First of all, decentralized finance (De-Fi) is an umbrella term that encompasses all the financial activities involving crypto-assets. Most of you are already actively engaged with it as it includes crypto staking, payment, and trading. A form of De-Fi that has gotten very hot in the past two years is crypto lending and borrowing. For instance, Genesis Capital, a company in the crypto loan business announced that their accumulated crypto credit grew from near zero to USD 4 billion from 2018 to 2019.

In fact, the industry-wide interest in De-Fi is clearly reflected in data. The de-Fi sector accounts for only 6% of daily active unique wallets, however, it contributes 45% of total dApp volume. Taking a step further? DApps for marketplaces, social networking, and gaming are accounting for 72% of daily Ethereum application users combined, yet these same dApps generate only 4% of the total transaction volume. (source — Messari report)

In retrospect, it is obvious that finance is the area of the most interest. The blockchain industry has been exploring opportunities in various areas such as games, social media networks, commerce and so on. But to my regret, it is hard to find hard evidence proving a good fit except for De-Fi.

From a business perspective, a company is supposed to create a value that is strong enough to pay in return. Otherwise, the company can sustain itself for only a short period of time.

Here are the big questions. ‘What is the value we should create?’ ‘If we create a high-performance blockchain, then will people pay for it?’ ‘Does an easy-to-use system create value?’ ‘If I take a De-Fi angle, will people want lower transaction fees?’

The answer to those questions might be simple and clean in a broad view. But when we dig into the details, it becomes complex and obscure. Also, developing technology for the answer is another big challenge.

Sometimes it is helpful to take one step back, as the proverb says, look at the forest, not a tree.

People hold crypto assets, but they do not sell it for various reasons and tend to hold it for the long run. So it is very natural to search for ways to utilize it for profit. That is why crypto lending and borrowing grew so fast in the past 2 years. The next wave will be portfolio management. Buy & Hold is a good way of managing the portfolio. But if there is a better way of managing portfolios with acceptable risk and higher returns, people will love it. This is the direction we want to pursue. There are big needs in blockchain space, but no one yet seems to be able to fulfill people’s expectations.

After the insane party of the year 2017, the blockchain industry has started a screening process expelling participants with ill-defined intentions. Many blockchain projects went away during the crypto winter. Newcomers arriving in the crypto winter have different visions and skills. In short, newcomers seem to be more mature. Big enterprises have been entering the blockchain industry and leading countries have been paving new regulation systems for crypto assets.

These are great signals to the blockchain industry. But as a blockchain project leader, it is a warning signal for severe competition. Good technology alone is not enough to captivate people; it has to be the best of its kind. There are several strategies we can take in this situation, but when we consider our resources and capacity, the best option surfaced without much delay: ‘Select & Focus’. We will pick the key technology and devote our entire resources on it to come out on the top.

Software service has no border, meaning that people will choose the best service in the world, not in the country or a city. There is no physical boundary limiting the competition.

The survival will hinge on the key technology. We will give our all for the key technology.

MoA is a crypto asset manager. MoA V1.0 was designed to provide a seamless experience. People’s feedback on MoA v1.0 are well aligned with our objectives.

MoA v2.0 will be presented with the key technology to satisfy the thirst for better portfolio management that no one provides.

The year 2020 is going to be amazing.