Filling the FTX Void: 4 New Crypto Billion-Dollar Ideas

• Adam Cochram said that FTX has left a massive $42 billion void which needs to be filled.
• Cochran said that a version of MakerDAO with a “pure ETH implementation” is a $2 billion market.
• Cochran also confirmed that an exchange having team in “crypto native trenches” is a $10 billion market.

Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, identified four significant opportunities left vacant by the collapse of FTX, the digital asset trading platform founded by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). These opportunities, valued at around $10 billion each, include:

• A cross-margin international perps exchange without restrictive capitalizations.
• A platform for efficiently exchanging different stablecoins at par.
• Diverse on-ramps for non-US clients, avoiding regional exchange fragmentation.
• A digital asset exchange that fosters a sense of trust and community among investors.

Cochran also highlighted the potential for a MakerDAO-like platform with a pure ETH implementation, estimating its value at $2 billion. He noted that this is a significant gap in the industry left by the absence of a major player.

“The only other gap that big in the industry that has been let go by an existing player is probably now someone relaunching a version of MakerDAO with a pure ETH implementation.”

Cochran also explained that FTX’s client base was huge because some exchanges wisely capped the positions while the bankrupt exchange “took the IMF value approach” making the most concentrated asset investors’ portfolio as the collateral. Being flexible on both sides, FTX gained a massive user base but Alameda had to absorb most of the damage from the margins.

Cochran believes a middle ground can be found. FTX’s practice of presenting a unified USD balance to users, while performing arbitrary trading and redemptions behind the scenes, was a key acquisition strategy. This approach, however, involved additional costs associated with swaps and par settlement.

On the other hand, Bankman-Fried’s colleague Ryan Salame recently withdrew a court filing where he had asked a New York court to force the prosecutors to consider his plea deal. Meanwhile, SBF remains in jail but made it clear that he intends to clear his name.