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Balancer: Custom AMMs and Liquidity Solutions - Fernando Martinelli

Episode Summary

We were joined by Fernando Martinelli, co-founder & CEO of Balancer, to discuss the AMM landscape, how it evolved and the possibilities unlocked by custom AMMs, for both users, as well as developers.

Episode Notes

While AMMs (automated market makers) represent a DeFi innovation in themselves, research and experimentation have pushed the possibilities well beyond the limitations of the classic x*y=k constant product formula originally used by LPs. One of the main innovators in this field remains Balancer - from multi-token pools with different weights replicating TradFi indices, to dynamic ratios that can be changed under certain conditions preventing further imbalances, Balancer set in place user protection measures. With the recent release of Balancer V3, developers get more freedom to experiment with AMMs, introducing features such as hooks that enable limitless pool customisation, boosted pools that combine LP fees with yield farming from money markets, and many more.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Balancer’s inception
• The evolution of AMMs
• Balancer vs. other AMM competitors
• Fungible vs. non-fungible liquidity
• Balancer v3
• Boosted liquidity pools
• DevEx and hooks in Balancer v3
• Preventing stablecoin depegs
• MEV mitigation & CoW AMM
• Scaling to L2s
• Gyroscope & QuantAMM
• Balancer’s B2C & B2B solutions

Episode links:

• Fernando Martinelli on X
• Balancer on X

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.