3 DeFi Protocols to Benefit from the New Publicity from Blackrock

Blackrock is investing in DeFi. We saw what happened to Ondo while Blackrock said it was investing in it and RWA platforms, generally.

Blackrock is now investing in DeFi. We saw what happened to Ondo while Blackrock said it was investing in it and RWA platforms, in general.

Ondo is up 25% in the last 3 months. 3 months that have been dismal for alts. And Blackrock is doing it again. This time in DeFi. So which DeFi protocols will follow Ondo and buck the general market trend thanks to the new publicity from Blackrock? Stay tuned and we’ll show you 3 from this crypto sector to benefit from this news.

1) Frax

Thanks to exposure from BlackRock, many see DeFi making a comeback very soon. DeFi, like all financial platforms, needs a lot of money and scale to be successful. That’s because margins are small in this type of finance. For an institution to make more than 1 or 2% on a multi-million dollar transaction is rare.

So with that in mind, let’s jump into one area we expect to grow. Staking and Restaking. Lido is by far the biggest player here. They continue to be around 30% of the total market for staked Ethereum. And they are the leader in liquid staking options. But they are not the only player here.

One further down the table that we also like is Frax. They are currently #23 at 0.48% of the market. And that sounds small. But that number means they are staking almost $490 million of ETH on their platform. They started liquid staking much later than Lido, Binance, and Coinbase. Those are the 3 leaders. Frax has its liquid staking coin, frxETH. Frax also has a crypto-collateralized stablecoin. We like this a lot and think we will need stablecoin options outside of Circle and Tether.

So, to be clear, the coin we are recommending from growth in DeFi is FXS (FraxShares). The last 3 months have been particularly unkind to FXS, as is true with most alts. In the last 90 days, FXS has lost half its value dropping from $5.10 down to $2.50. Circulating supply is 80.5 million out of just under 99 million total. Its market value is just under $200 million.

Almost $13 million is part of the collateralization of the FRAX stablecoin. So that allocated FXS is not going anywhere. Also, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, we think even though the ETH ETF will NOT allow the funds to stake or restake, liquid staking markets will continue to grow. Maybe the ETF gives new awareness to new groups to try crypto as an investment, too. That would lead to new liquid staking growth as well. Here is an example:

Going even further than that, our Partner Content Lead Stu thinks that Blackrock will try to set up its validator. That and fork a version of ETH that they can more easily manipulate. This is easier to do on PoS networks. After all, if Lido or Frax can have a liquid staking version of ETH, why can’t Blackrock which is much bigger, more powerful, and more market-connected?

The important point here is that both the ETF and liquid staking should lead to more growth for ETH. And maybe, both things help each other grow. And if you think they will grow, then you should consider Frax’s FXS for your portfolio.

2) Compound (COMP)

Now we move on to a traditional DeFi platform, Compound. Compound created the first AMMs in crypto. They are an OG. They have also collateralized over $2.2 billion across 8 EVM markets to make stablecoin borrowing easy and inexpensive. The idea here is that if Blackrock is going to invest solidly in DeFi, then DeFi infrastructure like Compound provides, will be one area that gets some of that funding.

Just like liquid staking and restaking will as we discussed with Frax moments ago. Savvy investors will also see there are some opportunities here. You can borrow inexpensively and maybe deploy the stablecoins you borrow to earn more than your interest payments. That said, it’s not efficient given the LTV (loan to value) limitations, most of which are in the 75-80% range. Like this example of borrowing USDC on Base for a net 3.8%.

But still, if you need stablecoins for your favorite LP, you can get them at Compound while keeping your coin on deposit. We covered Compound quite a bit a couple of years ago during DeFi Summer. And they are just chugging along quietly making their platform better.

In the last year, the $COMP token is down 30%. Its market value is $350 million and it’s down almost 50% from its recent March high of $95 to $51. It