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  • Akshay Agrawal
  • Alex Evans
  • Guillermo Angeris
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  • TuongVy Le
Succinct Proofs and Linear Algebra
Abstract The intuitions behind succinct proof systems are often difficult to separate from some of the deep cryptographic techniques that…
  • Alex Evans,
  • Guillermo Angeris
  • Research
09.21.23
The Specter (and Spectra) of MEV
Abstract Miner extractable value (MEV) refers to any excess value that a transaction validator can realize by manipulating the ordering…
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Theo Diamandis,
  • Kshitij Kulkarni
  • Research
08.14.23
The Geometry of Constant Function Market Makers
Abstract Constant function market makers (CFMMs) are the most popular type of decentralized trading venue for cryptocurrency tokens. In this paper,…
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Theo Diamandis,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Kshitij Kulkarni
  • Research
07.20.23
Our Comment on The SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16
This week, we submitted a comment in response to the SEC’s proposed amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16 regarding the…
  • TuongVy Le
  • Regulatory
06.15.23
Opinion: A House Bill Would Make It Harder for the SEC to Argue Crypto Tokens Are Securities
The proposed Securities Clarity Act by Representatives Tom Emmer and Darren Soto would significantly reduce uncertainty for both crypto investors…
  • TuongVy Le,
  • Khurram Dara
  • Regulatory
06.01.23
Opinion: Regulators Should Not ‘Front-Run’ Congress on Stablecoins
Growing consensus on the need for comprehensive legislation on payment stablecoins provides Congress with an opportunity to enact sensible regulation…
  • TuongVy Le,
  • Khurram Dara
  • Regulatory
05.17.23
Our Comment on The SEC’s Proposed Custody Rule
This week, we submitted a comment in response to the SEC’s proposed custody rule, together with Dragonfly Capital, Electric Capital,…
  • TuongVy Le
  • Regulatory
05.09.23
A Note on the Welfare Gap in Fair Ordering
In this short note, we show a gap between the welfare of a traditionally ‘fair’ ordering, namely first-in-first-out (an ideal…
  • Theo Diamandis,
  • Guillermo Angeris
  • Research
03.27.23
Why I Joined BCC as Head of Marketing
I couldn’t be more excited to be joining BCC as Head of Marketing — amplifying the great work of Stefan,…
  • Mandy Campbell
  • Hiring
12.15.22
Podcast:  Why the Legal Process for FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried Could Take Years
Tuongvy Le joined Laura Shin on the Unchained Podcast on December 9, 2022 to discuss how the legal process for…
  • TuongVy Le
  • Regulatory
12.09.22
Podcast:  A Legal Perspective on Sanctions Against Tornado Cash 
Tuongvy Le appeared on the Zero Knowledge Podcast on September 14, 2022 to discuss the Tornado Cash sanctions:  what kind…
  • TuongVy Le
  • Regulatory
09.14.22
Multi-dimensional On-chain Resource Pricing
Public blockchains allow any user to submit transactions which modify the shared state of the network. These transactions are independently…
  • Theo Diamandis
  • Basics
08.16.22
Dynamic Pricing for Non-fungible Resources
Public blockchains implement a fee mechanism to allocate scarce computational resources across competing transactions. Most existing fee market designs utilize a joint, fungible unit of account (e.g., gas in Ethereum) to price otherwise non-fungible resources such as bandwidth, computation, and storage, by hardcoding their relative prices. Fixing the relative price of each resource in this way inhibits granular price discovery, limiting scalability and opening up the possibility of denial-of-service attacks.
  • Theo Diamandis,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Guillermo Angeris
  • Basics
08.16.22
Why I Joined BCC
I am excited to announce that I’ve joined Bain Capital Crypto as a Partner and Head of Regulatory & Policy.…
  • TuongVy Le
  • Hiring,
  • Press Release
05.16.22
Introducing CFMMRouter.jl
We created CFMMRouter.jl for convex optimization enthusiasts, twitter anons, and Tarun Chitra to easily find the optimal way to execute…
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Theo Diamandis
  • DeFi,
  • MEV
04.05.22
Why I’m Excited to Join Bain Capital Crypto
I’m thrilled to announce I’m joining Bain Capital Crypto as a Partner. I’ll be helping Stefan Cohen, Alex Evans and the rest of…
  • Press Release
03.14.22
Introducing Bain Capital Crypto
We are excited to announce Bain Capital Crypto (BCC), our first $560mm fund, and the launch of a new platform…
  • Stefan Cohen
  • Press Release
03.08.22
Navigating Privacy on Public Blockchains
This post is an exposition on the landscape of privacy in the context of public blockchains (a.k.a. decentralized ledgers, crypto, and Web3). The first part touches on why privacy is a key hurdle to wide-scale adoption and what different aspects of privacy are. The second part surveys three different approaches to privacy: via zero-knowledge proofs, aiming for anonymity only, and via a new abstraction called MOCCAs.
  • Wei Dai
  • Privacy
02.16.22
Optimal Routing for Constant Function Market Makers
We consider the problem of optimally executing an order involving multiple cryptoassets, sometimes called tokens, on a network of multiple constant function market makers (CFMMs). When we ignore the fixed cost associated with executing an order on a CFMM, this optimal routing problem can be cast as a convex optimization problem, which is computationally tractable. When we include the fixed costs, the optimal routing problem is a mixed-integer convex problem, which can be solved using (sometimes slow) global optimization methods, or approximately solved using various heuristics based on convex optimization. The optimal routing problem includes as a special case the problem of identifying an arbitrage present in a network of CFMMs, or certifying that none exists.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Stephen Boyd
  • MEV
12.01.21
Replicating Monotonic Payoffs Without Oracles
In this paper, we show that any monotonic payoff can be replicated using only liquidity provider shares in constant function market makers (CFMMs), without the need for additional collateral or oracles. Such payoffs include cash-or-nothing calls and capped calls, among many others, and we give an explicit method for finding a trading function matching these payoffs. For example, this method provides an easy way to show that the trading function for maintaining a portfolio where 50% of the portfolio is allocated in one asset and 50% in the other is exactly the constant product market maker (e.g., Uniswap) from first principles. We additionally provide a simple formula for the total earnings of an arbitrageur who is arbitraging against these CFMMs.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Tarun Chitra
  • DeFi
09.01.21
Constant Function Market Makers: Multi-Asset Trades via Convex Optimization
The rise of Ethereum and other blockchains that support smart contracts has led to the creation of decentralized exchanges (DEXs), such as Uniswap, Balancer, Curve, mStable, and SushiSwap, which enable agents to trade cryptocurrencies without trusting a centralized authority. While traditional exchanges use order books to match and execute trades, DEXs are typically organized as constant function market makers (CFMMs). CFMMs accept and reject proposed trades based on the evaluation of a function that depends on the proposed trade and the current reserves of the DEX. For trades that involve only two assets, CFMMs are easy to understand, via two functions that give the quantity of one asset that must be tendered to receive a given quantity of the other, and vice versa. When more than two assets are being exchanged, it is harder to understand the landscape of possible trades. We observe that various problems of choosing a multi-asset trade can be formulated as convex optimization problems, and can therefore be reliably and efficiently solved.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Akshay Agrawal,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Stephen Boyd
  • Basics,
  • DeFi
07.01.21
Replicating Market Makers
We present a method for constructing Constant Function Market Makers (CFMMs) whose portfolio value functions match a desired payoff. More specifically, we show that the space of concave, nonnegative, nondecreasing, 1-homogeneous payoff functions and the space of convex CFMMs are equivalent; in other words, every CFMM has a concave, nonnegative, nondecreasing, 1-homogeneous payoff function, and every payoff function with these properties has a corresponding convex CFMM. We demonstrate a simple method for recovering a CFMM trading function that produces this desired payoff. This method uses only basic tools from convex analysis and is intimately related to Fenchel conjugacy. We demonstrate our result by constructing trading functions corresponding to basic payoffs, as well as standard financial derivatives such as options and swaps.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Tarun Chitra
  • DeFi
03.01.21
A Note on Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers
Constant function market makers (CFMMs) such as Uniswap, Balancer, Curve, and mStable, among many others, make up some of the largest decentralized exchanges on Ethereum and other blockchains. Because all transactions are public in current implementations, a natural next question is if there exist similar decentralized exchanges which are privacy-preserving; i.e., if a transaction’s quantities are hidden from the public view, then an adversary cannot correctly reconstruct the traded quantities from other public information. In this note, we show that privacy is impossible with the usual implementations of CFMMs under most reasonable models of an adversary and provide some mitigating strategies.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Tarun Chitra
  • Privacy
02.01.21
Optimal Fees for Geometric Mean Market Makers
Constant Function Market Makers (CFMMs) are a family of automated market makers that enable censorship-resistant decentralized exchange on public blockchains. Arbitrage trades have been shown to align the prices reported by CFMMs with those of external markets. These trades impose costs on Liquidity Providers (LPs) who supply reserves to CFMMs. Trading fees have been proposed as a mechanism for compensating LPs for arbitrage losses. However, large fees reduce the accuracy of the prices reported by CFMMs and can cause reserves to deviate from desirable asset compositions. CFMM designers are therefore faced with the problem of how to optimally select fees to attract liquidity. We develop a framework for determining the value to LPs of supplying liquidity to a CFMM with fees when the underlying process follows a general diffusion. Focusing on a popular class of CFMMs which we call Geometric Mean Market Makers (G3Ms), our approach also allows one to select optimal fees for maximizing LP value. We illustrate our methodology by showing that an LP with mean-variance utility will prefer a G3M over all alternative trading strategies as fees approach zero.
  • Guillermo Angeris,
  • Tarun Chitra,
  • Alex Evans,
  • Stephen Boyd
  • DeFi
01.04.21
Liquidity Provider Returns in Geometric Mean Markets
Geometric mean market makers (G3Ms), such as Uniswap and Balancer, comprise a popular class of automated market makers (AMMs) defined by the following rule: the reserves of the AMM before and after each trade must have the same (weighted) geometric mean. This paper extends several results known for constant-weight G3Ms to the general case of G3Ms with time-varying and potentially stochastic weights. These results include the returns and no-arbitrage prices of liquidity pool (LP) shares that investors receive for supplying liquidity to G3Ms. Using these expressions, we show how to create G3Ms whose LP shares replicate the payoffs of financial derivatives. The resulting hedges are model-independent and exact for derivative contracts whose payoff functions satisfy an elasticity constraint. These strategies allow LP shares to replicate various trading strategies and financial contracts, including standard options. G3Ms are thus shown to be capable of recreating a variety of active trading strategies through passive positions in LP shares.
  • Alex Evans
  • DeFi
06.01.20
Back

Our Comment on The SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16

  • TuongVy Le
06.15.23
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This week, we submitted a comment in response to the SEC’s proposed amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16 regarding the definition of an “exchange.”

We support the SEC taking a technology-neutral approach to assessing whether an organization, association or group meets the definition of an “exchange.” But being technology neutral does not mean treating all technologies the same. Different technologies present different risks and benefits.

Blockchains and smart contracts enable peer-to-peer transactions with self-custody through the use of open, transparent communication protocols. Although these technologies can be used by an organization, association or group to provide a marketplace for securities trading, they do not inherently require the involvement of such an intermediary, nor do they necessarily relate to securities trading.

However, the Reopening Release in connection with the proposed amendments could be read to suggest that parties who use blockchain-based protocols or applications to transact would be required to involve a national securities exchange or alternative trading system (ATS), even if the protocol or application consists of asset-agnostic, open or passive technology operating on a peer-to-peer basis. The Reopening Release does not suggest the same treatment for parties using functionally similar technologies that do not involve blockchain.

We respectfully recommend that the SEC clarify this in order to remain consistent with a technology-neutral approach it espouses, and that the Exchange Act and Administrative Procedure Act require. We respectfully recommend the SEC:

  • Not require the designation of an intermediary for peer-to-peer transactions where no intermediary is otherwise involved
  • Not treat peer-to-peer transactions more stringently than those involving a broker, dealer or investment adviser
  • Not treat blockchain-based protocols differently from other general connectivity communication technologies

The exchange registration requirement is an important one that protects market participants from unfair or inequitable practices by intermediaries. Blockchains, however, enable investors to maintain custody and transfer assets electronically without involving an intermediary. While blockchains permit parties to transmit value over the Internet, including communicating price and quantity, the same is true for many other general purpose Internet-based technologies, such as auction and other e-commerce websites. By requiring parties who use blockchain-based protocols to trade through one or more intermediaries, the proposal would reintroduce the very risks that the SEC is seeking to address in non-blockchain contexts.

We appreciate the opportunity to comment and welcome the opportunity to work constructively with the SEC and its staff on a practical regulatory approach that encourages growth of this nascent technology, while also protecting investors.

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