Block Stories

Kain Warwick

Block Stories #2

In this episode, join Kain Warwick on the entrepreneurial journey that ultimately led him to create Synthetix, a permissionless financial primitive in the DeFi economy that enables users to get exposure to real-world assets on the blockchain using synthetic assets.

“For someone who is skeptical whether blockchain is going to be something that is transformative…It doesn't matter whether you believe it. You can not believe in gravity, but gravity is still going to bring you to the ground.”

About Kain Warwick

Kain Warwick is the founder of Synthetix, a decentralized finance protocol enabling the creation of synthetic assets. He founded multiple startups including a cash payment gateway for online services and a decentralized payment network, before pivoting to Synthetix. Kain has also worked as a tennis coach in California, started a band in Boston, and written a novel exploring the impact of AI.

Synthetix and Chainlink

Synthetix uses high-quality, tamper-proof price data from Chainlink Price Feeds to help secure every trade on its synthetic asset protocol. Accessing decentralized market data onchain helps enable Synthetix to remove any centralized dependency and allows users to verify their positions are settled using tamper-proof price data.

$358M USD

total value locked as of 7/24/22

$17.5B USD

trading volume between 7/24/2017 and 7/24/2022

52.5K

total number of traders between 7/24/2017 and 7/24/2022

“Accurate and secure price feeds are critical for the DeFi ecosystem. Chainlink is the most trusted oracle network in DeFi, which is why Synthetix has relied on them to provide this critical infrastructure since 2019.”

Kain Warwick, Founder of Synthetix

Act summary

ACT 1

Building Something for Yourself

When he was just 13 years old, Kain took over his parent's tennis racket restringing business and set to work improving its processes. By 15 he was making $50-100K. Anyone can innovate and build a better business.

“I increased the efficiency and set up some processes and the profitability went up by 60 or 70%. I was 15 making $50-100K a year.”

ACT 2

Enjoying Hard Problems

When the Seattle startup Kain had joined started to struggle, the stress didn’t just help him focus—he came to enjoy it. Founders must find happiness in hardship.

“Building things and doing hard things is satisfying in its own right.”

ACT 3

You Don’t Need a Roadmap

Kain started an online payments gateway in 2014, pivoted it to become a decentralized payment network in 2017, and finally found the right solution with synthetic assets in 2018. Never bind yourself to a solution and always be prepared to pivot.

“The balance of probabilities says that the first thing you do is most likely to fail.”

ACT 4

Relinquishing Control

Synthetix was able to rely on Chainlink Data Feeds for secure, reliable, and accurate market data, enabling it to focus on its core business. If you want to build a successful crypto project, you need to relinquish control.

“When we switched everything over to Chainlink, everyone on the Synthetix team slept a lot better from that day forward.”

ACT 5

A DeFi Future

Decentralized finance is open by default. There are no gatekeepers or centralized institutions preventing you from building exciting new products. DeFi is going to change the world—plan accordingly.

“You can’t even imagine the things we’ll be able to do. This is genuinely going to change the world.”

About Block Stories

Block Stories is a series of short films that digs beneath the code and uncovers the origin stories of the most successful Web3 protocols. From next-generation insurance alternatives to NFTs and the emerging metaverse, discover the principles, people, and technologies behind the biggest Web3 innovations.