Luke: [00:00:00] You’re listening to a new episode of The Brave Technologist. This one features Peter Gray, BD manager at Origin Protocol, a seasoned decentralized finance protocol dating back to 2017. With the goal of enabling finance for all, Origin Protocol has launched a suite of unique yield products across multiple blockchains designed in a set-and-forget fashion.

Origin Protocol’s OUSD is the world’s first yield-bearing stablecoin, and the, the ARM enables users to take advantage of redeemable asset peg arbitrage. In this episode, we discussed what signals to look for when judging whether a yield-bearing stablecoin is trustworthy, how Origin maintains user trust in a space where exploits and de-pegs have burned people before, and why the automated redemption manager, ARM, matters more as more capital f- moves on-chain.

And now for this week’s episode of The Brave Technologist.

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Luke: Peter, welcome to The Brave Technologist. How are you doing today? Not too bad. It, it’s been a, a long conference day for day one. Yeah. But, an exciting one nonetheless.

Yeah, yeah. So we’re here at, uh, Rare Evo, and you have a panel, tomorrow.

what are [00:01:00] you most hoping to convey to the audience during your 30 minutes on stage, and what’s the panel about?

Peter: I think the panel is, supposed to be about, institutional DeFi or how institutions are able to access DeFi, but, I’m hoping that, I’ll get to talk about the Origin dollar a bit, maybe, Origin’s ARM o- or one of the Origin ARMs maybe.

But, hopefully, yeah, hopefully get a few minutes to talk about that.

Luke: Yeah, yeah. No, let’s get into it because I doubt that the Origin ARM is an actual limb on your body. Like, so l- let’s get into what is the Origin ARM and, unpack that a bit for our audience.

Peter: Sure. So, ARM is, is short for, Automated redemption manager- Okay

ARM. and it’s actually, like, a really simple product that, we initially built for the Origin Ether LST, ETH LST, but then realized that it actually works really well for some of our competitors’ products.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: Specifically, initially Lido’s stETH.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: but what the ARM is, it’s a [00:02:00] vault that accepts only ETH, and then takes that ETH and uses it to purchase Lido’s stETH when it goes below peg.

Oh, okay. it’ll buy up as much as it t- can with the available liquidity in the ARM at that time. and then it’ll just take that stETH and redeem it.

Luke: Nice.

Peter: Put it through Lido’s own redemption cube, and that’s mainly how the ARM earns yield.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: if it ever gets to a point where we can’t buy stETH below peg, then the ARM will just lend the ETH to either Morpho or Aave, depending on the ARM.

we have, three of these ARMs now-

Luke: Oh, wow …

Peter: that are each, like, bespoke to different, redeemable assets. So we have one for Ether.fi, and we also have one for, for Athena-

Luke: Oh, cool …

Peter: their stablecoin.

Luke: Very cool. That sounds awesome. I think, you’ve been, you’ve been with Origin for over four years, and in crypto time, that’s like 15- It’s a long time

or 20 years, right? Yeah. what was happening in the DeFi landscape that made you wanna go all in on Origin [00:03:00] specifically?

Peter: this was, a couple years ago now, so I’ll try and remember it, from, from back then. but I, honestly, I was just, like, really interested in DeFi lending specifically.

Yeah. I thought the lending markets were just fascinating.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: I loved how you could just connect a wallet to a protocol, and you could lend money to other people in the world to borrow without ever having to talk to anyone.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: I just loved that idea. And I actually got into another company before Origin, in the space that was called Alchemy Network.

Luke: Uh-huh.

Peter: Which was essentially the compound protocol, but with KYC-

Luke: Mm-hmm …

Peter: is the easiest way to explain it. Very different from the other Alchemy that many people know, which is the infrastructure Alchemy.

Luke: Right.

Peter: Very different Alchemy. but, so that got me into… Alchemy got me into DeFi lending, professionally, and then, what Origin was doing, I just thought was, like, even more fascinating.

Yeah. Because Origin was taking the, uh, the backing assets behind the Origin dollar and was lending it to multiple lending markets.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: [00:04:00] And I mean, I was already doing that on my own, so- … I figured, might as well do it professionally.

Luke: That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, like, uh, w- we were talking about this a little bit last night, you know, like Brave and Origin have had kind of a long history.

Like, when Origin first started doing, commerce related things and, and w- were powering, crypto commerce in our, our merch and, in our, Brave store for a while. And then, you know, they were moving it- they did a bunch of things with, like, NFTs and then with, other areas too.

It’s just really cool to see how innovative, Origin’s been. And you mentioned Origin Dollar too. Origin Dollar’s been around for a while, right? Like, was it one of those early yield-bearing stable coins in DeFi? Like-

Peter: Yeah, it was,

Luke: what is the origin of the Origin Dollar?

Peter: as far as we know, it was the first ever yield-bearing stable coin.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: which launched, I think, about six years ago now. Wow. and, it came to be because one of our founders, Josh, who lives in New York now, I think, he was doing a lot of the same DeFi lending that I was doing, but, like, he was actively managing his position to the point where, like, every day he was pulling out [00:05:00] funds from one lending market and brought it to another one to pull, you know, pull it out of compound and bring it over to Aave-

Luke: Mm-hmm

Peter: or to Silo or any of the other lending markets at that time. Like, he loved doing that to chase the yield, but he hated having to pay gas to do it every time.

Luke: Oh, yeah. '

Peter: Cause if you think about it, every time you switch lending markets, like that’s three transactions. Yeah. One to pull out, one to, to activate the contract on the new money market, and then the third one to finally redeposit.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: So he ha- he hated having to continuously pay all those fees to do that migration every, every time he found a higher yielding market. So that’s kinda like where the Origin Dollar came from. He’s like- A product that basically does all that for you-

Luke: Oh, okay.

Peter: Cool … to chase the yield for you. Nice.

and so that’s, so that’s where the original idea for the Origin Dollar came from. And then kinda, from there it, it has changed up a bit over the years, but, um, the overall architecture of the Origin Dollar is pretty much the same since, the first, the first time it launched.

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Luke: [00:06:00] Does it, is it backed, by like the US dollar, like other dollar-backed kind of stable coins?

how does it work?

Peter: Not the US dollar specifically, but backed by, USDC-

Luke: Oh, okay.

Peter: Cool …

Luke: only. Nice.

Peter: So the original Origin Dollar was also backed by USDT-

Luke: Okay …

Peter: and Dai-

Luke: Uh-huh …

Peter: at the time. so you could come in previously with either of those three and mint OUSD at a one-to-one rate. but, over the years, we’ve actually migrated away from USDT and Dai, and we’ve gone all in on USDC now.

Luke: So- is there a specific reason why, or just, market demand

Peter: or? Uh, there a, a couple different reasons, I guess. one, it simplified the product-

Luke: Oh, okay …

Peter: which was good because having a simpler product is easier to [00:07:00] audit- 100% … and maintain. this happened about a year ago, actually- Oh, okay

this, uh, the, the big change.

Luke: Well, didn’t Dai change too?

Peter: Dai did change their- Yeah. They, yeah, they changed over to USDS. We actually also migrated that change, with that change. the simplification, I guess, was a big one. we, I guess, we didn’t have that many users that were coming in with Dai or USDS- Yeah

at the time, and we didn’t have that many, coming in with, with USDT either. So yeah, I guess the simplification was, like, really one of the, the driving factors for why we did that.

Luke: That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, stuff consolidates too, and it gets simpler, and it’s better- Yeah … you know, from a security perspective too, I would imagine.

Peter: Yeah. having a, a smaller security surface was definitely better to have.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: so l- less contracts, essentially, at the end of the day. It also made integrations easier because- Yeah … we didn’t have to worry about, USDT and Dai. Now only USDC.

Luke: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So. No, it makes, makes a lot of sense.

I mean, for somebody who already understands stable coins, what makes OUSD kinda fundamentally different from the other stable coins that are already [00:08:00] on the market?

Peter: fundamentally, there’s, I mean, a couple different things. one, it’s rebasing-

Luke: Okay …

Peter: which most stable coins are not.

Luke: Can you go into what that means a little bit?

Peter: The easiest way to describe rebasing is, it’s kinda like a dividend- Mm-hmm … or receiving a dividend. So like with, like getting like a dividend from like Apple, you would… if you choose to opt in for the drip, option with your brokerage at least, you would get more Apple stock when they pay a dividend basically.

so rebasing works the same way. Like you have one OUSD today, tomorrow you’ll have 1.01 or 1.02 or whatever the yield ends up being, you’ll have that much more, within your wallet. So you never actually have to do anything. Hmm. It’s like as long as it’s sitting, within your wallet, you’ll get these rebases.

Luke: Oh,

Peter: nice. It’s kinda nice. You never actually have to deposit your OUSD anywhere. It’s like as long as it’s sitting in your wallet, you’re, you’re earning the yield. But there is a, a, a small asterth- asterisk to that, which is that you need to be opted in to receive that yield.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: And if you’re not opted [00:09:00] in, then you basically give up your yield to everybody else- Okay

who it is opted in.

Luke: Okay.

Peter: So most people actually don’t even need to worry about that because EOA wallets, externally owned a- accounts,basically most self-custodial wallets are by default opted in.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: So most users are okay. It’s the smart contracts that need to worry about that. Oh, okay. Smart contract wallets.

So- Yeah … think like Gnosis Safe.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: That would be a, a wallet that would need to opt in.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: Basically. so that, that’s one of the just fundamental differences, the, the rebasing. we also get a portion of our yield from, running an AMO.

Luke: Oh, okay.

Peter: Which is, uh- What’s an

Luke: AMO?

Peter: automated marketing operations maybe? Something like that. I think that’s what it is. Yeah,

Luke: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter: and I think there’s only one other stablecoin in the world that has an AMO-

Luke: Oh, okay …

Peter: by the way. but, without getting too much into the technicals of the AMO, essentially it’s like a, a DEX, strategy-

Luke: Oh

Peter: where we’re able to increase, like, the size of our DEX pool.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

which also helps, the peg a bit. And we’re able to [00:10:00] generate some additional yields from, from the DEX that we’re doing this on as well.

Oh,

Peter: interesting. Which happens to be Curve.

Luke: Nice.

Peter: So we generate this additional yield, and then that additional yield is able to be sold off, to help fund, the OUSD yields.

And then, the last fundamental difference, which is also my most favorite one to talk about, is we have something called yield forwarding- Hmm … now, which, we just started putting to work, about a year ago. and yield forwarding is only possible because we have the opt-in, opt-out design of the token.

but what yield forwarding is we have the ability to change the destination for where the yield actually gets sent to.

Luke: Interesting.

Peter: If that makes sense. Yeah. Or forwarded to.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: So if the OUSD is sitting in contract address A or wallet address A, we could forward the yield to be sent to contract address B or wallet address B if that user wanted yield forwarding turned on.

That’s awesome. So we can do some, like, pretty interesting things with yield forwarding. for example, we could spin up a, a Morpho market [00:11:00] where the Origin asset on, is the collateral side- Mm-hmm … and another token is on the borrow side. Maybe picture, like, USDC on the borrow side. If we turn on yield forwarding, all of that yield could be sent to the borrow side as an incentive to borrow that USDC, essentially making it cheaper to borrow in this kind of market because all of this yield that’s coming from the collateral depositors is being sent to the other side of the market.

Interesting. If that makes sense.

Luke: No, that’s super cool.

Peter: So we actually have two markets that are doing that right now live on Morpho, but they’re not with our stablecoin. They’re with one of our, two of our ETH LSTs.

Luke: Interesting. That’s really interesting. you know, I know that trust is kind of a, a massive issue in DeFi, like especially, post-2022.

How does Origin think about building and maintaining user trust in a space where exploits and de-pegs have burned a lot of people?

Peter: So we, we have like very strict security practices that we’ve been following for the last, couple years now. I mean, every contract change that we make [00:12:00] has to be, like double-checked by multiple engineers- Mm-hmm

on the team. Every contract upgrade we make has to be audited as well by an external auditor, and we’ve used, a whole bunch of different auditors over the years. We’ve, we had a retainer with OpenZeppelin for, for a very long time. Mm-hmm. Actually, we had Trail of Bits audit our contracts. Certik I think has taken a look.

we now use, WhyAudit, I think mostly. so we’re, we’re constantly doing audits because like you never know when, when there’s like a new k- a new kind of exploit, that can be developed with all the, uh, the new AI-

Luke: Absolutely …

Peter: models that are coming out this year. So like there’s… we don’t take any chances, so we’re, we’re always auditing.

And then when it comes to like working with other projects, I mean, I have like a long like checklist of things that like need to all- Be like a, like green light for, for at least me to wanna work with another company. So like how long has that company been around? Like who is actually behind that company?

Like are they doxxed? Yeah. what else have they worked on? when was the last time they got an [00:13:00] audit?

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: who was their auditor? do they have a bug bounty? How large is the bug bounty? what’s their cover- their governance structure like? Like what actually governs this product that we might integrate with or do some kind of business with?

how old are the founders? I mean, I’ve seen like some like college kids launch products like Stream Finance, for example. Yeah. It was launched by like- Oh, yeah … like a finance kid, and that, that ended up being like terrible. People lost a lot of money from that.

Luke: Yeah, they did.

Peter: so yeah, I have like a very long checklist of things that like need to all be green lights for me to wanna work with, with other companies.

Luke: That’s, yeah. So. Uh, it’s smart. I mean, like especially with, with this sector and, and with the history there. Mm-hmm. Like, so it makes sense. I mean, like, and how is that? I mean, you’re on the business development side. and I, I’ve worked on the bus- development side for a long time, too, and for me, that’s kind of a, a- it is a balance.

Like you, you’ve gotta be smart on the diligence side, but also like always kind of navigating and learning and researching like what the trends are, what we’re doing- Mm-hmm … [00:14:00] how we can work with other things. Like how is that? Like, uh, do you enjoy working on the business development side? how does it compare to other businesses you’ve worked in in the past?

You know, like what’s your take on moving forward, especially with AI like kind of entering the scene?

Peter: business development for Origin and in crypto in general, it’s similar to previous BD roles I’ve done in the past- Mm-hmm … but also very different in a lot of ways. I started doing business development as a, what you would essentially call a BDR, uh, for a cybersecurity company in Silicon Valley.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: and I did that for a couple years, and that kind of business development is like old-fashioned cold calling and cold emailing, and I guess that works fine because those companies are still making a lot of money.

Luke: Right. Uh,

Peter: but, it’s just that kind of BD is just boring-

Luke: Yeah, yeah …

Peter: I think. Like-

Luke: Tedious

Peter: really, really dry and just boring. And if you don’t love what you’re selling doing that kind of work, then it just is even harder, to do that stuff. I was selling IT equipment to IT departments. Yeah, that’s gotta be

Luke: rough.

Peter: And that’s it’s a [00:15:00] really- … it’s a really dry conversation.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: the BD I’m doing now with Origin is, It feels more like almost like an integrations type of job.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: Like I am trying, I mean, some- at the end of the day, I’m trying to find ways to help increase the Origin product TVL.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: but there’s like dozens of ways that we could potentially do that, and in- integrations have been like a, like a, a pretty good one for us.

but I like it because I get to talk with like a lot of companies, that are just like building some cool stuff.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: and like that’s like my favorite part of this kind of job-

Luke: Yeah …

Peter: is that I am talking to just like companies that are building new tech like every single week, and it’s stuff that, like some of this stuff has never been done before.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: which I think is, is really cool. So I am v- I’m very much enjoying, this kind of, BD work, and I have not had to do a cold call in a couple years now, and-

Luke: Progress.

Peter: Yeah. Yeah.

Luke: I know market goes through cycles, especially in crypto, and a lot of times it’s kind of balancing out hype versus tech and, you know, creativity and hype versus like [00:16:00] creativity and tech.

where are you at now with, are you seeing things that, that you think are, are really interesting and creative? are, do you think that, you know, I… It is a rough market right now. are there innovations that you’re seeing that you’re excited about?

Peter: Inno-innovations, I think there will be some soon, but I think we’re gonna see most of it coming out of, the AI space- Yeah … more than

Luke: anywhere else.

Peter: Origin itself isn’t actually building anything with AI, for other people to use at least. we are using some AI internally, but for other innovations, I mean, what, I think what we’re seeing, and I don’t even know if you would call this an innovation, so much as just the institutions finally catching on.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: But, I think we’re t- we’re really finally starting to see, like the, the big banks, issue their own stable coins. And, I mean, like Fidelity did it earlier this year.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: I think SoFi did it at some point in the last year.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: I don’t remember what the SoFi, stable coin was called, but the Fidelity one is FIDD.

Charles Schwab is like just starting to open up their custody business. and like, [00:17:00] I think like this is like where a lot of, crypto is going, for this next cycle. and Origin, has some ideas for ways that we can kind of, work alongside those, those same banks that are issuing these kinds of stable coins.

Luke: Yeah. and I mean, like, we’re starting to see things like tokenized equities and, and real world assets- Yeah … and lots of things on that front as kind of the real world connects more with crypto and DeFi. is Origin exploring any of these new areas, and generating yield off of these new, products and things like that?

or is it more bread and butter kind of like sticking with what you guys are familiar with?

Peter: we are starting to explore it a bit. we were actually looking into building an arm for a real world asset, in the past. And the initial companies that we reached out to you about that, it didn’t actually work out unfortunately, but, we still wanna do that, a real world asset arm.

But, what we’re looking into now and are already starting the process with is like building a yield bearing asset for these bank issued stable coins- Mm … basically. basically copying and pasting like the architecture [00:18:00] behind the Origin dollar, but instead of using USDC, we would use something like the Fidelity dollar-

Luke: Oh,

Peter: cool

as the underlying stable coin.

Luke: Very cool.

Peter: So we would lend FIDD to Morpho markets,and that would generate the yield, and this would all be done, I mean, if you consider this active trading essentially, which would mean that this kind of product would be compliant potentially with the CLARITY Act that is, hopefully going to pass soon.

Luke: Hopefully. Oh, knock on wood.

Peter: So far, so far we can get on the same page.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: But, that’s, so that’s what we’re thinking is, I mean, we could, we could do like the same kind of product for really every, stable coin issuer that exists right now that, at least want, the ones that want to have some kind of yield bearing component to it, like Origin could be the one to do that.

Yeah. And I think, I think we have the expertise.

Luke: I mean, speaking of, CLARITY Act, I mean, and you being at Origin for over four years, you were there in the thick of it when, Gensler era and, regulation by enforcement and, as a startup that, that’s going through that, like how has the change been for you guys?

a- as the new administration and a lot of [00:19:00] the, the 180 that’s basically happened, with- operationally and with, a lot of just the sentiment and also with actual legislation. Like, how is it building now compared to it, where it was, a couple of years ago? And do you guys feel like there’s a certain resilience that you guys have from having to go through that time a- and seeing it on the other side?

Peter: So initially, when I first joined Origin back four years ago, people in the US were not technically allowed to use any of the Origin products- Oh, wow … or the protocol. Like, if you went to the Origin website, and this, and then went to the protocol, like a splash page would pop up and say like, “Sorry, you’re living in a jurisdiction that is, not allowed to use this, this product.”

now we didn’t stop people from using it. Sure. We let them decide on if they want to be compliant with where they live, or if they wanted to use a VPN.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: we weren’t going to recommend that, but we gave them the opportunity to follow their own rules where they were living. but then, once Trump came, back into office with his second term, [00:20:00] we realized that they were much more, or that they were going to be much more crypto friendly and crypto forward.

and so we made the call ultimately to remove that splash page and to open it up,to US users and, and I guess like the other countries that we were restricting it, from previously. but aside from that, we’ve been building the same. Mm-hmm. Like re- regardless of, whoever’s in the office right now.

Yeah. the building hasn’t changed, it’s just the a- the access to the protocol really, that has changed. But again, we always made it available for people to use, but it was up to them to decide on if they want to follow the rules of- Yeah … where they’re living or not.

Luke: But did you guys see like an uptick in new adoption when, as, as the environment became more crypto friendly?

Peter: to be honest, not really. Yeah. Um, because the people that were, would’ve used us- before we were already, already using this now. Yeah. Yeah. they were finding ways to use the protocol or asking people in other countries to, to use the protocol for them.

Luke: That makes

Peter: sense. but, I mean, at this point, like you don’t even need to go to

I mean, it’s always worked this way, but you don’t need to go to the Origin [00:21:00] Protocol website or Origin Protocol protocol to actually access any of these products because we work with a lot of DEXs. Mm-hmm. And so anyone could go to a DEX and buy, the OUSD or OEAF or the ARM LP token. so that, avenue has always been available for people that, uh, didn’t want to go through and see a splash page telling them that they can’t use the, the protocol.

Luke: Yeah. Well, and I know we, we talked a little bit about, about institutions adopting, the technology and we’ve talked about kind of lead users, technical users that, you know, the splash page is again the term. One thing we’re focused on at Brave right now is like getting crypto adopted just, to that broader audience that, is not super technical but could potentially have a material benefit from using the technology from, you know, kind of the inherent, unlocks that it provides.

do you see like, a play in the future where, you know, a lot of these, a [00:22:00] lot of this value add that you guys are able to bring to the technical users can be done in a way for more, like for less technical users to adopt and, and kind of scale up, with whether different UX or someone else doing the UX or whatever.

But like, do you see potential for value add there based on what you guys are doing?

Peter: value add to the current users?

Luke: Yeah, or to the end user, right? I’m a end user that might just be making nothing on a savings account right now, right? Do you guys see that these strategies that you guys are doing with ARMs and other things, like potentially having a good downstream effect for, everyday users?

Peter: Yeah. So the, the, the, like the mission of Origin, from like I think probably s- maybe not since the beginning, but since the, the launch of Origin DeFi-

Luke: Yeah …

Peter: have, has always been that like we want to bring, like hedge fund-level yields to the everyday user-

Luke: Yeah …

Peter: essentially. and make it like super easy to do that, which is also like is part of the reason why we [00:23:00] simplified, the Origin Dollar a bit.

But I think we are doing that right now. Like the Origin Dollar is still doing the same thing that it was doing, six years ago. It’s just doing it, a little bit of a simpler way right now because we have less markets that we’re lending to and less stable coins backing it. but we’re still like bringing those hedge fund-level yields, to the end user.

and with the ARM, I mean, we’re giving, we’re giving users the ability to actually now make money off of, events that others might not consider to be good events. I mean, nobody wants an, a redeemable asset or an LST to depeg-

Luke: Right …

Peter: but when it happens, if it’s, if there’s an ARM for it, then those depeg days, the, the worst days for those tokens are the best days for the ARM.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter: So we don’t pray for depegs, but we appreciate when it happens because, we, the ARM makes like a lot of money-

Luke: Yeah …

Peter: off of those situations. so I, we’re creating those kinds of opportunities now, for users to take advantage of without having to really worry about it.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: I mean, at this [00:24:00] point it’s, if you want to earn the yield that the that the ARM is, generating, it’s really as simple as depositing, ETH or USDE, to the, the ARM protocol right now and, the yield will just- Be able to just come

Luke: It’s interesting. I mean, like, it’s one of those things where, like- Yeah

we’re thinking about it too. It’s like, okay, there’s all these new ways of earning, right? and there’s these new ways that, like… and like I’m coming from, DeFi summer days of just, like, having mind blown by being able to actually do these things as a user. now the next stage is, like, how can we bring that benefit down to everyday users in a way?

and I think this is kind of a brave thing where we’re just trying to make it usable. but, it’s really exciting to hear about arms and things where, it might seem scary to some people, but also, looking at how traditional finance markets have evolved and, people are, like, literally betting against people being able to pay off a loan, right?

and it, it feel like even though some of these things might sound [00:25:00] scary, it is really, a more virtuous kind of or more empowered kind of a market than, than what people are used to dealing with in the traditional finance sector. How do you feel about that?

Peter: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot, a lot of similarities between, how people were, were making money with traditional finance and the way that people make money in DeFi nowadays. But, I think it’s just easier to use now- Yeah … than, w- with DeFi. Like, you don’t need to be an accredited investor to take advantage of any of the Origin products.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: or maybe a lot of the products here at, a- across the, the Rare Evo Conference. most of it is permissionless, which I think is, like, really cool. See, like you get to take advantage of, like, the, a lot of the same traditional finance style, tools, but, in a way that, you don’t need to have a certain status or a, a certain amount of, money in the bank account to, to access them.

it’s permissionless. It’s readily available for anyone that, is looking to take advantage of it, and I appreciate that.

Luke: What do you think is, are some of the biggest challenges on the growth side, like, barriers to adoption that [00:26:00] if you could w- wave a wand, you know, and make it easier for people to onboard?

Peter: distribution has been a little bit of a challenge. but, uh, I think that’s the, a similar challenge that a lot of, protocols are facing these days- Yeah … the bear market. but, there’s also a lot of competitors, to us now, at least with, like there, there are other places that people can go to earn yields.

Luke: Mm-hmm.

Peter: I wouldn’t consider, like, Aave to be a competitor directly or Morph to be a competitor directly because we use them to generate the yield ourselves. but you know, there’s, like EtherFi, I guess they have their eETH, which might be you could consider the competitor to Origin’s oETH.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: and they’ve got billions of dollars in TVL now, right? Mm-hmm. So when a, a new user stumbles upon LSTs and LRTs, and they look at someone like EtherFi and they see the billion-dollar TVL, and then they look at Origin and they see $100 million TVL, like a lot of people will, will choose option A just because- There’s just, looks like there’s more money in it.

Looks like maybe people might consider [00:27:00] it more trustworthy because there’s more money in it.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah.

Peter: Not that that’s always the case. Yeah. but that’s, like, been a little bit of a challenge-

Luke: Yeah …

Peter: unfortunately. But, we continue to build though.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: Even, even realizing that challenge.

we actually, launched a new ARM last week.

Luke: Oh, really?

Peter: I forgot to mention that earlier. we deployed the contract at least, for it, I think,today’s Wednesday, exactly a week ago.

Luke: Wow.

Peter: but the, what’s- what’s interesting is that this new ARM is going to be, no longer like a bespoke ARM.

It’s gonna be like a generalized ARM. Yeah. So it’ll be an ARM that can, can ARB, like, multiple assets essentially. Okay. So we’ve actually launched two of them. one is going to be a generalized Eth ARM that will ARB, Lido’s stETH- Oh … as well as the wrapped version, which we didn’t have previously.

and it’ll also ARB, Ether.fi’s eth as well as the wrapped version. and now- now also Origin’s oETH, along with the wrapped version. And the, the generalized, USD ARM will do pretty much the same thing, but for, actually some [00:28:00] Paxos stablecoin is where we’re starting with that. Wow, interesting.

So we’re starting with, USDG-

Luke: Mm-hmm …

Peter: and PYUSD, uh, for that, as well as the Origin Dollar.

Luke: Wow.

Peter: Awesome. So yeah, we just deployed the contracts last week. They have not been fully audited yet, so you cannot deposit into it yet. Um, I think we’re also hiding it on the UI, so you won’t be able to see it if you go to the Origin website yet.

Yeah. But you’re hearing it first- … uh, live on this podcast that- Awesome … uh, that that contract was deployed. Um, but, uh, that- that’s what’s, uh, that’s what’s coming real soon.

Luke: That’s cool.

Peter: Yeah. We’re testing with our own funds first, to make sure that, it does what we want it to do. and then, once the audits are complete and we can confirm that, we consider it would be safe to use, then, we’ll open it up and, let people deposit it, and then we’ll probably incentivize it a little bit to get people to move from the previous ARMs to this new generalized ARM.

But, that’s coming, real soon.

Luke: Awesome. No, well congrats on that. and well, I’m sure by the time this episode launches, people will be super interested to kind of take a peek and dig in on that side. so w- let’s [00:29:00] fast-forward five years. what do you feel will be com- what will feel completely normal about stablecoins that still sounds kind of surprising today?

Peter: five years from now, I think that just, like, the idea of any liquidity sitting idle, ever is going to just, be s- like, silly to exist, in, in five years right now, especially with, products like the Origin Dollar. Like, why would you ever bother letting a stablecoin sit idle not earning anything when you could easily opt to, a yield-generating version-

Luke: Yeah

Peter: ‘cause otherwise you’re basically losing money to inflation-

Luke: Yeah. …

Peter: if you’re not, putting the stablecoins to work. So I think, five years from now even, the concept of idle liquidity, will just, not really exist anymore. and, like, one, one thing that I’ve wanted to do for, the four years I’ve been with Origin even is to, like, plug OUSD into, every situation where idle liquidity, might exist, like including, transactions between, I don’t know, [00:30:00] banks or credit cards or anything like that.

But if there’s ever a moment when liquidity is, sitting idle to move from one location to the other, that’s a place where the Origin Dollar should be plugged in-

Luke: Interesting …

Peter: um, to earn the yield, even if it’s just for a few hours at the time, ‘cause the Origin Dollar is earning yield, like, throughout the day.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: I think that the idea of idle liquidity in five years from now, shouldn’t exist anymore.

Luke: That’s awesome.

Peter: Yeah.

Luke: No, I love it. Like, I mean, I, I just think of these things and just think of the potential for just, adding value to people that, that are normally just kind of like having to watch their money become less valuable over time.

Yeah. It’s pretty awesome. is there one bold prediction you have for the future of tech that you’d be willing to bet on today?

Peter: Yeah. I would probably bet that, i-i-in the future, most of the transactions that are happening on blockchain- will happen, coming from, AI agents- Yeah

really. because by then, the agents will be tr- will be the ones trading, not us. and stablecoins are going to be the method that they’re going to be use, [00:31:00] using to trade them because, I mean, AI agents won’t be able to get a bank account.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: won’t be able to register, or do KYC.

I think that it’s going to be agents doing all these transactions, Yeah … in the future, I think that’s my prediction.

Luke: That’s a good prediction, man. is there anything we didn’t cover that, that you might want people to know about, whether it’s about Origin or anything, that we related to what we were talking about today?

Peter: I guess, one thing that I would want people to know while we’re on here is, we actually are incentivizing, one of the three arms right now-

Luke: Oh, cool …

Peter: which is the stablecoin arm, through, the Athena stablecoin arm. we’re incentivizing it until the end of August, so depending on when this, episode comes out, there might still be incentive available.

Excellent. but, we’re adding, I think, 2% to whatever the current yield is. and earlier this week I think I saw it hit 17. Nice. So the, the two on top is kinda nice.

Luke: Yeah.

Peter: but I’m not sure if we’ll continue the incentives, after August. we’ll have to see.

Luke: We’ll see. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe we can work on scheduling this in, in early enough so [00:32:00] people could, take advantage of that one. Fair deal. But, well, awesome. Peter, where can people find you i- if they wanna follow, uh, you know, what you’re putting out there or follow what Origin’s up to?

Peter: so originprotocol.com, would be probably the first place that I’d go, but, we do have a- an X or Twitter account now where we’re trying to, keep everyone updated on, on what we’re doing.

so we’re constantly posting there. we hold a monthly, call on our Discord where we kinda get into, some of the latest upgrades and updates. That’s on the first Monday of every month, so that would mean that this next Monday I think would be, uh-

Luke: Nice …

Peter: the next one of those. and then, I’m also active myself on, on X and, the Origin Discord.

I think, my username on the Discord I think is OriginalPete.

Luke: Nice.

Peter: On X it’s, PG13, but that’s spelt P-G-E-E-13. I didn’t, unfortunately couldn’t, couldn’t get the actual PG13.

Luke: That’s cool. Well, well, thank you, Peter. I really appreciate you making the time. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I’d love to have you guys back on to, [00:33:00] to see what’s up with Origin, uh, down the, down the road.

Peter: Awesome. Well, thanks for having me on, Luke.

Luke: Yeah, yeah. Appreciate it.

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