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Co-founder of BitMEX and founder and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Maelstrom Arthur Hayes is mulling a change of official designation at his fund. Hayes shared a post where he shared an idea about a possible title change to Chief Story Officer. According to him, the idea is to create strong story traction across several promising altcoins scheduled for a great year.
Story Matters More than Tech
The first point of discussion in this latest Substack post for Hayes was to address the impact of a great story around a project compared to the tech it’s built on. The crypto commentator argues that a great story is more important than the tech. To him, a story with a strong virality will make it possible for a project’s token to appreciate in value rather than only the tech.
This helps build the success trajectory of a blockchain protocol as more people are aware of who they are and what challenges they seek to address.
"Chief Story Officer" is an essay on why the tech in #crypto doesn't matter, and my story telling process.https://t.co/qLyVAcEwuf pic.twitter.com/gBg4ybbed1
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) February 21, 2024
Hayes further split his story analogy into two major categories – the macro and micro-story paradigms. The combination of both could increase the growth trajectory of a protocol as they will help spread the project’s service and mission far and wide.
Hayes highlighted that investors can profit significantly from tokens that transition from being considered ‘never’ to ‘maybe,’ largely due to a compelling story.
However, Hayes only partially dwelled on the debate on what a great story can do for a project other than the tech. He also took the time to shill several promising altcoins the Maelstrom project has in its portfolio.
He emphasized the ETH staking platform Pendle, noting its potential to significantly increase interest rate swap trading volumes within the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape. Zooming into the retail derivative trading landscape, Hayes also mentioned that platforms like dYdX, GMX, and another unknown challenger could be instrumental in the shift from centralized exchanges (CEX) like Binance to decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms.
Could Decentralized Stablecoins Be the Future?
Stablecoins were also brought into the equation. Powered by traditional fiat currencies, private entities offer them and are backed on a one-to-one (1:1) basis by the underlying state money.
While stablecoins like USDT from Tether reside on the blockchain, Hayes has called them out for their traditional finance (TradFi) framework.
The former BitMEX CEO argues that since stablecoins like USDT are secured on traditional banks, their essence on the blockchain is questionable.
In the new decentralized economy, mounting pressure on centralized stablecoin operations could give rise to decentralized alternatives that do not rely on the TradFi framework to operate. There are a few projects working on exciting solutions, but Hayes promises to share more stories on Ethena – one of his portfolio companies. Ethena (USDe) is a synthetic dollar protocol that’s free from TradFi dependencies. It works through a sophisticated delta-hedging mechanism with staked Ethereum collateral to ensure a scalable, stable and censorship-resistant stablecoin.
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