Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner are the cofounders of bZx, the first decentralized margin lending and trading platform on the Ethereum mainnet. Tom serves as the startup’s CEO, and Kyle is Chief Vision Officer and Operations Lead. Today, they join us to share an end-to-end overview of the bZx protocol, explaining how it is fundamentally different from dYdX.
By definition, margin lending is not fully collateralized. Some sort of mechanism is necessary to ensure that lenders receive their full principal, with interest, even under unforeseen circumstances. In crypto, one way to handle this is with tokens. So, what would that look like? Why are some margin lending protocols proposing a kind of ‘insurance fund’ to safeguard lender capital in the case of a black swan event?
Tom and Kyle discuss how margin liquidations work on the network and how bZx incentivizes liquidators. Tom offers insight around the startup’s new Fulcrum product and how it improves the user experience, and Kyle describes the product roadmap moving forward, most notably bZx’s new integrations with Augur and ETHFINEX. Listen in to understand why bZx is sticking with the token model for monetization and otherwise keeping the platform open and rent-free—and learn about the protocol’s first big governance proposal for token holders.