Attended DeFi Alliance's liquidity mining pitch event organised by @QwQiao and @lmrankhan.

Here's the list of 12 teams in no particular order.

@perpprotocol is building a uniswap meets bitmex experience. Has 1300 test users doing ~1.3 bil in volume so far. positioning to be a staple that helps third party projects hedge their assets (eg: http://harvest.finance )

@paraswap is positioning itself as an API based middleware layer for defi. Focused on the b2b angle. Building a network of market-makers and focusing on a l2 transition. Felt like a natural evolution of the off-chain rfq system kyber/0x used to do in 2017

@deversifi is combining bitfinex orderbooks with cex ones through a non-custodial experience. Claims 7000 users as of today. Core value prop : high speed trading and deep liquidity.
I use this, good product.

@vegaprotocol is building a high performance, non custodial network that integrates with Ethereum. Building a trading engine that settles in ether and cash. Helps create custom markets. reminded me of @UMAprotocol which helps make custom instruments.

@AcalaNetwork is more / less settling in as the key defi player. Creating a dex on polkadot that takes a fraction of what eth confirmation times are today. 280k tx's so far. Network likely to launch with staking and staking derivatives calld LDOT.

@NotionalFinance is building a fixed interest lending rate protocol on Ethereum. Team thinks there's a 7x growth space for lending markets in crypto if fixed rates can be offered. ($4bil vs 30bil). I intend to agree. Quite bullish on what this can do for retail defi adoption

@indexcoop has a vision of being the Blackrock/vanguard for crypto. Has a defipulse index project live already with ~25 million in liquidity already. Working closely with set protocol and launching a number of new indices in the days to come.

@tokenlon has been steadily growing in the dex space through defi summer. Does about $30 million in trades a day. Focused on combining off-chain requests for quote with on-chain settlements. Impressive growth with average trade size at $10k

@MonteCarloDEX has slowly been evolving since their launch in Q2 this year. They will likely launch perpetuals with fee structures that are similar to CeFi variants in the coming months. Think of it as uniswap, but with leverage.

@PodsFinance is .. aggressively visionary in that it truly expands DeFi markets. They help create structured products that are transferrable, tradeable and settled on-chain with no custody. Individual assets could then be traded. Excited for what the team will do

Saddle Finance will be launching a @synthetix_io based exchange focused on price parity assets. Looking to do a guarded launch by end of quarter

Side note : Going to have to spend a while looking at teams building on $snx soon.. quite a few

@loopringorg is a zk-rollup based exchange built on ethereum. Individual market-makers have rewards accruing every hour, transferrable end of month. critical infra for l2 on-boarding. they had some news.. which i dont think i'm allowed to share so but huge fan of the team

quick observations
1. network effects of teams building on defi will exponentially scale activity in the space in 2021
2. institutions will be critical but will bring regulators along with them
3. net bullish on talent/originality in the space

Sorry if any team descriptions are off. woke up at 4:30 am in the morning, had copious amounts of coffee and sat through 12 pitches in a row before compiling this. Thanks again for organising this @lmrankhan and team.