Coinchange Asset Allocation Report on Stablecoin & Volatile Assets December 2023

Welcome to Coinchange’s Asset Allocation Report where we provide information on how Coinchange deploys client's assets and diversifies the investments while minimizing risks and maximizing potential earnings. The Asset Allocation Report will be published on a monthly basis to ensure we provide up to date and relevant key metrics related to the state of the client assets. 

This report covers the deployed assets over broad categories of protocol types, blockchains and client invested currencies. Within those categories, the deployed assets are allocated to specific strategies,  which undergo continuous optimization and re-allocations based on the evolution of the market, DeFi protocols, and the technology landscape.

We welcome community feedback to evolve this report to suit your specific needs. Feedback can be provided by sending a message to ccf.research.support@coinchange.io.

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Market Outlook

In December, the TVL increased moderately in dollar terms from around $47.87B to $53.25B for the whole DeFi market. DEX 30day volumes have gone up to $87.5 B in dollar terms after more than doubling from September at $35.2B.

Stablecoin market cap trailed up slightly from ~$128B to ~$130B ending on a positive note. The top two, USDT ($91.6B) and USDC ($23.9B) accounting for almost 90% of the total market cap. 

Here is the top 5 rankings of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects based on Total Value Locked (TVL):

1. Lido Finance has held the number one spot in terms of TVL since January of this year, surpassing the previous leader, MakerDAO. Lido Finance's TVL is approximately $21.1 billion, up another $2 billion from last month.
2. AAVE maintained the second spot, with a TVL close to $6.4 billion.
3. MakerDao stole third place from Arbitrum Bridge with a TVL of $5.6 billion.
4. Arbitrum bridge slid to fourth place with a $6.3 billion TVL and
5. Uniswap is in the fifth position with a TVL of around $3.9 billion.

Asset allocation has seen changes for stablecoin and volatile assets this month. For stablecoin we are now close to parity between the Earn account for USDC and USDT while the strategy type is the same. For volatile tokens, most of the allocation is in DEXs in order to benefit from the increased trading volume while ensuring the market exposure is neutral.

We recommend reading our DeFi Research News December 2023 for more insight on the markets. To learn more about where Coinchange rates stand compared to the industry, read our Yield Index report November 2023 or the Yield Index report December 2023

Strategy Concepts and Investment Philosophies

Coinchange is a technology platform that allows users to earn crypto on their holdings by facilitating yield generation through DeFi strategies. Coinchange strategies are automated systems, based on proprietary financial models that rebalance funds in the DeFi ecosystem as per changing market conditions. Our strategies fall into the following areas of the DeFi ecosystem:

Liquidity Provisioning (LP) & Hedging Strategies

LP strategies are based on participation in DEX protocols. LP plays an important role in Coinchange yield generation vision as it generally provides stable and uncorrelated returns agnostic to the direction of the market. DeFi protocols involved in Coinchange LP strategies include Uniswap, PancakeSwap, TraderJoe, Pangolin and others.

Coinchange LP strategies involve complex hedging and proprietary algorithms that help to maximize yield while keeping the strategy market-neutral. This helps eliminate the risks associated with LP pools that involve volatile currencies such as ETH. In addition, Coinchange strategies take advantage of the additional staking of reward tokens provided by associated AMM (Automated Market Maker) protocols.

Lend/Borrow and Arbitrage Strategies

DeFi lending protocols such as AAVE, Venus and others are at the core of this family of strategies. Coinchange strategies are able to maximize earnings using proprietary financial models to maintain optimum collateral levels (with respect to liquidations), stack multiple borrow/lend cycles, and include reward tokens into the yield cycle.

Coinchange also deploys sophisticated strategies that capitalize on arbitrage opportunities in the lend/borrow protocols. Such strategies can be highly beneficial in faster markets with greater levels of activity and interest fluctuations.

Staking Strategies

These strategies take advantage of niche opportunities where staking is the primary mechanism for yield generation. One such strategy leverages the pegged nature of staked Ethereum and uses it to boost the returns of basic Proof-of-Stake Ethereum staking. Such strategies are portable crosschain and can use any Liquid Staking Derivative token (LSD).

Coinchange only deploys assets on quality, widely used, and time-tested DeFi protocols. Below is a list of protocols used in Coinchange strategies:

• AAVE v2-3
• Uniswap v3
• TraderJoe
• Pancakeswap
• Sonne Finance
• Venus
• 1Inch
• GMX
• Lido

Stablecoin Assets under Management Breakdown

Managed Asset Mix

Below is the distribution of client stablecoin assets managed on the Coinchange platform as of December 31st. Coinchange accepts USDC, USDT and DAI on the Ethereum network. The distribution shows that USDT is still preferred over USDC by clients.

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Stablecoin Asset Allocation Breakdown per DeFi Protocol Type

Coinchange strategies accept and deploy client assets to various DeFi protocols, where each strategy has an algorithm and a set of currencies that it works with. The strategy is able to convert and deploy the assets, and later return them to the original asset upon withdrawal. The analysis below highlights Coinchange’s portfolio structure and the diversification to market mechanisms in the portfolio.

DeFi Protocol Type Groups

DEX: Decentralized Exchange Protocols (aka AMM and LP)

• Uniswap v2-v3
• TraderJoe
• GMX

MMP: Money Market Protocols (lending and borrowing)

• Aave v2
• Aave v3
• Compound
• Venus
• Sonne Finance

Staking: Staking Protocols for Governance and Blockchain Tokens

• BenQi
• Lido

The chart below shows strategy asset distribution among the DeFi protocol types. The current portfolio breakdown per protocol type, highlights the portfolio's diversification to market mechanisms while taking the current market environment into account. This protocol distribution is the direct result of the models and algorithms operating behind each strategy.

It can be seen that allocation changed in December 100% of stablecoin deployments being in MMP protocols. MMP protocols provide a relatively constant, stable yield given current market environments while benefiting from current increases in borrowing demand caused by spikes in volatility both in uptrend and downtrend.

0% of stablecoin deployment is allocated to the DEX protocols as of December 31st. The reason being that the current DEX strategies is not generating as consistent return as MMP based strategies.

0% of stablecoin deployment is allocated to staking protocols. The Staking strategy has not been resumed since January 2023 because the algo determined that strategy parameters such as volatility and interest rate fluctuations amongst other metrics were not within threshold, hence did not motivate a deployment of assets. Recent development around re-staking need to be explored to see if any strategies can be deployed leveraging those emerging protocols.

Stablecoin Asset Allocation Breakdown per Strategy

Each strategy takes different metrics as input to determine the best asset allocation on a pool basis in order to achieve optimized risk to reward ratio across the portfolio. 

The portfolio of stablecoin strategies treats all stablecoin as one unit of account since our internal due diligence, historical and current volatility analysis has shown that each of them could be securely and safely changed for one another under normal market conditions. This explains the discrepancy that can arise between the asset received breakdown above and the asset allocation break down per Earn Account.

The pie chart below provides an overview of the stablecoin asset distribution in the different related Earn Account at Coinchange. It is important to note here that each Earn Account can have multiple strategies earning for the specific asset. 

A significant rebalancing happened in December with nearly half the assets being deployed using USDC as the deployment asset. USDT is now the majority deployment with 55% as strategies deployed requires usage of USDT as primary asset. DAI allocation is 0%, which has been the case since December 2022, as too few strategies earning with DAI prove to earn sufficiently high APY to motivate an asset allocation. 

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Stablecoin strategies:

Strategy: Lending loop

• Protocols used: Sonne Finance
• Currency used as input: USDC, USDT
• Blockchain: Optimism
• Earning: Lending rate, Token incentives
• % of all stablecoin asset deployed: 100%

Strategy: FlashCarry

• Protocols used: AAVE, Curve
• Currency used as input: USDC
• Blockchain: Ethereum
• Earning: Lending rate, Token incentives, Staking rate
• % of all stablecoin asset deployed: 0%

Strategy: Hedging Strategy

• Protocols used: Pangolin, AAVE
• Currency used as input: USDC
• Blockchain: Avalanche
• Earning: Trading Fee, Token incentives, Staking rate
• % of all stablecoin asset deployed: 0%

Below is a pie chart highlighting the stablecoin asset allocation per strategy as of December 31st. Essentially another way to visualize allocation shared in the list above.

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Stablecoin Asset Allocation Breakdown per Blockchain

The chart below shows the resultant strategy asset distribution among blockchains. The blockchain distribution directly reflects the protocols being used by the strategies. Currently, each Coinchange strategies operate in one blockchain only.

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Volatile Asset under Management Breakdown

Managed Asset Mix

The chart below shows the asset mix of Bitcoin and Ethereum managed on Coinchange platform as of December 31st. Ethereum yields have historically been much stronger than Bitcon yields, which explains a clear preference to invest in Ethereum. 

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Volatile Asset Allocation Breakdown per Protocol Type

From the chart below we can see a major shift in allocation toward DEX at 97.1% compared to 100% allocation to MMP for the past months which now sits at 2.9%.
This is due to new strategies being deployed on DEXs and also the current market environment which in some pairs can be very profitable.

The protocols under each type are the same as the one listed in the section on stablecoin allocation breakdown per protocol type. 

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Volatile Asset Allocation Breakdown per Strategy

Each strategy takes different metrics as input to determine the best asset allocation on a pool basis in order to achieve optimized risk to reward ratio across the portfolio. 

The portfolio of volatile asset strategies treats all volatile assets separately compared to stablecoin where they are treated as one unit of account. This means that volatile assets can’t be traded one for the other when rebalancing the strategies and also explain that there is no discrepancy between the Asset Managed Mix above and the asset allocation breakdown per Earn Account below.

The pie chart below provides an overview of the volatile asset distribution in the different related Earn Account at Coinchange. It is important to note here that each Earn Account can have multiple strategies earning for the specific asset. 

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Volatile crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum

Strategy: LP Staking

• Protocols used: Balancer, Aura
• Currency used as input: ETH
• Blockchain: Optimism, Ethereum
• Earning: Trading fee, Token incentives, staking reward
• % of all volatile asset deployed: 94.6%

Strategy: Flash Carry

• Protocols used: Sonne Finance
• Currency used as input: WBTC, ETH
• Blockchain: Optimism
• Earning: Lending rate, Token incentives
• % of all volatile asset deployed: 2.9%

Strategy: Hedging strategy

• Protocols used: GMX, AAVE
• Currency used as input: ETH
• Blockchain: Arbitrum
• Earning: Trading fee, Token incentives
• % of all volatile asset deployed: 2.5%

Below is a pie chart highlighting the volatile asset allocation per strategy as of December 31st. Essentially another way to visualize allocation shared in the list above.

Volatile Asset Allocation Breakdown per Blockchain

The chart below shows the resultant strategy asset distribution among blockchains. The blockchain distribution directly reflects the protocols being used by the strategies. Currently, each Coinchange strategies operate in one blockchain only.

What Coinchange Team is Working on Next

Coinchange DeFi R&D team developed a Framework for Algorithmic Yield Strategies (FAYS) in the DeFi ecosystem and is continuously working on the next iteration and improvement. FAYS consists of a set of tools, models, and processes with the objective of quickly creating and managing effective, secure, and fully automated strategies for yield generation. The goal is to have portfolios of diversified strategies across chains, protocols, and market mechanisms. As we navigate the shifting landscape of DeFi yield, we continue to enhance our tools and internal processes to optimize performance and security. Below are a few points that the Coinchange DeFi R&D team has worked on the past few months in 2023:

Quant research and development:

• The research done on the cornerstone carry trade sequencing algorithms using algorithmic genetic approach has been completed and fully developed in March
• Research on new protocol types to expand our strategy possibilities and portfolio diversification both vertically - strategy deployment on new protocol primitive, and horizontally - strategy cloning across protocol and blockchain have been finalized. The latest strategy being deployed in Concentrated Liquidity Provisioning on Uniswap v3 and its forks, which enable strategy to earn in all markets while not depending on token rewards. 

Technology improvements:

• We architectured and developed our non-custodial framework of smart contracts.With this framework, the fund flow is fully transparent and the management of the smart contract is fully on-chain, paving the way for what Coinchange future might look like. Main difference for clients compared to the custodial product are:

• The client receives an NFT, proving that a deposit has been made to the vault. 
• The client is able to monitor its funds and all transactions happening with the vault directly on-chain. 
• Ownership of the funds remain with the client and withdrawals can be initiated anytime the client wants. Withdrawal can be conditioned to specific features, which can be enabled or disabled, such as lockups or cooldown periods. 

• To enable withdrawal for the non-custodial product, we’ve upgraded the services in charge of such tasks to be smart contracts. Now all withdrawal and subsequent rebalancing are all done using on-chain smart contracts without any off-chain services interaction. 
• Algorithms that allow full automation of all families of strategies developed in March as fully utilized. Specifically, new centralized services including strategy registry, in/out service and performance attribution service.

Please let us know if there is anything more you would like to see in our future reports by getting in touch with our support team here. If you would like to schedule a demo get in touch here.