Ex-Morgan Stanley Kevin Lepsoe Launches Infinity Exchange to Disrupt Crypto Fixed Income Markets

Infinity Exchange has launched the Testnet – the minimum viable project (MVP) – of its Institutional Fixed Income Protocol which is aimed at traders, yield producers and real money investors.

The London-based DeFi protocol uses a hybrid framework built on the Ethereum blockchain that performs off-chain calculations and risk management.

At the helm is founder Kevin Lepsoe, a former head of structuring at Hong Kong-based Morgan Stanley. There he led a team of structurers, quants and traders who worked with funds, financial institutions and governments. His career also includes senior roles in credit derivatives and foreign exchange roles at Barclays and ING Barings, based in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Before founding Infinity Exchange in June 2022, Lepsoe created two other startups: Notey and Chinafy. Now he wants to make his new venture, Infinity Exchange, the foundational rate and risk protocol for the stability and growth of DeFi.

Infinity Exchange aims to bring together for the first time the mechanics of the institutional interest rate market and the risk management of the TradFi markets with the DeFi markets. This would be an important milestone for the ecosystem as so far, early protocol builders have focused on generating widespread interest in a retail-like lending environment and built “DeFi 1.0” on shaky foundations. with fundamental flaws, the company claimed.

Crypto Fixed Income Markets Should Be 100 Times What They Are Today

Kevin Lepsoe, Founder of Infinity Exchange, commented, “Crypto fixed income markets are expected to be 100 times larger than they are today and we are taking the first two steps in that direction. We introduce an institutional-grade interest rate protocol that aligns with theoretical finance, while taking a holistic approach to risk management.

“In TradFi, institutional investors are more active in bond markets than in equity markets. If we want more institutional crypto adoption, we need to nail fixed income markets first and that starts here at Infinity.

Infinity Exchange wants to bring the industry into the new world of “DeFi 2.0” by building a protocol that uses the same mechanisms and achieves the same efficiencies associated with TradFi markets, and in particular, the interbank lending market.

The company introduces the concept of a variable rate with zero supply used for both lending and borrowing. He also wants to launch the first full yield curve in DeFi with floating and fixed rates, allowing traders to hedge their basis/rate risk and speculate the full length of the maturity curve.

Infinity believes that by increasing the range of investable assets along the yield curve, volatility should decrease and bring stability to the broader DeFi markets.

The exchange will accommodate a range of complex collateral currently without the ability to generate returns, thereby enhancing interest rate arbitrage opportunities between other lending protocols and Infinity.

The fixed income crypto platform also offers leverage to investors holding over $20 billion worth of TVL that are currently idle on Aave, Compound, Uniswap, and Curve.