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Unforkable Moats in DeFi
Moat”, a term coined by Warren Buffett, refers to a business’s ability to maintain its competitive advantage...As the name indicates, a moat generally relies on keeping others out, leveraging proprietary technology...While establishing a moat is difficult enough in traditional markets, the very idea of a moat seems impossible...
8 Min
Spot Exchange
Sep 2020
Hermes: The Moat Above The Model
The report is about where the moat sits when the code is free to copy.
Infrastructure
Jun 2026
A New Framework For Understanding Moats In Crypto Markets
The success of every company – from tech giants to century-old conglomerates – can be reduced to its moat...Whether in the form of network effects, switching costs, or economies of scale, moats are what ultimately...While defensibility is often an afterthought for crypto investors, I would argue the concept of a moat...
36 Min
DeFi
Aug 2024
Can Euler Finance Carve Out a Moat?
Aave and Compound have paved the path for the basic money market design space in DeFi. While Euler's TVL is incredibly small compared to them, it has been a standout year for the protocol's growth....
13 Min
Money Markets
Oct 2022
SYNTHETIC-1 & DeepScaleR: Eroding the Closed-Source AI Moat
AI’s biggest competitive advantage—compute power and proprietary data—is no longer an impenetrable moat...synthetic reasoning data is eliminating the need for proprietary training pipelines, eroding Big Tech’s moat...
8 Min
Infrastructure
Feb 2025
The State of Yearn ($YFI)
...marginal risk-adjusted liquidity effectively, and this is a function of Yearn’s respective potential moats...You can siphon off a talented Strategy dev, but pulling the aggregate knowledge moat of the community...This makes Yearn’s moat more defensible....Second, governance plays a vital role in Yearn v2 Vaults, as stated above in the tacit knowledge moat...
8 Min
Vaults
Nov 2020
Crypto Investing Framework: Why Insurance Is Relatively Undervalued
Will the project be able to capture value from those users and establish a long-term, defensible moat...Ideally, as investors we want projects with multiple, compounding, unforkable moats that cumulatively...As such, an exchange’s primary moat is its liquidity since this will mean better execution for traders...
7 Min
Insurance
Dec 2020
Crypto Investing Framework: Why Insurance Is Relatively Undervalued
Will the project be able to capture value from those users and establish a long-term, defensible moat...Ideally, as investors we want projects with multiple, compounding, unforkable moats that cumulatively...As such, an exchange’s primary moat is its liquidity since this will mean better execution for traders...
7 Min
Insurance
Dec 2020
Differentiation on the demand-side is difficult as customers mostly care about execution While liquidity is a moat...While liquidity is a network effect/moat since it provides better execution (similar to how scale with...extraction by governance token holders will immediately hamper execution and thus the size of their moat...
4 Min
DeFi
Aug 2020
Apps and Chains, Not Issuers: The Next Wave of Stablecoin Economics Belongs to DeFi
Tether and Circle’s Moat Is Eroding: Distribution Beats Network Effects Incumbent market share held by...While USDH will not displace USDC overnight, this decision reflects a broader power shift: the moat and...But as the stablecoin stack commoditizes, that moat is weakening....Distribution is the moat....Circle and Tether's moat is eroding.
19 Min
DeFi
Oct 2025
DEX Wars and Aggregation Theory
This being the case, in order to differentiate themselves, build a moat, and win their markets, DEXes...liquidity mining will be table stakes for new DEXes launching and is thus unlikely to provide an enduring moat...time, protocols that consistently innovate first on their UX may be able to build enduring liquidity moats...
5 Min
DeFi
Aug 2020
Enjin Coin
Risks Overview 20 Token Economics 5 Competitive Advantage 21 Fundamental Valuation 7 Enjin's Moat...We believe their ecosystem can serve as a potential moat against competitors, while also allowing them...see how the per coin value of ENJ changes. 13 Value Drivers Path to Adoption Their Ecosystem as a Moat...
Gaming
Feb 2019
Market Musings - A Tale of Two Markets
A New Framework For Understanding Moats In Crypto Markets **(Delphi Research)** In an industry where...the laws of competition are inherently accelerated, the concept of a moat is profoundly important....However, we currently lack the right frameworks for understanding moats, and downstream of this, where...
12 Min
Macro & Markets
Sep 2024
Wormhole: A Solana/Ethereum Bridge ?
We still feel it is unlikely Solana breaks Ethereum’s community/developer moat, but it would be naive...Net, Wormhole is amping up competitive pressures for layer-1’s regardless of one’s views on moats.
5 Min
Infrastructure
Oct 2020
The Fat Wallet Thesis
...chain-abstracted paradigm, intangibles such as brand or “vibes” and “alignment” will no longer be a moat...CAC) is also structurally lower for crypto apps As I outlined in A New Framework For Understanding Moats...Consequently, it is extremely difficult to cultivate a moat and sustain market share.
32 Min
Wallets
Oct 2024
Smart Stablecoins and its Emerging Stack
The more liquid USDC and the reach of this liquidity (integrations) is a moat for USDC....Therefore, will specific ‘smart’ stablecoins command a liquidity premium and a moat for the underlying...
5 Min
DeFi
Oct 2020
Arbitrum Activity Accelerates After the Nitro Upgrade
...activity following the Nitro upgrade and our Research team examines whether Euler Finance can carve out a moat...⚡Can Euler Finance Carve Out a Moat?
5 Min
Nov 2022
Investing in DeFi - Passive vs Active Management
High, sticky yields might be the biggest moat for passive management protocols, but for active ones it...can be constantly commoditized, although continued strategy maintenance can be an underappreciated moat...
6 Min
Spot Exchange
Mar 2021
Policy Paper Series (Part 1): Reframing How We Look at a Crypto Legislative Solution
...same functions),[22] we should also be very careful not to create barriers to entry and regulatory moats...as “front ends” or developers without careful thought to the systemic implications of the regulatory moats...created.[30] Moats lead to centralization, market capture, and permissioning regimes.
35 Min
Policy
Mar 2023
It's SAFE to Say Gnosis is a Monopoly
Does Gnosis have a large enough moat to be able to pull off charging a fee?...We broadly view Gnosis Safe’s widespread third-party integrations as a moat that gives Gnosis Safe significant...And this is why we believe integrations could serve as a kind of moat.
11 Min
Asset Management
Aug 2022