressman Tom Emmer made an appearance.

Alkemi Network on Twitter: "150+ person turnout, presentation by #AlkemiNetwork, and lots of excitement!! 🤩It was an honor to host Congressman @TomEmmer at the @MNblockchain meetup in Minneapolis last night.Although in the midst of the regulatory debate, the U.S. #Crypto scene is stronger than ever 💪 pic.twitter.com/jkz77MI5J9 / Twitter"

150+ person turnout, presentation by #AlkemiNetwork, and lots of excitement!! 🤩It was an honor to host Congressman @TomEmmer at the @MNblockchain meetup in Minneapolis last night.Although in the midst of the regulatory debate, the U.S. #Crypto scene is stronger than ever 💪 pic.twitter.com/jkz77MI5J9

Press

• Blockdata → How Institutional DeFi is evolving - what & who you need to know

• City A.M. → Crypto Summit LIVE: Updates from the heart of the City
• Jared Diamond → My DeFi Strategy (Part 10) — Putting It All Together
• DataDash → Has The Bitcoin Sell-Off Just Begun? | SEC Coinbase Crackdown
• Our chief solidity wizard Raghu Thiyagharajan was named as one of the 50 Most Influential Canadians in the crypto and blockchain space — congrats Raghu!
• 10 editions and counting — make sure to subscribe to the DeFi Insights weekly newsletter!

Jamie Burke ⛺️⛰💯🦧🐇 on Twitter: "Congrats @AlkemiNetwork!!Crazy to think you were our our first #defi investment all those years ago! But rolling out a network that can effectively bridge CeFi & DeFi isn't easy.. But the 🐢 beats the 🐇 $ALK https://t.co/HreglZWM46 / Twitter"

Congrats @AlkemiNetwork!!Crazy to think you were our our first #defi investment all those years ago! But rolling out a network that can effectively bridge CeFi & DeFi isn't easy.. But the 🐢 beats the 🐇 $ALK https://t.co/HreglZWM46

Team Updates

Peter Gray joined the team as Integrations and Partnerships Manager. Peter previously worked in cybersecurity with top companies such as VMware and Palo Alto Networks. Fun fact: Peter has been cast as an extra in several TV shows and movies, including NCIS: New Orleans and 22 Jump Street. Welcome Peter!

What’s Next?

We are working on finalizing our 2022 roadmap, targeting a v2 release Q1 2022. In addition to platform wide optimization and enhancements, prospective features include:

• Dynamic collateralization for markets and users
• Enhancing native utility of ALK token
• Improved transaction efficiency
• Decentralized identity pilots

As part of our v2 planning, we are looking to collaborate with teams specialized in token economics modeling and simulation. If interested, please get in touch.

Ways to Participate

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

🖖🏾 Share our one-pager and promo video

Join the Alkemi community

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Ecosystem Update — September / October 2021 was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are pleased to announce the completion of the Alkemi Network smart contract audit performed by Quantstamp. Alkemi Earn’s Assets Under Protocol have grown 16.6% MoM, now at $35m. Up next: Alkemi Network’s Decentralization Event.

TLDR

• Audit → The smart contract audit is complete. More details to come
• Liquidity → Alkemi Earn holds $35m in total deposits (+16.6% MoM), with 70+ liquidity providers and a 51.75% utilization rate; CrossTower and Coral DeFi have joined the protocol as LPs
• Team → We welcome Nuno to the team as a new software developer
• What’s Next → Alkemi Network’s Token Generation and Decentralization Event
• Ways to Participate → To join us as a liquidity provider, email us

Smart Contract Audit Completed

We are excited to announce that the Alkemi Network smart contract audit has been successfully completed by Quantstamp. As part of the audit, Quantstamp performed an extensive, thorough review of the network. Recommendations were given, adjustments were made and the network is secure. We will have more details to share in the following weeks.

This marks the last major milestone prior to Alkemi Network’s decentralization and token generation event.

Liquidity Update

• As of August 31st, Alkemi Earn total deposits have reached ~$35m, a 16.6% increase over July’s $30m.
• 70+ institution-grade liquidity providers have been onboarded to date, a 15% growth since July
• Combined market utilization is 51.75%, with about $18m in current outstanding borrows

Bridges & Onramps

We were pleased to formally announce our integration with Nexus Markets early August. Nexus Markets is the first cryptocurrency exchange and lending vault platform to natively integrate access to Alkemi Earn’s DeFi yields. The partnership provides Nexus users with DeFi-sourced vaults wrapped in a familiar exchange interface; CeFi front-end, DeFi under-the-hood.

Alkemi Network also partnered with KeyFi, an intelligent tool provider for managing DeFi portfolios. KeyFi users benefit from features including custom strategy builders and yield projection. This first phase of the partnership introduces Alkemi Earn pools into the KeyFi app. Subsequent phases will involve direct borrow/lend functionality through the KeyFi app.

Alkemi Network has been added to Dune Analytics — an exciting development. We look forward to adding more analytics to our dashboard!

In other news CrossTower Capital and Coral DeFi joined the Alkemi Earn protocol as liquidity providers; it is a pleasure to welcome them to the platform as part of our genesis cohort of 70+ institutional LPs.

Alkemi in the Press

Alkemi Network was featured in some of the leading digital asset and finance media last month. Here is a selection of articles we particularly enjoyed:

• CoinQuora → Alkemi Network Integrates With Nexus Markets, Offers DeFi Yields
• Blockworks → Bitcoin and Ether Maintain Upward Trend: Markets Wrap
• NewsBTC → Shuffling The DEX
• Coinpedia → Crypto Regulations Could Bring Institutions to DeFi

Community

We released the flagship edition of our brand new weekly newsletter, DeFi Insights by Alkemi Network. In case our readers missed it, the first edition is available here and there is a free subscription sign up here!

Team Updates

Nuno Cervaens has joined the team as a software developer. Nuno previously worked at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research where the Large Hadron Collider is recreating conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang. We are delighted to welcome Nuno to Alkemi Network!

What’s Next?

• The ALK TGE is the next major milestone on the roadmap, slated for September.
• Follow our community channels for more detail on how to participate in the milestone event.

Ways to Participate

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

🖖🏾 Share our one-pager and promo video

Join the Alkemi community

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Ecosystem Update — August 2021 was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alkemi Network community members have increased 1600% across social platforms over the past two months; liquidity deposits to Alkemi Earn have continued to build steadily.

TLDR

• Liquidity → $30m in total deposits, 60+ liquidity providers, 50% utilization
• Community → 25k new Twitter followers, 10k new Telegram & Discord members
• Press → Major coverage in leading crypto & finance media
• Team → Welcoming Preethi, the new member of our development team
• What’s Next → Smart contract audit to be concluded, token issuance next
• Ways to Participate → To join us as a liquidity provider, email us

Liquidity Update

• As of August 1, total deposits have surpassed $30m
• The AUP growth was ~11% in July, and ~400% over May-August period
• 60+ institution-grade liquidity providers have been onboarded to date with ongoing interest from new prospective LPs
• With about $15m in borrows, Earn continues to sail smoothly at 50% utilization

Community Update

Community Growth

The Alkemi Network community has grown tremendously since the last ecosystem update. It was humbling to witness such a large influx of new community members!

Recent competitions and events helped us welcome over 25,000 new Twitter followers and 10,000+ new Telegram & Discord members to the Alkemi Network community.

The team are in the midst of planning upcoming events and look forward to building the network with everyone’s help.

Engagement & Outreach

Recent interest in Alkemi Network has flourished since our launch out of stealth — the team’s recent participation in panels and AMAs has had a significantly positive impact on inbound inquiries.

We observed a particular increase in interest following outreach activities including:

• Meme Competition (results)
• Sticker Competition (results)
• Video Competition (results)
• Airdrop Raffle — #ALKDrop (Twitter post, recent update)

A whopping combined total of ~500k entries were submitted by the community for the competitions and airdrop.

A total of ~24.1k users from all around the world participated in Alkemi Network’s competitions.

AMAs and Interviews

It was a pleasure to connect directly with both global and local communities and have the opportunity to answer questions about Alkemi Network during our recent AMA (Ask me Anything) sessions with:

• The AMA Room (global audience)
• CryptoFamily (Vietnamese audience)
• Gains Associates (global audience)
• The Gem Hunters (global audience)
• DeFi Raccoons (global audience)
• CryptoJ (Chinese audience)
• Crypto with Friends stream (global audience)
• Bulk Network (mainly Russian audience)

We are very pleased to see the interest and excitement from countries all over the world including China, Vietnam, India, Russia, France, and Thailand.

Meetups and Conferences

• Webinar w/ Nexus Markets, Shift Markets, Ledger Prime, & Fireblocks
• The Bangkok Blockchain Meetup: CEFI & DEFI with Alkemi
• Presence at Bitcoin Miami
• Presence at EthCC
• Presence at DACOM DeFi 2021

Alkemi in Press

Alkemi Network was featured in some of the leading digital asset and finance media last month. Here is a selection of articles we particularly enjoyed:

• Bitcoinist → Meet the Company That Wants to Bring CeFi to DeFi
• Entrepreneur → Top Upcoming Token Releases To Put On Your Radar
• Finance Magnates → Amid Ongoing Uncertainty, Is the Crypto Industry Stepping Up?
• Blockonomi → Alkemi Network: Bridging CeFi to DeFi
• Yahoo Finance → Top Upcoming Token Releases To Put On Your Radar

Team Updates

Preethi Senthil joined Alkemi team as a Software Developer. Preethi is specialized in Blockchain / Solidity Development. Welcome Preethi!

What’s Next?

• The initial phase of Earn’s smart contract audit with Quantstamp is complete.
• The second and final phase of the audit is currently in progress, targeted for completion by end of August.
• Following the smart contract audit report, current investors will be notified about the token issuance date.
• A number of exciting partnership prospects are in progress — stay tuned!
• Check out our roadmap on the Alkemi Network website: https://alkemi.network/roadmap

Ways to Participate

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

🖖🏾 Share our one-pager and promo video

Join the Alkemi community

Twitter⠀Telegram⠀Discord⠀LinkedIn

Ecosystem Update — July 2021 was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

ALK is Alkemi Network’s native utility token. Based on the ERC-20 standard, ALK token’s primary utilities are network governance and incentive for network participation.

Revision Note (Sep 7, 2021): We have amended this article with an updated diagram to reflect the revised ALK reward/block calculation from 8.323820396 to 7.380453520. This revision will be in effect for TGE and is a result of an adjustment to the underlying Ethereum block speed assumption, from 15 secs/block to 13.3 secs/block per our smart contract auditor Quantstamp’s recommendation. The audit report delivery date is also updated from end of July to September 2021.

What makes ALK Token different

Alkemi is the first decentralized liquidity network to facilitate both permissioned (Verified) and permissionless (Open) liquidity pools governed by one utility token.

The dual-governance mechanism signifies our belief that we are rapidly moving toward an inclusive future where individual and institutional participants co-exist within the same network, with a shared DeFi ethos.

In other words: There is no retail DeFi or institutional DeFi. There are simply different users with different needs. And with Alkemi Network, those needs are addressed with two different pools, on one platform.

“Alkemi Network represents an ongoing transition between open-finance and DeFi today. The nature of money in the future will simultaneously be institutionalized and decentralized. Our investment in Alkemi Network is a bet on this future. ”

— Shiliang Tang, CIO of LedgerPrime

Governing two pools with one token

Earn Verified is a permissioned pool that is designed to fulfill the professional needs of institutional users. This pool meets the trusted counterparty requirements of institutions through a bank-grade on-boarding and allowlisting process.

Earn Open will be a permissionless pool with exactly the same asset markets as Earn Verified, but without the allowlisting process. It is open in the sense that anyone can participate with their wallets without any prerequisites.

Unified Governance

Verified and Earn pools co-exist in the Alkemi Network and will be governed by the community as a whole. ALK holders will be able to propose and vote on decisions concerning protocol parameters on both pools, including:

• Setting interest rate models and base fee structures (e.g. origination fees)
• Administering asset markets (e.g. add, remove, lock, unlock)
• Updating protocol contracts and risk parameters (e.g. utilization limits, collateral ratios)
• Amending admin roles (e.g. Liquidators, KYC admin)

A shared incentive: ALK rewards for liquidity

Alkemi Earn Verified and Open pools share the same incentive mechanism: Alkemi Network’s Liquidity Mining Program that distributes ALK rewards to all lenders and borrowers. The underlying mechanics of the program have been adapted from Compound’s successful liquidity incentive program, who we regard as a DeFi pioneer.

With the Liquidity Mining Program, 35% of total ALK supply (70 million tokens) will be distributed to users on both pools over 4 years, commensurate with their lending and borrowing activity, accounted for per Ethereum block.

35% is a big commitment. It is a vehicle for distributing ALK to all participants, individuals and institutions alike. The more you lend and borrow on Earn pools, the more you get rewarded with ALK. With more ALK, network participants have more voting power and therefore more say in protocol decisions.

ALK Distribution

What’s next: The summer of Alkemi

Alkemi Earn smart contracts are currently being audited by the leading blockchain security firm Quantstamp. The target delivery date for the audit report is September 2021. Upon successful completion of the audit, here is what’s next through the remainder of Summer 2021:

• Earn Open Permissionless Pool Launch
• DAO establishment and governance kick-off
• ALK token issuance and initial distribution
• Initiation of the Liquidity Mining Program rewards

It will certainly be an exciting summer for Alkemists!

Ways to participate

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

Join the Alkemi community

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Disclaimer:

This post is for information and discussion purposes only and remains subject to change. Alkemi AI Inc., Alkemi Foundation and their respective affiliates (collectively, “Alkemi”) shall have no liability, and disclaim all liability, for losses or damages (whether direct, indirect, consequential or any other kind of loss or damage) arising out of the use, reference to, or reliance on the contents of this presentation, even if Alkemi has been advised of the possibility or likelihood of the relevant use, reference, or reliance or of damages arising therefrom. Without limiting the foregoing, neither this post nor the information contained in it shall constitute or form part of, and should not be construed as, an offer for sale or subscription for, or solicitation of any offer to buy or subscribe for, tokens issued by any Alkemi entity or any products or services offered by any Alkemi entity.

This post contains certain forward-looking statements or information (collectively “forward-looking statements”) that relate to Alkemi’s current expectations of future events. In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as “may”, “will”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “aim”, “estimate”, “intend”, “plan”, “seek”, “believe”, “potential”, “continue”, “is/are likely to” or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Alkemi has based these forward-looking statements on current projections about future events and trends that Alkemi believes are relevant to the matters described in this post. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by Alkemi and its personnel in light of experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that Alkemi believes are appropriate, and all such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this post are based upon what Alkemi believes are reasonable assumptions, there are risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors which could cause actual results, performances, achievements and/or experiences to differ materially from the expectations expressed, implied, or perceived in forward-looking statements. Given such risks, readers of this post are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

ALK Token Economics was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcoming growth beyond projections, borrowing now active, new partners and team members

Liquidity / AUP Updates

Lending Exceeds Estimates

As of May 26, 2021, over $16m USD worth of institution-grade liquidity has been supplied to Earn, exceeding the May growth target by over 60%.

Notes on lending:

• The minimum deposit amount has been reduced from $200k to $50k enabling broader participation of KYC verified users.
• The maximum deposit limit has been raised to $1m, promptly resulting in additional supply from existing Liquidity Providers.

Borrowing is Live

Borrowing has been activated on all four markets on May 17, 2021. Within nine days, total borrows amount to ~$7.5m USD worth of assets.

Notes on borrowing:

• 2 out of every 3 assets borrowed are stablecoins (DAI & USDC).
• With initial borrow activity, variable APY rates are being established. Higher APY incentivizes future supply, while lower APY incentivizes borrow.
• Borrowers take advantage of liquidity mining rewards both from borrowed amount and collateral (as supply). This is a major incentive for borrowing on Earn.

Partnerships & Integrations

Radar joined Alkemi Network as a professional infrastructure and liquidity partner. Radar will be operating liquidations on Alkemi Earn, reinforcing healthy lend/borrow dynamics.

As a global turn-key compliance solution provider, KYC-Chain powers Alkemi Earn with a streamlined onboarding experience for users seeking a compliant DeFi solution. This partnership is an important step toward decentralized compliance, where users are in control of privacy and access on their own KYC data.

Alkemi Earn performance statistics are now available through Dune Analytics, an open analytics platform for the Ethereum community. Now everyone can create custom dashboards and trackers for the Alkemi Earn protocol, see this one for an example.

Community and Press

• The new Alkemi Network website is now live: https://alkemi.network
• Hear CEO Ryan Breen discussing the birth and evolution of Alkemi Network on the Open DeFi podcast
• The inaugural Community Virtual Meetup was held mid-May to give our community a chance to meet with members of the core team

Team Updates

Please welcome new members of the Alkemi team!

• Arthur Zubkoff → Community Engagement Manager
• Michael Nash → Head of Operations

What’s Next?

Our top focus is to grow liquidity and utility on Alkemi Earn. In tandem, we are putting an increased emphasis on community build efforts.

As a starting point to discover more about our community, the Alkemists, we will be conducting a series of AMAs with current liquidity providers.

Stay tuned for the AMAs as well as more updates on new partnerships and protocol enhancements.

Ways to participate

💰 Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us

🌱 Running local communities? Become an Alkemi Network Advocate

💼 We are hiring! Check out open positions

Join the Alkemi community

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Ecosystem Update — May 2021 was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alkemi Network’s mission is to build an on-chain liquidity network with a suite of tools and products that serve as onramps for everyone to participate in decentralized finance

Alkemi Earn (‘Earn’), a decentralized borrowing and lending protocol, is live on mainnet and is initially focused on unlocking institution-grade capital to flow into DeFi.

The “Beachhead” Strategy: Institutional Adoption

The DeFi rally in the summer of 2020 generated a great deal of excitement, resulting in $70+ billion of asset value locked within less than a year. The retail-focused innovations of decentralized finance, however, haven’t yet made provision for institutional participation requirements such as compliance risks, market connectivity gaps, and insufficient financial tooling.

“Alkemi Network represents an ongoing transition between open-finance and DeFi today. The nature of money in the future will simultaneously be institutionalized and decentralized. Our investment in Alkemi Network is a bet on this future. ”

— Shiliang Tang, CIO of LedgerPrime

From Verified to Open: a two-part strategy to bridge CeFi to DeFi

Alkemi Earn is tailored to provide CeFi institutions with a frictionless portal to DeFi. Earn provides a trusted-counterparty on-chain experience that includes advanced reporting, risk management, and KYC / AML features. This constitutes the first chapter of the network rollout strategy.

With rising institutional participation, access will be extended to other users wishing to participate in Alkemi Network via a secondary permissionless pool, ‘Open’, for the Earn protocol. This constitutes the second chapter of the rollout strategy.

With this two-part strategy, permissioned ‘Verified’ and permissionless ‘Open’ liquidity pools will coexist on the same network, governed by the system’s native multi-utility token, ‘ALK’.

Current Market Snapshot

Earn launched with four permissioned asset markets (WBTC, ETH, USDC, and DAI), where participants have the option to participate in the pool after successful KYC verification and wallet allowlisting.

On March 15, 2021, Alkemi Earn began onboarding the genesis cohort of liquidity providers. Within 6 weeks, total liquidity has surpassed $6.7 million USD worth of assets under protocol (AUP).

A few quick observations from the initial deposits:

• The average deposit in the initial cohort was USD equivalent of ~$280k
• USDC is the top asset choice for deposits at ~56% of the pool
• ETH and WBTC follow at ~25% and ~14% respectively
• DAI was the least preferred asset for deposits at ~4%

Onboarding Early Users — What We Learned So Far

Alkemi Network initially prioritized onboarding lenders to build the liquidity supply in Earn. As of April 30th, 25+ KYC approved lenders have been onboarded to the ‘Verified’ pool.

This initial rollout unlocked valuable insights and opportunity for improvements:

1. A positive reception from institutions

The majority of the initial lender cohort is institutions (select institutional users include: LedgerPrime and JST Capital). This is an encouraging indication for the value proposition of overcoming institutional adoption hurdles.

2. Institutional adoption is not limited to corporate entities

We observed considerable traction from syndicates, who organize collectively but participate individually. The majority of them are executives from the financial services or adjacent industries and are well-aligned with the institutional use cases. This was a key learning and we expect further growth in this category.

3. Compliance is a key feature, yet also an onboarding challenge

The KYC process introduces an element of complexity to the onboarding flow, both for applicants and the Alkemi Network core team. To streamline onboarding, we are taking measures to automate the process where possible e.g. fast-tracking low risk applicants through an integrated risk scoring mechanism.

What’s Next?

In tandem with growing Earn’s lender base, the immediate next step is to activate borrowing on Earn. This is set to launch late May 2021.

In addition, we have LOTS of exciting developments set to be announced in the not-so-distant future, including: new partnerships, asset markets, network utilities, and product feature innovations. Stay tuned!

To follow our journey, find us on social media:

• Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlkemiNetwork
• Join our community on Telegram: https://t.me/AlkemiNetwork

How to Get Involved

As a liquidity network, Alkemi Network’s core mission is to increase the number of engaged participants. Institutions and individuals are all welcome to take part as we expand.

Join us and let’s grow Alkemi Network together!

• Interested in becoming a lender/borrower? Email us: hello@alkemi.ai
• Become an Alkemi Network Advocate: http://bit.ly/alkemi_advocate
• We are hiring! See our open positions here: https://angel.co/company/alkemi

Alkemi Network — State of the Ecosystem (April 2021) was originally published in Alkemi Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week in Berlin, we participated at the Web3 Summit with our Design Thinking for Blockchain Workshop (Node 01). With this node, we introduced design thinking into Web3 stack as a collective and creative process for protocol design. This blog post is a quick summary of our experience and the group work that took place in our workshop.

Overall, the workshop at Web3 was a rewarding experience. Coinciding with a great program of talks as well as being in the same open space with 10 other nodes was a proper challenge for a focused workshop. Even then, we had a nice turnout and a productive session.

Participants

Considering blockchains will have a significant impact on all walks of life, we believe protocol design should be an inclusive activity for all disciplines and experience levels to prevent creator biases being baked into platforms.

In the same spirit at Web3 Summit, we were happy to host a diverse set of backgrounds including engineering, design, business development, law, community management, and investment. They all had one thing in common: they were dreamers of an exciting future unfolding in front of us and they all wanted to take part in shaping it.

Topic

Participants of the Web3 Summit workshop worked on a protocol idea for a decentralized education system. They modeled a distributed ledger to keep verifiable records of continuous support interactions that extend beyond an organized event between instructors/teachers and trainees/students, that anyone can read/write, and owned or controlled by no single authority.

As Vivien Leung (one of our participants) pointed out after her experience, this workshop is a systems design exercise that starts with people, not just an introductory session to blockchains.

We started with mapping ecosystems and journeys, identified pain points of centralization and opportunities to disintermediate. Participants learned and utilized hands-on design thinking methods including stakeholder analysis, network modeling, journey mapping, and structured brainstorming. In the end, participants discussed the group work, expected outcomes and implications.

Flow

We facilitated the workshop through following the steps in our Decentralization Method Sheet:

1-Model the ecosystem
Participants started with mapping the network of actors and interactions in a training/workshop ecosystem. Then, they identified three actors that trust each other for a training/learning session, a trust loop: Instructor, Student, and Organizer.

2-Identify journeys
With the trust loop identified, participants walked in the shoes of these stakeholders and articulated their needs, priorities, and challenges to discover moments of trust — how trust is implicit in the interactions and what could go wrong with the intermediary mechanisms that broker Instructor-Student interactions.

3-Frame opportunities
Once the journeys are laid out, participants explored the trust loopholes (mistakes & misuses) and reframed them as opportunities. The goal was to brainstorm ways to disintermediate centralized mechanisms that are exercised by the Organizer stakeholder. We ended up with many ideas for disintermediation. Some of these were nascent and needed more thinking. Some of them immediately started to take shape with discussions among the group.

4-Design the protocol
Participants picked one of the opportunities based on impact factors and started speculating on a fictional protocol as a means to disintermediate. They outlined a decentralized mechanism for capturing a support moment. They discussed concepts such as atomicity, verifiability, transparency, and privacy. Most importantly, there were particularly heated conversations around incentives, which makes the people-first approach particularly relevant in this system design exercise.

5-Brainstorm Applications & Implications
Finally, we discussed as a group potential implications of this fictional protocol and imagined what type of applications may emerge upon it. Lots of exciting ideas came about such as extended learning networks and new breed co-working spaces. Important questions also came up such as the value of certification, verification of learning, and intellectual property.

Reception

We received helpful and constructive feedback from our participants both for the flow of the workshop and how we frame it.

Is this a collaborative session for protocol design? Or is it a way to think about organizational transformation and decentralization is a means to that purpose?

Marko Prljic (one of our participants) pointed out that they were expecting a reductive problem-solving workflow and instead, experienced a diverge-converge rhythm that pushed them to question whether they are addressing the right problem as they are thinking about a particular solution.

We are grateful for the great participation and feedback. Needless to say, this is work in progress and we are excited to improve for the better with more sessions.

Design Thinking for Blockchains, Web3 Summit 2018 was originally published in Patara on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Earlier this year, our team from Project Interactions and Graph Commons developed a new method for exploring decentralization opportunities by combining elements of design thinking, network science, and crypto economics. We utilized this method in design thinking for blockchains workshops, where participants with little to no technical background were able to partake in designing new protocols. In this post, we share our learnings and a draft version of the Decentralization Method Sheet.

Why does design thinking matter for blockchains?

Short answer: We need a creative and collaborative approach to make protocol design a more inclusive activity.

The current rules and methods for acquiring and using cryptocurrencies, no matter how well-intentioned the larger motivation is for their existence, are baked with the biases of their creators, and favor people like them. Part of the hype of blockchain is its decentralization and democratization potential. However, without a diverse set of people designing with it and developing it, exclusion will be built into the base of many blockchain applications.
 — Carissa Carter, Director of Teaching + Learning at Stanford d.School

When it comes to blockchains & tokenization, the majority of intellectual and creative energy so far had been concentrated on building infrastructures for future applications — protocols. Protocol development is a fairly technical activity and currently dominated by specialists like engineers, technologists, and researchers. Since the early utilities are primarily financial, we also witness a great deal of participation from finance professionals and investors.

Considering blockchains will have a significant impact on all walks of life, this is a very limited and exclusive crowd. It represents a sliver of people who will be implicated by decentralization. We believe protocol design should be a multi-disciplinary activity and include a variety of inputs in the conception stage to prevent creator biases baked in platforms. People should be able to participate and get creative even if they are not experts in cryptography, finance, or software development.

Thus, the primary role of the designer in a decentralizing world should be to facilitate a creative and inclusive process for system design — otherwise we will end up with beautifully designed applications that serve the benefit of a very small crowd.

So, how might we lower the barrier to entry and enable diversity in shaping the future of decentralized systems before it’s too late?

Enter design thinking.

The workshop

We structured the workshop as a one-day deep dive. Getting participants to be generative with what they learn is instrumental, otherwise, we would repeat yet another intro to blockchains lecture. And while we don’t want things to get too technical, we still need people to understand the foundational concepts in order to have a fruitful session.

In the workshop, we expect people to learn something new and be generative with what they learn in the same day. This is no easy task! As such, our agenda ambitiously combines theory and practice in 3 stages:

1. Understand — A short session on core blockchain ideas through step-by-step visual explanations and real-world examples.
2. Create — In groups, dive into a business domain and identify decentralization opportunities through design thinking tools.
3. Discuss — Present group work, collect feedback, and discuss with the larger group.

So far, we had participants from a variety of creative and business backgrounds. They had varying levels of knowledge on decentralization and blockchains. There was no admission criteria except for a genuine desire to learn and get hands dirty. While a small subset had more defined agendas for their business domains, most of the participants were fairly new to the area.

The method

We created a Decentralization Method Sheet to guide people through exploring decentralization opportunities for a domain: starting with the ecosystem of people and relationships, pain points originating from mediation and ways to disintermediate centralized power mechanisms.

We approach decentralization as a people-first systems design exercise. Our purpose is not to engineer a solution process for coming up with “blockchain for __________”. To avoid such solutionism, we ground the activity in empathy: needs, motivations, and challenges. This is where the method sheet comes into play.

Below is a quick outline of the steps in the method sheet along with photos from the previous sessions. Please remember that this is work in progress — we aim to improve this with further input and feedback.

1- Draw the Ecosystem

Illustrate the network of people and interactions to identify the trust loops — the transactional relationships and mechanisms mediated by trusted 3rd parties.

2. Map Journeys

Pick a trust loop and articulate the transaction. Then, walk in the shoes of key actors and articulate their needs, priorities, and challenges to discover moments of trust — how it is ensured and what could go wrong.

3- Frame Opportunities

Crystallize trust loopholes (mistakes & misuses) and frame them as opportunities for disintermediating centralized power mechanisms / trust brokers.

4- Design the Protocol

Outline the new mechanism: What/who is disintermediated? What is the verifiable unit-record? How is atomicity accomplished? What are the incentives to participate?

5- Brainstorm Applications & Implications

What does your protocol enable? Envision new services, utilities, use cases, and implications. Be bold! It’s a lot of fun to speculate about what could be built upon your protocol.

What’s next

So far, we received an overwhelmingly positive response to this effort. While there is a lot of room for improvement, the method sheet proved to be a useful guide for exploring opportunities for decentralization.

Moving forward, we intend to do more toward lowering the barrier to participate: grow our community, include more voices, and improve the method.

If you like our intent, here are some things you can do to support:

• Download, use, share: Decentralization Method Sheet (draft version, feedback appreciated)
• Join the discussion below for questions or feedback
• Subscribe to our email list for updates and future events

Team:

• Burak Arikan (Graph Commons)
• Cenk Dolek (Project Interactions)
• Engin Erdogan (Project Interactions)

Thanks to Ann Odell for her kind words about one of our sessions and New Lab for the great venue for the workshops!

Design Thinking for Blockchains was originally published in Patara on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An eyewitness account of the birth of a movement

—-

On May 31, two hours after I landed in Istanbul, a revolution began. And I walked right into it.

It all started with a modest group of people protecting trees in Gezi Park in Taksim Square from demolition for a new shopping mall construction. The government administration tried to parry this demonstration as marginal behavior and was determined to move forward with the plan.

When people resisted, police enforcement became harsher. And things got ugly. People got hurt.

Despite the brute police force, insane amounts of tear gas, and PR maneuvers to portray the protestors as vandals, something interesting happened. People did not get intimidated. People did not leave Gezi park. In fact, more people came. The resistance was epic.

I had the privilege to witness the first few days of this historic event. When I walked through Gezi Park, I encountered opposing views camping adjacent to each other peacefully. Over time, people set up their tents, built kitchens, and libraries. Gezi Park became a platform of solidarity for all walks of Turkey’s colorful political scene: Anti-capitalist Muslims, LGBT groups, neo-nationalists, Kurdish politicians and more co-existed and cooperated despite their differences.

During my eight days in Istanbul, I watched iconic characters emerge, like the whirling dervish with a gas mask, the lady in red, and others. I walked the streets blocked with barricades that were made of advertising billboards, cobble stones, and all types of scrap. I read the witty graffitis as they were drawn. And I ran into a lot of friends who had been fed up long before, and joyfully embraced this movement.

I gasped again and again at how the ruling party can control mainstream media and engineer headlines. As Taksim Square was turning into a battleground, major national TV networks were intently airing everyday programs as if nothing was happening, like a documentary about penguins. Clearly, government business interests had priority over the most basic mission of journalism.

On my very first night, I took part in organizing the flow of information at a make-shift press center. The news were coming in like a storm directly from the front lines. Protestors found shelter in the press center as they delivered latest updates. We were rapidly re-circulating verified news to fill the gaping void of mainstream media and inform people. People were thankful. The reaction was amazing.

Also, I got my fair share of tear gas. What a shame for whoever invented it… Breathing had never been that painful. I received help from volunteers on the street who sprayed a combination of vinegar, anti-acid, and milk to my face to relieve the burns. The real relief though was experiencing the genuine intent to support and help.

Gezi movement was different from demonstrations I’m used to seeing in Turkey. It was like Rocky’s first real blow to Ivan Drago: it made a dent. The movement drew public and international attention to a growing resistance against the increasingly top-down, intolerant, and partial practices of the governing party.

The credit for this momentum goes to the very young people of Turkey. Their creativity and persistence energized the apolitical and concerned 80s parents who suffered from the post military coup traumas. Maybe the biggest common denominator was the demand for basic rights, including the freedom to live a lifestyle that may not align with what the prime minister approves.

When it was time to come back, I was bummed to leave at the height of this energy. Once I arrived in New York though, I pleasantly discovered that the movement spread beyond borders. People in New York, as well as other cities in the US and the rest of the world, have been mobilizing around efforts to support and sustain the Gezi movement.

Lucky me witnessing a piece of history. What a summer…