Into the secret garden or a dark pool of confusion? Do DeFi ‘gardens’ or ‘pools’ provide a democratic investment alternative?

Written by Mark Le Page at Kroll

“What if the people that [sic] know the opportunities share them and get rewarded?…you can choose to engage, join the conversation and discuss opportunities…Other participants in the same group can endorse or downvote these ideas…The best ideas will activate the pooled capital. The rewards for good ideas will be shared between the ideators, curators, and investors.” Recuero, R. (2021)

This manifesto on DeFi gardens, pools or sets reflects the dialectic playing out between the cryptoasset industry and financial regulators in Operation Choke 2.0. Despite regulators seeing unacceptable risks to the public, DeFi pushes the boundaries onwards: making good return, but risky, investments, available to “the people”.  DeFi gardens, pools or sets are internet investment platforms which seek to remove an intermediary by utilising “open source software, cryptomathematics, cryptography and math.” I was sceptical of gardens, thinking they presented imminent dangers of financial loss to the public, n…