Empowering New Crypto Users with Innovative Financial Products

Founded in February 2019 by Bitmain co-founders Jihan Wu and Ge Yuesheng, Matrixport is a one-stop shop for digital asset financial services. The company boasts $10 billion in assets under management and custody, with $5 billion in average monthly trading volumes. Matrixport offers spot OTC trading, fixed income products, structured products, lending and borrowing and asset management services.

The history of Matrixport

As the bitcoin mining industry grew, so too did the need for financial services in the sector. Miners needed downside protection, collateralized loans for working capital, and other means to manage their business. In a manner similar to farmers who use agricultural commodity futures to hedge their market risk, bitcoin miners needed services to help them manage the intricacies of running a mining farm.  

“Back in 2018, the main financial platforms available in the industry were exchanges and wallets. We felt that exchanges cannot meet all customer needs,” says John Ge, CEO, Matrixport.

“Matrixport was established as we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to get more out of crypto beyond just buying, holding, or selling. This next-generation digital financial services platform plans to serve the next one billion crypto users, not just early adopters.”

“Ce-DeFi”

Creating an account on a decentralized exchange is rather simple. With no identification required, just sign up and you’re good to go.

But using the services, searching for yield, moving funds, and figuring out how to get the most out of all available DeFi protocols…that’s another story.

Matrixport has come up with an ingenious solution. They call it “Ce-DeFi,” or centralized DeFi. This type of service is simply “a centralized way to earn yield, but the yields come from DeFi,” according to Ge.

Ce-DeFi services make it easy for the average user to get the most out of their crypto without having to navigate through a vast array of decentralized finance protocols.

As anyone who has tried yield farming might be aware of, trying to figure out where the maximum yields can be found is “very time consuming, or even impossible,” he noted.

Fortunately, those using Matrixport can eliminate much of the hassle. “You don’t need to deal with MetaMask, interact with various DeFi protocols, handle any operations…you just click and leave the rest to us…As a user, you’re delegating all these tasks…we call this DeFi intelligence because it’s an intelligent way to help users maximize their yield across many DeFi protocols.”

The service delivers all of the benefits of DeFi without the hassle.

Innovation in crypto finance

One of the most innovative products offered by Matrixport, and perhaps by anyone in the industry, is the “Dual Currency” investment product. Launched in October 2019, this is the first structured product that provides an attractive yield to investors in this manner.  

Here’s an example:

• Someone writes a covered call on bitcoin that expires in eight days. The strike price might be $40,000 per bitcoin vs. the current price of $35,000 per bitcoin.
• If the price stays below $40,000 upon expiry, then the call writer would continue to hold their bitcoin and receive interest in bitcoin (much like they might collect a premium with traditional options).
• If the price rises above $40,000 on or before expiry, then the call writer would have their bitcoin called away from them (they’d be obliged to sell) but would still receive interest, settled in USDC.

This kind of option is standard in the world of traditional finance. In the world of crypto finance, however, the ability to write a covered call in this automated manner is revolutionary.

Note that writing a covered call of any kind requires owning the underlying asset. And in the case of this Dual Currency product offered by Matrixport, the premium earned on the option will be paid in either BTC or USDC, depending on the outcome of the option.

What’s next?

Matrixport recently introduced its new “Lite” version interface on its App aimed at enhancing the customer experience for those who have recently embarked on their crypto investing journey. The launch reflects the company’s ongoing commitment to making crypto easy for everyone as part of its global roll-out.

According to Ge, “Digital assets have enjoyed an incredible growth to date but without easy-to-use tools, many would-be investors are left out of the action. Through customer-centric product design, we are lowering entry barriers to welcome the next billion users.”