In a recent interview with Blockworks, Akshat Vaidya, the investment head of Maelstrom, Arthur Hayes’ inaugural fund, discussed the fund’s focus on decentralization as a means of avoiding regulatory conflicts. For those not familiar, Maelstrom is the debut fund from BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes’ family office, only five months old. Maelstrom carefully navigates the fine line between compliance and decentralization, while maintaining its focus on tangible returns.
Vaidya cites the investment in Obol Labs, a distributed validator technology middleware company, as an example of a startup well-positioned within decentralization. Obol Labs allows Ethereum validator keys to be “split” among multiple node operators, which reduces single points of failure for Ethereum staking. The investment head believes that companies like Obol Labs, with mission-critical offerings that address potentially huge markets, can effectively keep regulatory concerns at bay.
When discussing the regulatory landscape around decentralized systems and blockchain technology, Vaidya emphasized Maelstrom’s desire to avoid conflicts at all costs. He recalls instances where regulators rightfully raised concerns about counterparty and ecosystem risks in custodial business models that could have been mitigated or eliminated entirely by greater decentralization, making them a perfect investment opportunity for Maelstrom.
To ensure both technological innovation and financial viability in the long run, Vaidya declared that Maelstrom’s “financial, operational, legal, and tech diligence is rooted in our DNA as founders, builders, and operators ourselves.” He mentioned that Hayes, having built one of the first profitable unicorns in the industry, lends his valuable experience and insights to the fund.
On Maelstrom’s long-term vision and investment strategy, Vaidya shared that the family office structure and their longer investment horizon provide an edge over typical venture funds. The fund aims to build a long-term portfolio of decentralized infrastructure companies/protocols that will serve as future building blocks.
Finally, when asked about the future of decentralized products and services in the next 5-10 years, Vaidya expects that within their lifetimes, a nontrivial amount of global GDP will be directly or indirectly cleared on blockchains (public, state-permissioned, and private). He compared this upcoming change to the sudden demand for communications platforms like Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic. Vaidya outlined that when demand for legacy financial infrastructure starts to wane, Maelstrom’s portfolio will be poised to capture meaningful value from decentralized solutions.
Source: Blockworks
