Most of the volume happening in crypto isn't visible onchain. A portion of the highest growth volume comes from neobanks, remittance platforms, and brokerages converting between stablecoins, fiat, and tokenized assets behind the scenes, working with OTC desks for liquidity they can't source themselves.
Axis Prime is being built for this exact market.
In past issues of our weekly DeFi Frontier in The Edge Newsletter, we have covered USDx vs sUSDx yield (currently 22.2% APY based on the last 30 days). What we didn’t cover enough detail on is where exactly the yield comes from? It’s Axis Prime.
Chris Kim is the CoFounder and CEO of Axis. Before founding Axis, he was the first hire at QCP Capital, one of Singapore's most prominent crypto market makers, and later ran a market-neutral hedge fund focused on arbitrage at the intersection of crypto and FX markets, generating a 26.8% annualized return with a 4.89 Sharpe ratio since 2018.
The structure of Axis should feel familiar to Edge Podcast listeners. It's the same DeFi mullet architecture we covered with Re. Axis Prime is the institutional business: a cross-asset liquidity provider serving neobanks, fintechs, CEXs, brokerages, remittance companies, and other digital asset platforms through a single institutional relationship. They handle the pricing, execution, inventory management, and settlement that happens behind every customer-facing transaction. Meanwhile, USDx and sUSDx provide the permissionless DeFi capital pool that feeds that business — the same capital being used for institutional arbitrage is what powers the 21% yield for sUSDX holders.
The yield behind sUSDx is real. sUSDX’s yield comes directly from Axis Prime's institutional arbitrage and market-making activity, spread trading across 15+ currencies, stablecoins, and settlement rails, with more than 25 million cross-asset pricing paths evaluated and average quoted spreads below 10 bps. The same inventory that serves fintech clients generates these returns that flow back to sUSDx stakers.
This is a growing market, reliant on stablecoin adoption among fintechs. The tokenization of equities is creating new fragmentation as well, where multiple versions of the same asset is trading at different prices across different venues, and that needs institutional liquidity providers to synchronize. Axis recently completed its first OTC transaction with one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges.
Against a backdrop of failed DeFi yield providers this year, the question of trust and transparency with Axis is the hardest to address. Chris acknowledges the DeFi community has PTSD from opaque yield protocols, and Axis is taking certain precautions to not repeat others’ mistakes and protect lender capital: fully liquid reserves, 24/7 risk management with traders and engineers on shift across time zones, and proof-of-reserve monitoring for all connected venues. They won't reveal their full trading strategy, saying that would destroy their edge and create attack vectors, but they're working toward third-party attestation and currently have a Transparency Dashboard.
Listen to the latest Edge Podcast for the full interview!
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🔗 Guest Links 🔗
► Axis website: axis.to
► Axis Prime website: axis.to/prime
► Axis on X: x.com/AxisFDN
► Chris Kim on X: x.com/bidorder
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast. Axis has been a sponsor of The Edge Podcast.
