General Discovery

Researcher: Jaris James

About the event

Project: Gro
Guests: Graadient
Topic: Leveraged Yield and Deposit Protection for Stablecoins
Event Scheduled: January 25, 2022 at 10 AM PST
NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE

About our guest speaker

Graadient, pronounced (Gradient) real name: Hannes Graah
(Twitter: ) (Discord: graadient | gro#0001**)**
Write a short bio about the guest(s) including their role at the project they are speaking about.
- From 2011 to 2019, Graadient worked at Spotify as a Business Operation Director, Managing Director, and Global Head of New Markets. In 2019, Graadient began working as the VP of Growth at Revolut, a fintech company based out of London for 1year, before quitting to go full time “degen.”
- Graadient started buying crypto in 2017, and started using DeFi protocols in 2019. He believed in DeFi protocols so much, that he quit his prestigious position as the VP of Growth at a traditional fintech company, named Revolut to be a “degen” full time.
- Graadient began using Nexus Mutual, a decentralized alternative to insurance. Nexus Mutual was expensive, but necessary to protect the gains he made in DeFi. However, Graadient believed that insurance should be built within the DeFi protocol, to eliminate the middleman. For example, when you deposit money into the bank, you don’t have to pay for insurance on your deposit, and he believed that DeFi should function the same way, in terms of built-in insurance. The experience Graadient had with Nexus Mutual inspired him to create Gro Protocol in 2020.
- Graadient’s greatest achievement in web3 was creating the first DeFi protocol with built-in insurance.

About the project

What is the general positioning of the project? i.e. DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, governance.
- General Position: A yield optimization platform with two primary options: high yield, and high risk (Vault) or lower yield and low risk (PWRD). Gro utilizes DeFi, DAOs, and governance.
What is the value proposition of the project? How does it clearly differentiate itself from others in the web3 space?
- GRO is different from other DeFi protocols because it has built in insurance, similar to a savings account in the “real world.” What makes Gro unique is their Risk Balancer, a novel risk tranching module that distributes smart contract and stablecoin risk in a targeted way.
How does it benefit its community members and general web3 communities at large?
- Most of the options for yield in DeFi has no protection attached to it. You have to buy the insurance separately, and pay for it up front. With the Gro’s PWRD option, the protection is built into the protocol.
Is it bridging blockchains, protocols, tools, communities, etc.?
- GRO is partnered with Argent Wallet, and is built on top of zkSync, which is a scaling solution on the Ethereum blockchain. Gro also utilizes a DAO for governance, and the DAO token is called $GRO. Gro Protocol also utilizes a protocol called Labs, which offers DeFi strategies that generate higher returns with low gas costs while removing operational complexity and is built on top of Avalanche. In a volatile market environment, Labs will manage the positions automatically to reduce losses that would have incurred if the positions were managed manually.
Does it bring a unique vision or approach to solve challenges in web3?
- Gro Protocol provides yield with built in protection. Gro removes the need of going to a third party to insure your stablecoins.