Nexus Mutual Newsletter | April 29 2022
Get ready for the Nexus Mutual conference omnibus issue of the newsletter!
In this special issue of the newsletter, we have the dispatches from Devconnect week, ETHAmsterdam, and Crossroads.
Nexus Mutual Abroad
In the last two weeks, the Nexus Mutual core team and the Nexus Hub teams have been busy presenting abroad during Devconnect week, ETHAmsterdam, and PlannerDAO’s Crossroads conference. From degens to developers to financial advisors—the team has helped the mutual reach myraid different audiences recently.
Below is a recap with recordings, where available, of the mutual’s presentations and presence at these various events.
Encode <> H.E.R.DAO Day | 20 April
Encode Club and H.E.R.DAO hosted a panel on Breaking into Web3, with a focus on making the cryptospace more inclusive and increasing diversity on-chain. H.E.R.DAO is a womxn-led developer DAO championing innovation and diversity.
Nexus Mutual’s Rox Danila participated in the panel discussion about diversity, inclusion, and how to bring more talented womxn, diverse contributors into the blockchain ecosystem.
Decentralized Insurance Conference (D1Conf) | 21 April
Nexus Mutual and Etherisc hosted the 4th Annual Decentralized Insurance Conference in Amsterdam on Thursday, 21 April. This year’s D1Conf was the largest to date, with interest from crypto-native and TradFi insurance professionals. The last D1Conf was held in 2019—the decentralized insurance/coverage sector has seen tremendous growth since then.
During the D1Conf, an array of industry professionals shared their progress in the decentralized insurance space, while those from traditional insurance brokers provided insight into their view of this disruptive technology. The mutual was well represented during D1Conf, with Hugh Karp, Rei Melbardis, and Jack Prenter presenting during the conference.
During the first session, Hugh gave his talk “Nexus V2: Creating an on-chain market for risk,” which highlighted the mutual’s shift to a structure that will allow members to build in a more permissionless way on top of Nexus’s existing infrastructure.
In recent Mutant Meetup calls, we have shared more details about Nexus V2; however, Hugh’s presentation was the first major presentation to professionals in the decentralized insurance/coverage space. Our co-hosts Ethersic asked in the Q&A section if there were potential to collaborate with Nexus once V2 launches, as Etherisc could create a syndicate and operate on top of the mutual, as well!
Rei Melbardis and Jack Prenter, members of the Investment Hub, shared their insight on the opportunities for investing the float in DeFi, as well as the challenges present in on-chain capital management. The “Decentralized Capital Pool Investing” presentation summarized their thoughts and experience to date.
In May 2021, members voted to stake 15,000 ETH in Lido, which added the first productive assets to the capital pool. In October 2021, members voted to increase the allocation to 30,000 stETH. Anyone can audit the stETH returns to date by viewing the Nexus Financials section in the documentation.
The Investment Hub was first formally established in November 2021, with the Hub Charter ratified by members on 7 November 2021. Rei and Jack presented the Investment Philosophy and the Investment Hub’s work to date at D1Conf.
Secureum TrustX | 21–22 April
The inaugural Secureum TrustX conference, a first-of-its-kind technical event dedicated to the Ethereum security ecosystem, hosted Hugh Karp on Thursday, 21 April. Hugh gave a talk entitled “Security Means Scalability: Nexus Mutual’s view of Risk in DeFi.”
On Friday, 22 April, Hugh also participated in a panel discussion about Decentralized Insurance and Coverage, which included Dan Thomson, Evert Kors, Kiril Ivanov, and Robert M.C. Forster. Emiliano Bonassi moderated this wide ranging discussion about the risks people face when participating in DeFi, the path to scalability, and where Hugh and other panelists believe DeFi coverage, security is heading in the next year.
The panel discussion on Decentralized Insurance and Coverage can be found here.
CryptoCanal @ Devconnect—Securing DeFi | 25 April
Crypto Canal hosted a panel discussion titled “Securing DeFi” on Monday, 25 April. Nexus Mutual’s Ricky Tan participated in a panel discussion focused on security. More information on DeFi Day can be found on the Crypto Canal website.
PlannerDAO Crossroads | 25-26 April
Nexus Mutual was the title sponsor for PlannerDAO’s inaugural Crossroads Conference—an event that brings together financial advisors who recognize that the financial industry is at a crossroads. The adoption of digital assets is increasing and more clients are asking to add exposure to crypto in their portfolios. During this two-day event, PlannerDAO members heard from industry experts working to reduce the barriers to entry, increase adoption, and operate at the bleeding edge of financial innovation.
On Monday, 25 April, I gave a talk entitled “Identifying Yield, Mitigating Risk: hedging against the unique risks present in DeFi with Nexus Mutual.” While yield is abundant across DeFi, the exposure to risk and organic yield varies greatly. During my talk, I focused on the core money Legos used to generate yield and provided insight on the risks present in on-chain markets.
After my presentation, I spoke with many attendees about the mutual and how we’re working to offer people a way to protect their productive crypto assets against risks in DeFi and CeFi.
On Tuesday, 26 April, Hugh spoke about the progress that has been made in the last several years within the DeFi ecosystem, the emerging risks the mutual is focused on, the potential impact of regulation, and how Nexus V2 is designed to expand our ability to cover risk and meet people where they deploy funds.
During this conference, I shared the mutual’s mission with the PlannerDAO community, with whom we’ve worked to fund due diligence on their DeFi toolkit. All of those I spoke with were eager to learn how the mutual can help them bring more clients into DeFi.
Weekly Close
This week’s newsletter is not on the usual Monday morning, 7am EST schedule, but we will resume our regular schedule this coming Monday. I wanted to capture all of our conference content in one issue, so an exception to the rule seemed fitting this week!
In the next week, we’ll be hosting:
Our Mutant Meetup call on Tuesday (3 May) at 10am EST / 2pm UTC on Discord in the Community Calls Voice channel.
You can follow the Nexus Mutual Twitter account for regular updates and communication from the mutual, and you can follow the Nexus Mutual Bot Twitter account to stay up to date on cover buys as they happen.
Have a great weekend and week ahead 🐢
Resources
Nexus V2 Review