This effort is transparently about Unit Supply(North Star/Q2 Goal) and AUM (Q2 goal). I think it will drive more holders, but that’s secondary. To prove by an extreme. If this effort got one holder to buy $150MM of DPI, we won. That’s not how it will happen, but I think makes the point.
I think you boiled it down well. My view is also colored by there being a race among DeFi protocols to meet institutional capital at the door. The Coop is uniquely positioned by virtue of being in asset management and taking a longer-term view than some others in DeFi. But that’s still just a flourish on top of “we do this, they buy more” that indicates there’s urgency.
We will push every single sub-bullet forward, but my energy and belief is behind “Master institutional custody and efficient buy execution” now and through the quarter. The relationships we’re building will open up walled gardens of capital and create more evangelists who speak to funds and institutions. In no less than five conversations, we heard some version of “Someone had asked me about DPI the other day…” or “a client was looking for a way to get sector exposure to DeFi.” It’s necessary for the Coop to facilitate big buys for them to happen, but this is also a trojan horse outbound sales strategy.
Briefly on materials and confernces/webinars this is mostly just how TradFi institutional capital engages. Everyone has asked for a deck so far. Otherwise, I’m just extrapolating from a decade of experience in ABS, Mike’s experience in private wealth, and others in the Coop who’ve validated that premise (e.g. @Lanks, @oneski22) Though I’d be open to hearing out why it’s the wrong approach.
Turning the mic over to @Metfanmike on this one, but I fully support the result. My summary is that it’s difficult and we hope to facilitate large buys that we know about and can celebrate but it may not always work that way. More fulsome from Mike:
"One of the core theses is that institutions are coming to DeFi (whether or not they know it yet). How does this happen? Through education and hand-holding on important matters like security. By generating awareness with folks that already have the ears of institutions. By speaking directly with fund managers, possibly by first getting them personally interested in the space. In short, being very loud and very attentive to institutional needs.
If we are successful with these top-of-the-funnel strategies, there will be more AUM, more (new) wallets holding Index Cooperative products, and higher average holdings in those wallets (i.e., our North Star metrics).
But tracking this is easier said than done. For example, we recently spoke with a crypto fund that after doing their due diligence with us, indicated they would like to proceed with a $2mm $DPI buy. Great. However, institutions value privacy and secrecy. They will aim to keep their addresses and therefore purchases completely private. They will be very unlikely to disclose whether or not they have bought.
This is frustrating, because it prevents us from getting a direct assessment on the success of the programs.
Our guiding belief though is that if we are everywhere institutional investors are (webinars, conferences, events, panels, etc), the AUM and the investments will come. Along the way we will get interested investors who will want to better understand how they can custody or trade Index Cooperative products, but many more will just proceed after finding out about DPI (via our various strategies) - without any direct conversation. If we are also pushing for more custodians and OTC desks to list DPI or make a market in DPI, we should expect the flows to follow. We should start to see an acceleration in AUM, an increase in the average size of wallets, and the number of new whales.
Curious to hear if you have any suggestions on how to make this better or measuring success more directly connected."