Umami Labs CEO Alex O’Donnell grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia earlier than attending Temple College to check literature and economics. That path led him to dedicate seven years of his life as a monetary journalist at Reuters, the place he specialised in M&As IPOs.
He mentioned his tutorial focus created a “fairly pure synthesis” when it got here ot monetary journalism. Nevertheless, he mentioned he grew to become “disenchanted” along with his trade whereas he was cooped up at dwelling through the Covid-19 pandemic. “There actually was a three-way alliance between journalists, authorities officers and expertise firms attempting to regulate the stream of knowledge,” O’Donnell mentioned in an interview with Cointelegraph.
He started tinkering with cryptocurrency, which led to his introduction with Umami DAO and in the end his creation of Umami Labs.
O’Donnell and his spouse, Sanjana, are making ready for a “third, smaller individual” to affix their household subsequent 12 months. Within the meantime, he mentioned he’s additionally gearing up for one more crypto-related enterprise. The main points aren’t totally public but, however he mentioned he plans to launch extra info the months forward.
1) How’d you make the transition from journalism to crypto?
I’d been a journalist for the higher a part of a decade primarily overlaying mergers and acquisitions. I at all times had an curiosity in finance and tech. However I began turning into a bit disenchanted with the mainstream media across the time of the pandemic. That was the primary time I began turning into a bit extra cynical about my very own trade’s position within the info economic system. So I began paying extra consideration to points like privateness, censorship and different issues I had not taken as a lot curiosity in earlier than.
In 2020 I spent most of my time overlaying the Covid-19 pandemic. There actually was a three-way alliance between journalists, authorities officers and expertise firms attempting to regulate the stream of knowledge. It wasnt even that the official line was mistaken. It was that dissent was being stifled within the first place. That actually peaked my curiosity in decentralized platforms.
At that time, I began to turn out to be meaningfully focused on crypto. Provided that I got here from monetary journalism, decentralized finance (DeFi) specifically caught my curiosity. I actually began actively investing in several crypto protocols as a retail investor in 2021. I used to be getting extra concerned in DeFi communities, and one among them was the predecessor toUmamiZeroTwOhm.
2) How did that result in you creating Umami Labs?
I obtained concerned inZeroTwOhmas a daily retail investor aping in as many individuals did. It was a fairly small group, so I used to be in a position to fairly rapidly get in touch with the builders constructing the protocol.
However they didn’t actually have a transparent sense of course about what they wished to do subsequent. They’d bootstrapped a number of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in capital that was largely simply sitting there. It felt like someone wanted to step in, and the builders have been, frankly, very happy at hand accountability off to another person, which ended up being me.
3) What are you targeted on now?
What I’m most focused on now could be zeroing in on an issue that grew to become very clear to me throughout my time at Umami. Primarily, asUmami Labsgeared as much as launch our first product inearly2023, I used to be assembly with lots of crypto-focused hedge funds and enormous particular person buyers.There wasthis gaping want for some strategy to securely earn curiosity on USDC, USDT, and different stablecoins with out having to simply fully transfer off-chain.
Ihavealready targeted at Umami on creating one other product that was designed to generate returns on stablecoins, butthe actual needisfor one thing thatisas safe and boring and dependable as a traditional financial savings account, however for individuals who have been holding stablecoins on on-chain wallets. There have been forays into that space by different gamers, however I’ve but to see an entire answer to that drawback. It takes a mixture of getting the best regulated entities off-chain and seamless mechanisms for on- and off-ramping on-chain.
That’s one thing I’mpersonallyfocused on now. Imcollaboratingwithsome others ondeveloping one thing, andgetting suggestions frompotential early customers. We’ll have extra particulars to share throughout the subsequent couple of months. However for now, it’s nonetheless within the early levels.
4) What do you suppose would be the largest crypto tendencies in 2024?
In my private opinion, I do suppose that the excessive level of the crypto market in 2021 actually was the high-water market of this period of very DIY, unregulated, kind of community-run bootstrapped protocols. I believe that entering into subsequent years, together with now, we’re going to see a fairly stark shift during which DeFi stops wanting a lot like a totally separate ecosystem. It’s going to for all intents and functions turn out to be a subset of TradFi.
I don’t suppose the DeFi versus TradFi distinction goes to final. Clearly, we’re seeing numerous ETFs present process the registration course of. Within the background, main gamers are acquiring licenses to interact in a wider array of monetary actions in the usCoinbase, for instance has,registered as a Futures Fee Service provider and in addition as a Designated Contract Market with the CFTC. That authorizes them to function an trade and open accounts throughout the futures markets. These can be focus, in fact, on Bitcoin and Ether.
Coinbase and Circle are accumulating completely different elements that can enable them to turn out to be deeply built-in operators inside conventional finance. I believe that could be very fascinating. In parallel to that, you’ve of us similar to Constancy and Franklin Templeton and BlackRock creatingregulatedcryptofundingmerchandise. Franklin Templeton is creating its personal tokenized Treasury Invoice ETF. It’s fairly clear that can be a supply of momentum for the trade over the following a number of years.
5) What’s essentially the most fascinating to you as an funding proper now?
Actually, the one thingin cryptothat I’m focused on as a long-term funding is Ether and its staking and re-staking derivatives. I believe we’re nonetheless at a degree the place the overwhelming majority of potential investments in crypto are extraordinarily speculative. The underlying worth proposition of the tokens remains to be unclear. I believe ETH is without doubt one of the few exceptions. So I do maintain ETH, and I’m comfy with it as a long-term funding.
I’m being attentive to the staking protocols like Lido and Eigen Layer. Eigen permits individuals to take ETH they’ve already staked and re-stake it to any variety of completely differentassociatedstaking protocols. That very considerably expands the vary of actions that may be finished trustlessly. I anticipate to see, over time, lots of constructing on prime of Eigen and different comparable protocols. I believe we’ll see a proliferation of funding funds and ETFs focusing on taking ETH and staking it and re-staking it.
6) What do you suppose is the primary hurdle to mass adoption of blockchain expertise?
Thereneeds to be acomplete fusion of protocols on the bleeding fringe of blockchain, and extra established firms which can be built-in into the standard monetary sector and able to working compliantly from a regulatory perspective. We have to seeestablished gamers integrating subtle sensible contracts and taking full benefit ofblockchain’s potential. Then effectively begin to see blockchain turning into a part of on a regular basis monetary transactions and actions.
