Just over two years after taking the plunge into the startup world 🚀, I’m delighted to have joined Nayms as Product and Business Lead.
Now three months into the role, I want to share my perspective on the problems Nayms set out to solve, and how we aim to solve them.
The Problem
As it stands, the level of ancillary services available to players in the traditional financial services industry dwarfs those available to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
As interest and involvement from large corporations into cryptocurrency increases, the gap in provision becomes more glaring, and stifles further growth and normalisation of crypto. Regulation is a clear example of an area still playing catch-up where crypto is concerned, and so too is risk transfer.
Take insurance as the primary example: the gap between demand and supply is staggering. Custodians, protocols, and other crypto-based businesses that are looking to insure their digital assets are competing for finite capacity, in a market where total capacity for crypto-asset insurance is estimated by some to be just 0.5% of crypto market capitalisation¹.
There are several reasons for the lack of supply in crypto insurance:
- risk isn’t well-enough understood
- insurers are not equipped to transact crypto-native insurance
- perception of market and lack of regulation are a turn-off
- increased demand in capacity for existing lines (e.g. non-crypto cyber) is an easier target for carriers and brokers
And while the macro factors, (i.e perception, regulation, and easier opportunities elsewhere) are likely to disappear over time in a mature market, the skills and technology problems will not solve themselves.
Our Approach
Although lack of underwriting expertise will be a barrier to entry for some, there are leaders and experimenters who are already blazing a trail. For those that are, Nayms solves their operational challenge of how to transact these crypto-native policies.
The Nayms platform allows insurers to place, and professional investors to trade, crypto risk.
The Nayms platform allows underwriters to write crypto-native policies. That is, a policy covering 10 BTC will be underwritten in BTC, premiums paid in BTC, and claims paid in BTC. Exchange rate risk goes to 0, with no external hedging required.
This allows underwriters to focus on the intrinsic factors of the policy, rather than trying to force a square peg in a round hole with fiat-backed crypto cover.
And this is just one example of a validated problem that we’re aiming to address through the Nayms platform.
Onwards
Lack of capacity, however, is not the only pain point in the risk transfer lifecycle.
Identifying other problems, and testing the commercial viability of solutions is an important part of my role, and our team will need to maintain close partnerships with global brokers, underwriters, capital providers, regulators and insured parties to deeply understand pain points across the value chain, and develop solutions that help unlock the market’s potential, and delight its participants.
To create a repeatable, structured source of user insights, I have established the Nayms Pre-launch Feedback Program.
This program will provide a reliable feedback loop between product development and our users and buyers by providing the Nayms team a channel to work directly with prospective users of our platform, and derive detailed insights into their tasks, paint points, and working context.
This program will run into, and overlap with, our launch program, in a run up to our platform’s general release. Participants of both programs can benefit from early access to our platform functionality, roadmap, and our token (which will provide stakeholders a means to invest in the growth of our marketplace).
It’s a great time to have joined Nayms, and I’m excited to help shape its future. Full steam ahead! 🚂
[1] Actuarial Post. Huge lack of capacity in insurance sector for cryptoassets https://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/article/huge-lack-of-capacity-in-insurance-sector-for-cryptoassets-17886.htm
