TIDAL SPOTLIGHT: Dan Raykhman
Tidal Finance is excited to host another version of it’s spotlight series. For this edition we welcome the CTO of Engineering, Dan Raykhman. One of the key developers and integral part Tidal Finance, Dan has been in the Finance and Blockchain industry since inception and brings in a wealth of knowledge and real world expertise.
Here is the full interview.
1. How did you get into crypto?
I’ve been in FinTech for most of my professional career and when I started looking at crypto back in 2013, I saw it not as currency but rather as a digital certificate. I was very interested in asset tokenization before DeFi was a thing.
2. What do you think of the most recent hacks in the DeFi space? How do you think we can prevent such hacks?
There are so many projects it’s hard to keep up and many projects rush to the market leaving a lot of vulnerabilities around. Part of Tidal mission will be to help audit and analyze these projects. Coverage cost will be correlated to the outcome of these audits. We also have functionality in Tidal that allows project teams to assume a role of Guarantors and stake their own token to cover any claims. Initially projects’ own capital will represent a higher part of the overall coverage. Over time if there are no hacks, that ratio will change.
3. What is your view on cover insurance pools and why?
One of the core innovations of Tidal is creation of cover pools where LPs can select multiple protocols to stake their capital. This approach, similar to fractional reserves, gives LPs ability to generate higher returns while lowering coverage premiums for individual protocols.
4. Have you looked into how Nexus Mutual or its competitors work and what are some features you look for when evaluating such a solution?
I am looking at the solution itself, from a technical perspective but also from the economic perspective. What problems they have they solved and how they have gone about it. In case of Nexus, they are one of the first DeFi insurance projects so we have to give them credit for that but, as you look at the amount of coverage they are offering it’s not too high. I think it’s because the product is not compelling. It has to be compelling for both LPs and buyers of coverage. LPs are not making enough money to warrant the risk and another problem in my opinion is that it is not truly decentralized.
5. What advice would you give to developers who want to enter the blockchain space?
Be active, there are a lot of projects looking for help, there are meetups and group chats, etc. Be active, learn, offer your help and come up with your own projects and work on them. These projects may not turn into a commercial success but you are guaranteed to learn a lot.
