Brahma Console | December 2023 DeFi Report

Dec 29, 2023

~ 4 mins

The Year of Brahma

In our end-of-the-year piece for December 2023, we delve into a couple of significant events and narratives shaping the end of 2023 and the onset of a new year, the Year of Brahma.

Following an extended bear market, over a year and a half long, 2023 has shown promising signs of recovery, and possibly a trend reversal, sparking enthusiasm across investors.

Signs of recovery from 1.5 year bear market


Among the prominent narratives, anticipation grows for the much-awaited approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF, expected in early January 2024, between the 5th and 10th.

Aside from its role as a market catalyst, a spot ETF approval would symbolize a broader regulatory acceptance of Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Amidst the context of a clearer regulatory landscape, we foresee a surge in institutional investor involvement in DeFi, transcending conventional ETFs, as shown by the increased amounts of Large Transaction in Bitcoin.

The increasing sophistication of crypto institutional investors is born of their need to adapt to the ever-shifting cryptocurrency landscape. The development of a cross-chain ecosystem, with yield opportunities laying across different protocols, means institutional investors face a dilemma: whether they should take a passive approach to the market, or maximise all the opportunities present with an active approach.

The latter necessitates proper tools to navigate this increasingly complex landscape.

However, most current solutions prioritise toolsets interacting with centralised or decentralized exchanges, at the expense of building a UX which can remove friction and improve execution directly on-chain, creating a market gap for more specialised and efficient solutions.


A Guide to DeFi Best-Practices

As the DeFi landscape grows more intricate, the potential for security risks expands accordingly. The recent events that saw the Ledger console-kit incident underscore the importance of robust opsec within one’s portfolio.

In this short report, we present some of the best practices that can help anyone safeguard their assets when interacting with Decentralized Applications (dApps) and protocols.


Sub-accounts and Risk Segregation

Operating across multiple different accounts, each for specific purposes, is a crucial strategy, and one of the best practices to be aware of. Users can exercise granular access control, managing the permissions of different sub-accounts, with their desired degree of risk segregation.


Automation and Optimised Execution

According to Murphy’s law, the best trading setups happen while you are asleep.
Automating your transaction execution ensures you never miss out on any opportunity.

Those include strategies like Dollar-Cost-Average and Time Weighted Average Price, Swap Automations, Lending Automations, as well as Position and Risk Management, such as automatically rebalancing a loan according to its health factor, or automatically withdraw based on de-peg or liquidity triggers. All of those require much less active involvement with the proper automation setup in place.


Self-Custody and Tailored Solutions

High-standard security practices, such as operating from a multi-sig wallet and with full self-custody, are essential in DeFi.

However, alone they might not be enough! We recognise that ultra-secure solutions can sometimes hinder active engagement within DeFi, as they are often cumbersome to use.

The current one-size-fits-all approach fails to capture the different needs of investors. With the help of appropriate tools, different sets of users will be able to customise their interactions with DeFi protocols according to their needs: DAOs might be more concerned with governance and internal operational management, funds will be focused on investing, while DeFi degens on yield farmings or meme coins.

Following an extended bear market, over a year and a half long, 2023 has shown promising signs of recovery, and possibly a trend reversal, sparking enthusiasm across investors.

Signs of recovery from 1.5 year bear market


Among the prominent narratives, anticipation grows for the much-awaited approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF, expected in early January 2024, between the 5th and 10th.

Aside from its role as a market catalyst, a spot ETF approval would symbolize a broader regulatory acceptance of Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Amidst the context of a clearer regulatory landscape, we foresee a surge in institutional investor involvement in DeFi, transcending conventional ETFs, as shown by the increased amounts of Large Transaction in Bitcoin.

The increasing sophistication of crypto institutional investors is born of their need to adapt to the ever-shifting cryptocurrency landscape. The development of a cross-chain ecosystem, with yield opportunities laying across different protocols, means institutional investors face a dilemma: whether they should take a passive approach to the market, or maximise all the opportunities present with an active approach.

The latter necessitates proper tools to navigate this increasingly complex landscape.

However, most current solutions prioritise toolsets interacting with centralised or decentralized exchanges, at the expense of building a UX which can remove friction and improve execution directly on-chain, creating a market gap for more specialised and efficient solutions.


A Guide to DeFi Best-Practices

As the DeFi landscape grows more intricate, the potential for security risks expands accordingly. The recent events that saw the Ledger console-kit incident underscore the importance of robust opsec within one’s portfolio.

In this short report, we present some of the best practices that can help anyone safeguard their assets when interacting with Decentralized Applications (dApps) and protocols.


Sub-accounts and Risk Segregation

Operating across multiple different accounts, each for specific purposes, is a crucial strategy, and one of the best practices to be aware of. Users can exercise granular access control, managing the permissions of different sub-accounts, with their desired degree of risk segregation.


Automation and Optimised Execution

According to Murphy’s law, the best trading setups happen while you are asleep.
Automating your transaction execution ensures you never miss out on any opportunity.

Those include strategies like Dollar-Cost-Average and Time Weighted Average Price, Swap Automations, Lending Automations, as well as Position and Risk Management, such as automatically rebalancing a loan according to its health factor, or automatically withdraw based on de-peg or liquidity triggers. All of those require much less active involvement with the proper automation setup in place.


Self-Custody and Tailored Solutions

High-standard security practices, such as operating from a multi-sig wallet and with full self-custody, are essential in DeFi.

However, alone they might not be enough! We recognise that ultra-secure solutions can sometimes hinder active engagement within DeFi, as they are often cumbersome to use.

The current one-size-fits-all approach fails to capture the different needs of investors. With the help of appropriate tools, different sets of users will be able to customise their interactions with DeFi protocols according to their needs: DAOs might be more concerned with governance and internal operational management, funds will be focused on investing, while DeFi degens on yield farmings or meme coins.

Following an extended bear market, over a year and a half long, 2023 has shown promising signs of recovery, and possibly a trend reversal, sparking enthusiasm across investors.

Signs of recovery from 1.5 year bear market


Among the prominent narratives, anticipation grows for the much-awaited approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF, expected in early January 2024, between the 5th and 10th.

Aside from its role as a market catalyst, a spot ETF approval would symbolize a broader regulatory acceptance of Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Amidst the context of a clearer regulatory landscape, we foresee a surge in institutional investor involvement in DeFi, transcending conventional ETFs, as shown by the increased amounts of Large Transaction in Bitcoin.

The increasing sophistication of crypto institutional investors is born of their need to adapt to the ever-shifting cryptocurrency landscape. The development of a cross-chain ecosystem, with yield opportunities laying across different protocols, means institutional investors face a dilemma: whether they should take a passive approach to the market, or maximise all the opportunities present with an active approach.

The latter necessitates proper tools to navigate this increasingly complex landscape.

However, most current solutions prioritise toolsets interacting with centralised or decentralized exchanges, at the expense of building a UX which can remove friction and improve execution directly on-chain, creating a market gap for more specialised and efficient solutions.


A Guide to DeFi Best-Practices

As the DeFi landscape grows more intricate, the potential for security risks expands accordingly. The recent events that saw the Ledger console-kit incident underscore the importance of robust opsec within one’s portfolio.

In this short report, we present some of the best practices that can help anyone safeguard their assets when interacting with Decentralized Applications (dApps) and protocols.


Sub-accounts and Risk Segregation

Operating across multiple different accounts, each for specific purposes, is a crucial strategy, and one of the best practices to be aware of. Users can exercise granular access control, managing the permissions of different sub-accounts, with their desired degree of risk segregation.


Automation and Optimised Execution

According to Murphy’s law, the best trading setups happen while you are asleep.
Automating your transaction execution ensures you never miss out on any opportunity.

Those include strategies like Dollar-Cost-Average and Time Weighted Average Price, Swap Automations, Lending Automations, as well as Position and Risk Management, such as automatically rebalancing a loan according to its health factor, or automatically withdraw based on de-peg or liquidity triggers. All of those require much less active involvement with the proper automation setup in place.


Self-Custody and Tailored Solutions

High-standard security practices, such as operating from a multi-sig wallet and with full self-custody, are essential in DeFi.

However, alone they might not be enough! We recognise that ultra-secure solutions can sometimes hinder active engagement within DeFi, as they are often cumbersome to use.

The current one-size-fits-all approach fails to capture the different needs of investors. With the help of appropriate tools, different sets of users will be able to customise their interactions with DeFi protocols according to their needs: DAOs might be more concerned with governance and internal operational management, funds will be focused on investing, while DeFi degens on yield farmings or meme coins.

New Year’s Resolution

In our commitment to make these best practices the new standard, we envision 2024 as a year where the sophistication of DeFi investors is finally met with tools that can simplify their journey.

Among those tools, Brahma’s Console is uniquely positioned to support how institutional investors, DAOs, and DeFi users operate within DeFi.

Built on top of Safe’s self-custody multi-sig stack, Console never takes custody of user funds.

By leveraging what is arguably the industry standard of multi-sig custody we aim to build on their security-first approach to enhance the UX of Safe users without compromising on security, offering Sub-Accounts, risk segregation, and customised automation and execution tailored to various user groups, from DAOs to power users.

The increasing complexity of the landscape is poised to witness the renewal of institutional investment inflows within DeFi. While previously a complicated pathway to walk for investors, tools like Brahma enabling professional on-chain execution within DeFi, balancing flexibility and security, without the need to compromise on any of them.

Our goal for 2024 is to align the sophistication of DeFi investors with tools that streamline and simplify their investment journey.

Our commitment to supporting investors is embodied in Console’s modular architecture, designed to accommodate diverse and individual needs.

Whether for investment management, governance, or investment management, we have a solution.
Experience the future standard of DeFi execution with Console, an on-chain custody and execution environment tailored to your needs. Brahma Console is live on Ethereum, with our Beta available on Arbitrum.

Earn upto 2x Blast Gold on your dApp interactions

Earn upto 2x Blast Gold on your dApp interactions