TrustToken acquires EthWorks, Doubling its Team to Scale TrueFi

TrustToken, the team responsible for launching TrueFi, the leading unsecured lending protocol and maker of popular stablecoins, including TrueUSD, announces the acquisition of EthWorks, a leading Web3 development company with a deep portfolio of successful blockchain projects. The acquisition doubles TrustToken’s team size quadruples the company’s technical unit and brings senior leadership to take TrustToken’s mission to the next level.

Recognized as a significant Web3 engineering firm, EthWorks has been a TrustToken partner for over a year and contributed to developing many of the most widely adopted Layer 1 blockchains and DeFi protocols. EthWorks has worked with the Ethereum Foundation, Bitcoin.org, Maker DAO, Polkadot, Dharma, and many more. The EthWorks team will fully integrate into TrustToken’s staff and join the technical, design, and operational roadmap across all products and services, with a particular focus on scaling the TrueFi protocol.

Expanding the Team

In onboarding the EthWorks team, the TrustToken team is growing to over 100 members and significantly expands the company’s engineering, design, and cybersecurity capabilities. TrustToken plans to compress its development schedule, enhance user experience, and increase protocol security across various products and services. TrustToken will also maintain and expand EthWorks’ open-source projects, including Waffle and useDApp, used by Ethereum developers globally.

EthWorks’ engineering and design leadership join TrustToken in senior positions. The senior leadership team will see Marek Kirejczyk, Founder and CEO of EthWorks, become Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of TrustToken. EthWorks’ Head of Design, Natalia Kirejczyk, takes on TrustToken’s VP of Design role, while EthWorks’ CTO Krzysztof Jelski will become TrustToken’s VP of Engineering. With this acquisition, Poland will become TrustToken’s primary engineering hub.

What’s Next?

It’s been quite a year for TrustToken. Recently, it added crypto credit scores to power reputation-based lending on the TrueFi platform. The decentralized protocol adds USDC and USDT support, creating new ways to lend and borrow, with significant starting incentives.

In May, the launch of version 3 added to its existing method of assessing borrower creditworthiness with a sophisticated due diligence process, replacing the usual DeFi requirement for posted collateral. TrueFi now requires incoming borrowers to report details about company background, repayment history, operating and trading history, assets under management, and credit metrics like leverage and risk exposure.

The platform has traditionally provided loans that are sizeable in nature, so coming up with a method that protects all parties is crucial to its success.

“The credit and lending models are both the most difficult and most important pieces of TrueFi,”

Michael Gasiorek, Head of Marketing at TrustToken, told me.

“If designed well, on-chain unsecured lending has the potential to take a bite of an $11 trillion TradFi industry, but if designed poorly, borrowers and lenders alike are at risk. We started with a few assumptions: TrueFi would largely lend to institutions because they’re low risk and can take out large loans; it would collect deposits from anyone in any quantity, with an emphasis on exit liquidity on one’s deposits; and token holders of the native currency would serve many roles, from new borrower selection, to loan approvals, to assuring the loans are repaid (or suffer a 10% liquidation for approving a bad loan). So far, we’ve originated over $110 million in unsecured loans with no defaults - and our models keep on improving.”

And in August, it raised $12.5 million to scale TrueFi, led by Blocktower with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Alameda Research through the purchase of TRU, TrueFi’s native token, under lockup.

With the addition of new partners, the acquisition of EthWorks, a fresh infusion of capital, growing adoption, and an expanding team, TrustToken claims that TrueFi is on track to clear $1 billion in originations before 2022. This author will be watching with interest.