Insights

February 12, 2024

One of the first Agio blogs was about the apparent phase change in drivers of default over the past few years. Prior to 2020, centralised exchanges tended to default because they were either hacked or turned out to be frauds. Mt Gox is the poster child of this era. But over the past few years, defaults have been increasingly caused by commercial misjudgments and poor risk management. This is a more recognisably TradFi pattern.

January 8, 2024

Use-cases will ultimately determine the fate of digital assets and, by extension, the default risk of its participants. Better use-cases will drive growth and revenues. Recently, a member of our Advisory Board argued that there have been several use-case eras which have characterised crypto’s development. We are now in the “store of wealth” era. Previously, there have been “money transmission” and “project funding” eras. As we head into 2024, is the project funding use-case about to undergo a renaissance?

December 18, 2023

As we approach year-end, the recent Bitcoin rally means that the main crypto-currencies have just about doubled since January. This takes them back to the valuations last commanded in early 2022 -- prior to the UST depeg, collapse of LUNA and subsequent defaults of 3AC and FTX. So did something get better or did the market simply roll a six? We’ve undertaken some timeseries analysis to explore this question.

November 22, 2023

When we created Agio 18 months ago, our first controversial act was to label FTX nine times riskier than Coinbase. All the beta-testers rejected our thesis to varying degrees. They rhapsodised about the platform. It had market depth, keener prices, and great customer service. But in our view that had nothing to do with default risk.

October 6, 2023

It’s generally agreed that location is an important consideration in counterparty risk. If you are registered and regulated in North America, you are seen as safer than someone based in Palau. But how do you convert this intuition into a number that can be used for managing risk exposure? It’s not as easy as it may sound.

September 7, 2023

As Warren Buffett once opined “only when the tide goes out do you learn who’s been swimming naked.” It certainly feels like the waters have been receding on the crypto community over the past year.

June 9, 2023

In a widely expected move, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued the world’s two biggest crypto exchanges in federal court this week. The main SEC assertion is that most cryptocurrencies are securities, and accordingly, US law requires these exchanges to register with the SEC.

May 10, 2023

The migration of skilled jobs offshore is a recurring American anxiety. Its visa system is too complicated. Exchange rates are manipulated. US businesses are hamstrung by red tape.

April 11, 2023

“Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.” The final words of Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in the British comedy film Carry on Cleo.