Archimedes

Archimedes operates as a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, functioning as a lending and borrowing marketplace built on decentralized exchanges. The company was established in 2022 by Oz Rabinovitch, Tomer Mayara, and Derek Moen. By February 2023, the firm had successfully raised $7.3 million in total funding through pre-seed and seed rounds, with notable investors including Hack VC and Shima Capital.

The core of Archimedes' business is to provide users with a mechanism to earn higher yields on their digital assets through leverage. The platform caters to two main types of users: liquidity providers (lenders) and leverage takers (borrowers). Lenders supply capital, primarily stablecoins, to liquidity pools and in return earn a yield generated from the fees paid by borrowers. Borrowers can then access this liquidity to take on leveraged positions, amplifying their exposure to yield-bearing stablecoins by up to 10 times their initial collateral. This model aims to create a sustainable yield for lenders while offering significant potential returns for borrowers.

Archimedes' product packages these highly leveraged positions into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which represent the user's position and can be traded on the open market without needing to unwind the underlying assets. This creates a more flexible and liquid instrument for users managing their DeFi investments. Revenue is generated through fees paid by borrowers to access leverage and a performance fee on the proceeds from these leveraged positions. These fees are then used to provide returns to the liquidity providers. The protocol also utilizes its native token, ARCH, for functions like paying borrowing fees upfront through an auction mechanism and for governance. The platform's native stablecoin is called lvUSD.

Keywords: decentralized finance, DeFi, crypto lending, crypto borrowing, yield farming, leverage trading, stablecoins, liquidity pools, NFTs, blockchain