Sergei Sadkov

Experiment with bStocks in DeFi: full cycle completed

A month ago, протестировал (see видео) the position with tokenized Tesla:
1. Bought $TSLAB on Binance and transferred it to BNB Chain.
2. Deposited it as collateral on Lista DAO, borrowed $USD1 and placed it in a yield Vault.
3. Opened a short TSLA position to hedge against the risk of the stock falling.

Results after 27 days:
With capital of ~$1,130 (collateral $600 + short $530), net profit was +$4.53 (~5.4% annualized). That’s a return in stablecoins, higher than rates on foreign-currency deposits, with the option to maintain 100% exposure to stock gains.

The latest Binance report also confirms demand for bStocks:
The product surpassed $1.5 billion in AUM in just 145 days, capturing 31.4% of the tokenized stock market. And 56% of trading volume takes place outside US market hours — 24/7 access and 1:1 backing are driving a massive influx of users.

Bottom line: I moved from the exchange into DeFi in two clicks, earned on BNB Chain with tiny fees, and transferred everything back to Binance. Full cycle complete!

#Binance #bStocks #DeFi #BNBChain

🥇 Commodity Chain — first place in the Superteam Kazakhstan track at Colosseum’s Crypto World’s Fair. 80 projects, $2,000 prize.

The project is led by Anvar Nietkaliev, CEO and co-founder of Commodity Chain. He’s the one driving the project forward: from securing an AFSA license to bringing on the first farmers and investors. I’d also like to give special recognition to Yeset Zhusupov: he did an enormous amount of development work — the entire Solana component, from the on-chain program to the platform, was built by him. The project manager is Olzhas Moldybayev. I helped the team as a product marketer: with positioning, the pitch, a demo video (Indira and I shot some top-notch content), the presentation, and how to clearly explain the blockchain component to judges and investors.

What Field-to-Finance does: tokenizes future harvests. Fields are verified via satellite, a token is issued against a portion of the harvest, investors buy it, and the farmer gets funding for planting before the crop is harvested. After the harvest, investors can redeem their tokens with a coupon or receive grain at the elevator. Every step is recorded on the Solana blockchain. Commodity Chain holds an AFSA license in the AIFC FinTech Lab for exchange and clearing services.

Why I believe in this. Tokenization of real-world assets is the clearest bridge between crypto and the real economy. In its base-case scenario, McKinsey expects around $2 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030.

Congratulations to us :)

💳 An impressive story about how KAST canceled its token launch

If you haven’t come across KAST, it’s an app with a Visa card. You top up your balance with stablecoins like USDC or USDT, then use the card to pay for everyday purchases and subscriptions.

Users received an email announcing a change in strategy. In short, there won’t be a TGE (token generation event), points will stop accruing on November 30, and the accumulated points will start being converted in the first week of December. Some users will receive KAST Pioneer Units with the possibility of future payouts, while others will get shopping vouchers. What exactly you receive depends on your balance and country. Cashback will continue to work.

As a crypto project founder, I can understand the reasoning. KAST has already raised investment, the company has a working card, and there are a ton of legal requirements to deal with. And if the token tanks after listing, investors and airdrop farmers will be playing a game of “who gets out first.”

But there’s a catch. When KAST launched, it promoted points as a way to earn a future airdrop. It’s funny that the app even showed an estimated value in dollars. So you use the card and, at the same time, try to work out how much you might get. People were posting screenshots showing thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. Influencers have referral programs, so the points balances themselves don’t surprise me. But the figure in the app was only an estimate.

Naturally, this strategy attracted points hunters, who are now upset. You can understand why. By the way, if you’re awarded KPU, you’ll need to confirm your participation in the app in December. Miss the deadline, and your KPU will be canceled under the standard terms, with no points returned.

That said, the card itself works fine. My payments go through. The exchange rate for tenge isn’t great, so I use other cards for those purchases. But KAST is quite good for subscriptions.

In the end, KAST is unlikely to lose all its users, because it has a real product. But I think some of its audience will leave, and this will leave a bad taste.

And, by the way, this is why we at Yield AI don’t promise an airdrop or a token. Through Boost, we thank early users for their trust with weekly payouts.

Binance gave me a badge. It’s nice to know they appreciate my work as a video creator. I think this is especially important in crypto—no matter how digital the assets may be, there’s always a real person behind real actions.

🇰🇿 Regulators are interested in tokenization too

The other day, I attended the AIFC Community event “New Financial Products in Action,” hosted by the AIFC (Astana International Financial Centre). The regulator talked about plans to develop the financial market, with tokenization as the main focus.

The idea is that, in theory, any asset can be made digital, increasing the ways it can be traded and making ownership rights more transparent. The AIFC has a legal framework for this process, and pilot projects are already underway.

One thing I noticed: the licensing process for assets to be sold digitally is currently quite complicated. Despite the regulations in place, many projects are still at the development stage, and in practice the main cases to have launched are stablecoins (which are RWA, essentially) — for example, paying for AIFC services in USDT.

One thing coming soon: tokens from the Commodity Chain exchange. The right to purchase grain will be turned into an RWA asset. Farmers need working capital; tokenization will make it possible to attract investment, and the exchange will facilitate the sales. I’m advising the project as a blockchain expert, so I’m rooting for it to succeed :)

Another interesting product from the event was a prediction market. ITS, an international trading platform, has launched the option to place bets along the lines of Polymarket. For now, through partner brokers, you can bet on economic events: decisions by the National Bank of Kazakhstan on the base rate (betting on the rate!), the price of BTC, and so on. They don’t plan to launch sports or politics markets just yet.

Financial products and services are developing in Kazakhstan and clearly intersecting with the crypto market. Of course, I’d like to see new launches and significant trading volumes. Let’s see what happens next.

💰 Yield AI won a $10,000 audit credit from CertiK in an additional track of the Colosseum hackathon.

177 applications were submitted to the track. I think it helped that the project already has real users and a smart contract on mainnet.

At the same time, the audit could cost more than the prize amount. I’ve requested quotes to review our smart contracts for various projects; in my experience, reputable firms can charge $10,000–$30,000.

Based on private conversations with trusted experts, an audit for a project on Circle’s scale could start at $50,000.

Now we need to define the scope of the review and find out the final cost after applying the credit.