The trend is clear in DeFi: protocols are migrating beyond the confines of the application layer, venturing into the creation of moats by either constructing their own bespoke infrastructure or laying down a foundational base for others to innovate upon.

This evolution is illustrated by the moves of Derivatives DEXs such as dYdX and stablecoin issuers like Maker, who have ventured into building their own chains. Similarly, Synthetix has redefined itself as a liquidity layer, enabling a new wave of derivatives offerings ranging from options and perps to prediction markets, while Morpho has evolved from a lending optimizer to a cornerstone for new lending market architectures. Furthermore, Uniswap’s decision to delegate market-making to specialized off-chain entities marks another step in this strategic realignment.

Amidst this backdrop, we find it very attractive to identify projects building such moats that are inaccessible to others, almost as if they became “unforkable” codebases. It gets even more interesting when the project belongs to a fast-growing market sector that has already found product-market-fit and that can easily take away market share from both centralized and decentralized incumbents.

We find in Vertex and the $VRTX token an opportunity that checks most of the boxes we are looking for. Currently sitting under $100M in market capitalization, Vertex’s strategic advantage lies in its off-chain orderbook, allowing for high-speed and low-latency trading through a vertically integrated platform that can be seamlessly ported across chains.