After 3 incredible years at Kraken, I’ve decided to step down from my Director of Growth Marketing role.

I couldn't be more bullish on the company that Jesse Powell has built. I'll never forget being able to work with such talented individuals.

But this isn’t the end of our relationship.

I'm becoming a brand ambassador in a part-time role where I can elevate both Kraken and Bitcoin.

Looking ahead, I’m going to be spending more time building and investing in Bitcoin DeFi, starting with Trust Machines.

The mission of Trust Machines is to build the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin applications and grow the Bitcoin economy.

I’ve joined as a marketing partner, where I’ll be helping build and scale Trust Machines' marketing efforts.

Trust Machines has an awesome team which I’m thrilled to work with:

Muneeb Ali (Co-founder)
JP Singh (Co-founder)
Aubrey Strobel (Comms partner)
Rena Shah (Leading Ops)
Asiff Hirji (Advisor)

And many more I don’t have space to include!

Why Bitcoin DeFi and why now?

Bitcoin is a pristine piece of collateral with the most credible monetary policy on earth.

Building trust minimized applications is critical for Bitcoin to further absorb mindshare and use cases in the space.

Defining DeFi

Ask anyone what DeFi means and you’ll get a dozen different answers.

DeFi to me represents using smart contracts to unlock some sort of financial tool or primitive. This can be as simple as Lightning to something more complex like Stacks or DLCs.

Skepticism

I know many Bitcoiners are skeptical of DeFi. Rightfully so. There have been many false promises, scams, and fraud.

But just because there have been many mistakes, failures, and scams doesn’t invalidate the entire sector.

After all, Bitcoin was the origin for many DeFi apps:

NFTs: First launched on counterparty
Yield: JoinMarket
DAOs: First talked about on the BT forums

This is a return back to experimentation.

Projects

Here are some active projects that I personally find fascinating:

Lightning

@lightning has created Lightning Pool.

Summary: An order book for lightning liquidity (or a channel marketplace) done in a non-custodial manner (note: there is a coordinating server).

Read more: Lightning Pool

DLCs (Discrete Log Contracts)

Summary: Two parties can bet on a certain outcome based on x/y/z condition being met. For example, what the price of Bitcoin might be tomorrow.

Companies working on it:

@AtomicFinance (Options on Bitcoin)

@Suredbits (Oracle as a service)

Stacks

Summary: Smart contract layer on top of Bitcoin with the ability to create smart contracts that work on Stacks and Bitcoin simultaneously (where you only have to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain)

Companies working on it:

@ArkadikoFinance
@consoledao
@ZestProtocol

RSK

Summary: Smart contract platform via sidechain. Its engine is a forked version of the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), and the RVM (RSK Virtual Machine.

Companies working on it:

@sovryn

JoinMarket (CoinJoins)

Summary: earn a yield by mixing your coins with others.

Really excited to see a much more usable GUI developed which @dergigi, @giacomozucco, and others are working on!

Read more👇

Conclusion

While all of my consulting availability (on Marketing) is nearly filled, please reply to this e-mail if you need help with your marketing efforts.

Or if you’re building something I should check out in the DeFi world, let me know!

HODL,
Dan Held

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