Mark Fidelman is the CEO of SmartBlocks and the host of Cryptonized, a podcast that ditches jargon to educate people about the blockchain in terms they can understand. Like so many people just waking up to the reality of cryptocurrency reaching critical mass in today’s economy, he admits to being a relative latecomer to the space. With more and more exciting crypto projects gaining mainstream attention, his goal is to inspire others to confidently enter the space along with him. Today, his attention is on the first-ever decentralized exchange-traded fund, TetraGuard.
A crypto influencer making up for lost time
Fidelman admits he was not a proponent of cryptocurrency from the beginning. “I was a big denier of cryptocurrency when bitcoin first emerged,” he recalls. “I didn’t understand the impact until Ethereum launched. As soon as I grasped the potential for smart contracts and programmable money, I was sold.”
Fidelman started his crypto-centric podcast Cryptonized to learn what he was missing about the digital assets that were taking the economy by storm. “I learn by talking to others,” he remarks. “The best way I have found to meet smart, influential people in any space is to engage with them directly, even inviting them as gust speakers on my YouTube show and podcast at times. I love meeting new people in the space and learning about their stories.”
Cryptonized features engaging discussions with Crypto experts to separate hype from reality. Each episode examines a crypto project that catches Fiddleman’s attention. Currently, Tetraguard is highest on his radar.
SmartBlocks launches Tetraguard this April
Tetraguard is the first-ever decentralized fee-producing basket of coins to hit the blockchain. Baskets that bundle securities such as stocks and bonds are called exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They are not new, but no one has successfully decentralized these baskets until now. “Most people in crypto understand how hard it is to create an ETF in the space,” Fiddleman remarks. “Many have tried, but most have failed.”
Inside Tetraguard’s basket, investors will find the TETRA token. This token is composed of a bundle of wrapped coins, which are tokens pegged to a particular cryptocurrency that can operate on another blockchain network. TETRA coins contain wrapped Bitcoin, also called wrapped BTC; wrapped PAXG, a stablecoin backed by physical gold; wrapped Eth; and QUAD, a fee-sharing token.
Benefits of holding TETRA tokens
“Tetraguard makes it easy to purchase a basket of high-performing wrapped coins plus the QUAD,” explains Fiddleman. “The QUAD is a rewards token that allows its holder to share in transaction fees. Instead of fees going to exchanges like they would in a centralized ETF, Tetraguard automatically distributes them among all the Tetraguard token holders.”
Investors realize the benefit of holding Tetraguard with each transaction. Every time a TETRA is swapped, Tetraguard’s protocol automatically collects the transaction fees and staked ETH in the QUAD fee token. These fees and staked ETH are algorithmically distributed evenly to all token holders based on their amount of TETRA tokens. The most significant gains for investors come from their auto-compounding balances. Compounding occurs when people reinvest an asset’s earnings to generate additional profits. By comparison, auto-compounding happens when the rewards are automatically sold and re-added to the pool, earning higher yields each time.
“Basically, Tetraguard is a decentralized ETF that makes trading a basket of tokens easy, plus it pays rewards just for holding it,” Fiddleman explains. “I have been a huge proponent of the mission from the start.”
The beauty of a decentralized ETF
Centralized ETFs need a middleman to conduct business between buyers and sellers. In those scenarios, the intermediary has control and power.
Tetraguard can be entirely decentralized thanks to a sophisticated automated trading algorithm to mint and cancel TETRA tokens as they are bought and sold. Assets are stored directly on the Ethereum blockchain; not kept under the management or control of any third party.
Fidelman’s enthusiasm for the first decentralized ETF is contagious. He believes in a future that democratizes currency, making it available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. In his opinion, that future is DeFi. Projects like Tetraguard disrupt the status quo and taking power away from bureaucratic, greedy investment banks. For those who like the sound of those ideas but whose heads are spinning with terms like DeFi, ETF, and wrapped coins, there is someone who can help. By breaking down technical topics into digestible concepts, Fidelman delivers the information to make crypto investment easy and fun. “The advice I tell my close friends is to watch YouTube channels like Cryptonized and listen to podcasts like Bankless for the most relevant up-to-date information on the space.”
