Firelight is also considering a broader universe of liquid assets that do not already generate substantial yield, CEO Anthony DeMartino told CoinDesk in an interview.
“There’s a bunch of different assets that we’re considering,” DeMartino said. “Anything … that’s a solid asset, that has good liquidity to it, that doesn’t provide its own natural yield, will eventually be eligible to be posted as collateral.”
Fintech money onchain
Firelight is betting that the bigger opportunity lies beyond crypto-native traders as fintechs, neobanks and payments companies increasingly plug onchain yield products into their apps.
The possibility of losing customer capital to an exploit can become a major obstacle when a product is ready to go live, DeMartino said. Firelight aims to provide a protection layer that makes that jump less daunting.
“This isn’t built for degens,” he said. “This is built to bring the next wave of capital in. We want to be that protection layer to allow that adoption.”
DeMartino said he expects more money currently sitting in bank accounts to migrate into fintech earn products powered by stablecoins, onchain vaults and wallets. Sentora itself has been working on bringing yield products to fintech applications, including payroll and remittance platforms, he said.
The protection gap remains large. Roughly $80 billion is locked in DeFi, according to Firelight, while only a fraction of a percent is protected by onchain cover.
