Risk Committee Election Application: Kairos Resarch
Introduction
Launched in January 2024, Kairos Research is an independent, market-focused research firm, co-founded by Ian Unsworth and Teddy Oosterbaan. The two worked together on the Growth & Listings team at Binance US. Working within protocol research at one of the world’s largest CEXs allowed us to become deeply familiar with both centralized and decentralized exchanges, many of which Ethena actively utilizes for their derivative positions.
Throughout 2024 we focused heavily on the Restaking market & LRTs, which alongside Ethena have been the primary drivers of on-chain activity and TVL growth. Our public research includes long form, data driven reports around ether.fi, Jito, Aave, Dinero, Swell, Renzo and many other market leading protocols. Through our research we are actively learning the importance of protocols balancing liquidity, market-leading yield, and mitigating underlying risk. Feel free to reference our public research via Substack and X.
Beyond our experience in market research, the Kairos team has been actively involved in protocol governance with ether.fi, Jito, Renzo, Eigenlayer, and we look to further expand our involvement. Our strategic advisors include crypto hedge fund managers, market makers, venture capitalists within the space.
Both Ian and Teddy would like to be actively involved with the Ethena Risk Committee. Individually, the co-founders have relevant experience in roles including:
Ian: Foundation selected Jito governance delegate, former Stride protocol team member, Messari Research contributor, Protocol Specialist at Binance US
Teddy: Investment Associate at a Chicago based family office, finance degree from Ross School of Business, Passed Level I of the CAIA certification, Research Analyst at Binance US
Potential Contributions
Kairos is excited about the possibility of working closely with the Ethena risk committee to help balance growth objectives and long term protocol sustainability. We believe we can bring value to the protocol through:
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Strategically working with the Risk Committee on identifying and analyzing potential collaterals and trading venues
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Kairos plans to closely monitor the market, synthesize the demand for new assets and report on whether there is sustainable volume and enough meaningful open interest for new and existing collaterals
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Monitor the staking yield across blockchains and understand the conversations happening in communities that could change the underlying yield earned on ETH, SOL and other potential collaterals
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Providing market reports on sUSDe & USDe flows, market size & Ethena’s DeFi landscape
- Adding onto the above, but creating digestible reports for the risk committee and general community
- Amplify attestation & transparency updates to the community via Twitter and other channels, such that they can accurately evaluate risk as well
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Monitor United States regulatory news reporting relevant to the ability to utilize US based custodians
- Frequently monitor the US Crypto Regulatory Framework and its impact on the crypto derivatives market size
- Report on new trading venues of sufficient size that may open within the US market
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Working with the Ethena Foundation to identify potential avenues for vertical and horizontal integration
- Monitoring the use of USDe across blockchains and protocols & understanding the pros & cons of it utilization throughout DeFi
- Helping further integrate USDe throughout DeFi in a manner that deepens its liquidity, but also increases its use as collateral on lending markets and derivatives platforms
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Monitoring value accrual to the protocol & how it is split between ENA holders, the development team, and USDe stakers
- Contribute to the fee switch discussion & present data on how other protocols are returning value to their token holders
We believe that the crypto landscape will change drastically in the next several years. While the majority of this change will be positive for honest builders in the space, growth also brings volatility. Kairos hopes to help the Ethena Foundation to remain nimble and continuously improve their protocol, while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Ethena remains top of mind. As we have seen in previous cycles, it is important to remain competitive by delivering best in class yield, however it is far more important to do it in a manner that survives all types of markets.
Potential Conflicts of Interest
- Kairos is an advisor to both Swell & Ebisu