Cega, Enso Finance, Aurigami | Hidden Gems – DeFi
Review Date: March 18th, 2022
We scored over 50 projects this week, and these are 4 DeFi names we think you should know about:
- Cega
- Enso Finance
- Aurigami
- Notional Finance
Please keep in mind that some of these projects have not yet been subjected to our code review process, but we want to call them out here for preliminarily catching our eye based on our fundamental analysis process.
Cega (82%)
Website – Documentation
Cega is a decentralized structured product platform specializing in exotic options on Solana. It aims to offer one of the highest yield products available by utilizing barriers (a type of exotic option) to help users control their risk exposure in ways not previously available.
Why we like it:
Structured products continue to be an exciting area of DeFi as new projects create and go beyond some of the tools that have already proven successful in traditional finance. Cega is an exciting project because it looks to serve multiple purposes: retail investors will have access to new risk profiles and yield opportunities, market makers will be able to take advantage of a discounted hedging tool and additional mechanisms to fine-tune their option profile, and finally developers and builders will have access to a new financial primitive that can spur the creation of other new innovative products.
Investors:
Cega raised $4.3M on 3/8/22 from multiple notable investors including Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Alameda Research.
The Team:
Prior to Cega, one co-founder was an equity derivatives trader at UBS, followed by 3 years experience at Google as a Product Manager and the Head of Marketing at Bitcoin.com. The other co-founder was a Software Engineer at Apple and Anduril.
Token Utility:
The project is still early in its development and utility details will follow. At the base level, token holders will be able to participate in governance on matters such as future product offerings and pricing capabilities.
Where can you buy the token?:
TBA.
Enso Finance (81%)
Website – Documentation
Enso Finance is a social trading platform that allows users to both create and follow trades and strategies of other members of the community. There are a wide range of use cases: on a casual and social level, you can share trades with your friends and engage in friendly competition. On a higher level, trending users and strategies are highlighted to give an idea of what has been recently performing. Finally, crypto personalities can join to both give credence to their content and to allow their followers to stay even more connected to them.
Why we like it:
As crypto adoption continues, users will naturally seek new social tools to engage with the space. A social trading platform has the benefit of both having a functional use (sourcing new ideas for your own investments) while also being an entertaining place to check out what others in the community are up to and how their trades are performing.
There is also a strong DAO angle here: a community can participate in a DAO-built strategy, giving participants exposure to all the projects the DAO has invested in.
They are also undergoing a fairly bold way to bootstrap liquidity in the form of a vampire attack (incentivizing users of other platforms to migrate their funds here) with a stylish landing page: https://vampire.enso.finance/ Users who participate get one NFT per project staked, further gamifying the experience. While still early in the project, development has been steady and carried out with a security-first approach.
Investors:
Enso Finance has raised $5M from some top-tier investors including Polychain Capital, Multicoin Capital, The LAO, and Spartan Group.
Team:
The two co-founders both worked at Sygnum (world’s first digital asset bank) as a Senior Blockchain Engineer and Head of FinTech respectively. The team size is approximately 12 now and they are actively hiring.
Where can you buy the token?:
TBA.
Aurigami (80%)
Website – Documentation
Aurigami is a first mover decentralized money market on the NEAR protocol. This allows users to partake in lending, borrowing, and earning interest on their assets natively in Aurora.
Why we like it:
We are bullish on NEAR as a blockchain as Layer 1’s continue to battle it out in terms of speed and user adoption. Aurora is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on NEAR that allows developers who previously wrote code for Ethereum to easily port their work into Aurora, taking advantage of its blazingly fast speed and very low fees. As the NEAR and Aurora ecosystems grow, there will be a natural need for the type of DeFi apps already existing on other networks, and this is a chance to get it early.
Investors:
Aurigami has raised capital from a number of prominent investors including Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Jump Crypto, and many more.
Token Utility:
$PLY is not out yet, but the premine is happening now for approximately two more weeks. If you use the platform in any capacity (lending or borrowing any of the available assets), you will accrue $PLY tokens on top of the normal interest rate of your assets. More details about PLY and its complete tokenomics will be shared when the premine ends.
Where can you buy the token?:
The token cannot be directly purchased yet, but can be premined when interacting with the general platform here: https://app.aurigami.finance/
Notional Finance (77%)
Website – Documentation
Notional is a protocol on Ethereum that allows users to participate in fixed-rate, fixed-term lending and borrowing through a novel financial instrument called fCash.
Why we like it:
One of the persistently prevailing themes in DeFi is “what kind of products does the space need to drive institutional adoption?” While there are many answers and pieces to the puzzle, I believe a fixed-income product that is a reflection of the bond market is a crucial part of it as having access to bonds is a key part of institutional liability management. While we might still be a bit far from that degree of adoption, Notional is the leader in the space and has the best chance to continue innovating going forward.
Looking at a shorter time horizon – Notional has been trading since November 2021, but the price has drifted down significantly. This is in large part due to the original utility of the $NOTE token being solely governance focused – as of 3/14, they have added new features that should significantly reduce sell pressure. At current prices, there is a chance to get in at valuations that seed investors were involved at.
Investors:
Notional raised $10M in funding in April 2021 from a number of investors including Pantera Capital, Parafi Capital, Spartan Group, Nascent, Nima Capital, and others.
The Team:
One co-founder has 3.5 years of experience at Barclays trading interest rate swaps and 2 years experience as Head of Trading at Ayanda Capital. The other co-founder has a deep technical background with 6.5 years of experience at Atlassian, with roles ranging from Data Scientist to Product Manager and Engineering Manager.
Token Utility:
$NOTE stakers will benefit directly from Notional’s success by earning rewards while simultaneously contributing to NOTE liquidity and to the security of users’ funds on the protocol.
Where can you buy the token?:
$NOTE can be earned by providing liquidity through the website or purchased directly on Hotbit or Balancer.
