What is the DeFi Project FinNexus?

FinNexus is the combination of the words ‘Finance’ and ‘Nexus’ so the idea is that it is a hub for connecting different decentralized ledgers to each other and users, and also for connecting with traditional finance applications. The industry needs a solution that is not only interoperable between these new, fascinating blockchain worlds, but also between these blockchains and the legacy finance systems that still dominate 95% of the usage in the traditional finance industry.

There have been some great projects that do one or the other, but not both. For instance, an early investor in FinNexus is Wanchain, which is known for its interoperability between blockchains. Something like what Unibright is doing with the Baseline Protocol - in tandem with Microsoft, EY and Consensys - is interesting for what its vision is for connecting legacy systems like old-school enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like SAP into public blockchains. It's unclear, though, if there are any projects where the vision includes making sure to have BOTH cross-blockchain interoperability AND multiple software platforms-to-blockchain plug-and-play functionality. That’s what FinNexus is building right now.

FinNexus will kind of be like a crypto supermarket, where users can stumble around curiously looking for different unique products that they could either invest in themselves or incorporate into their own products. Technically, this variety of products will be driven by different FinNexus protocols.

This graphic is the big picture vision of exactly where FinNexus protocol layers fit within the current landscape of the blockchain industry. As far as product releases go, first, FinNexus will soon launch tokenization products on Wanchain and XRP Ledger. These will be tokens that are backed by real-world cash flows. They will offer fair and robust financial returns for token holders. The first product to be released with their technology is rumored to offer an approximately 10% annualized yiled. So you YOLO risk-adjusted yield chasers take note!

These initial asset-backed tokens are borne out of the Wanchain philosophy, where co-founder Boris Yang was a technical co-founder, of first building out robust cross-chain protocols and then building a product suite on top of that.

Recently, all of us in the DeFi space have been intrigued by all the attention being paid to the decentralized options space. I look at opyn as a very cool project, but it currently is only on Ethereum. Hegic is also pretty cool, but their team is anonymous, which raises some flags for me and they haven't actively managed this very valid criticism as well as the Thorchain team has. Plus, last week, as soon as Hegic released their smart contract, they ran into some issues with what they called a "typo." That's not a good look in the world of short-tempered once-bitten twice-shy crypto investors.

Nevertheless, I have high hopes for both projects and look forward to their further innovation, naysayers be damned! However, FinNexus (FNX) has something that the devs have been working on in this same general direction. They won't tell me exactly about how it works yet, but they say it's something new in the fully decentralized options space. They expect to be able to put it out within the year. If that news proves to be true, and the product is as cool as the devs have been saying, then, whenever it is launched, users should be able to use the FinNexus platform to hedge, speculate, and insure cross-chain digital assets. Not just Ethereum and Bitcoin. But also any public chain that can be plugged into the Wanchain infrastructure. Currently, that list also includes EOS in addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum. But the plans are for more chains to be constantly added. Obviously, if you've been following my Twitter, you know I'm a big fan of Thorchain, as I just namedropped them above. But for me, right now, the crypto industry desperately needs some high-quality cross-chain tooling. FNX could play a critical role here.

At the core of finance are the assets and users who have to trust in the financial system to store and leverage their value to take care of their everyday needs, intermediate goals, and long-term desires. That's a hefty responsibility. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, has come along and wants to take that mantle. But it is trying to do that with like 1/1000th of the developer power. So of course, we'll see things like Lendf.me and the Hegic fiasco are bound to happen at such an early stage of this breakthrough industry. As a blockchain researcher, I can only caution you to do your own research and never put in any money that you cannot afford to lose. But, in my heart of hearts, I feel like DeFi is gonna make it. And when it does, watch out! It's gonna change the world.

Look out for more from FinNexus soon. Just before the pandemic began in earnest, and then the cryptoverse was hit with Black Thursday, they announced their intention to list on Bitrue, an up-and-coming XRP-based centralized exchange.

Stay tuned!