Levain is an enterprise platform that securely connects institutions to decentralized finance (DeFi).
Before Levain, we solely operated in the retail space as Cake DeFi, offering retail customers easy and secure access to DeFi services from their phones or computers. As Cake DeFi, we generated significant institutional interest, with many institutions looking to increase their yield and outperform their investment mandate by investing in digital assets via our retail platform.
However, Cake DeFi’s retail platform was not equipped to serve the needs of institutions. The platform lacked key functions that institutions required, such as the ability to set workflows and policies as well as to monitor their portfolio.
We spoke to users to understand the current limitations in the market. Consequently, we identified an opportunity we could leverage. This culminated in the soft launch of our enterprise arm – Cake DeFi Enterprise – during the Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2022, which garnered outstanding support.
Many of the institutional players we engaged during the festival expressed dissatisfaction with existing solutions, remarking that they were inadequate and often failed to fully address their needs.
After several iterations, we officially launched our enterprise product, and renamed it from Cake DeFi Enterprise to Levain.
The Four Pillars of Levain
For institutions, Levain serves as a gateway to DeFi. The first launch of the Levain platform comprises the following four modules:
Self-Custody Wallet
Before institutions can access DeFi, it is essential for them to manage the custody of their digital assets. The market today offers the following options:
- Self-Custody (via a custody technology provider)
- Third-Party Custody (also known as managed custody with a custodian)
- Hybrid Custody (Self- and Third-Party Custody combined)
In line with DeFi’s core tenets of decentralization and autonomy, Levain offers self-custody technology to institutions. Multi-signature is Levain’s security design model of choice, empowering institutions with full ownership of their keys and therefore complete control over their funds.
Levain’s wallet is also hot, meaning that it is connected to the Internet to facilitate the institutional need to quickly respond to changes in DeFi’s fast-moving market. For optimum security, Levain’s wallet is reinforced with hardware security module (HSM) storage, a tamper-resistant physical hardware specifically designed to protect keys from compromise. With the HSM storage, institutions can set up a reliable backup system that enables them to recover their keys and access their funds under any circumstances.
Apart from striking a balance between security and efficiency, Levain’s wallet is further augmented with advanced token integration capabilities. This is done in keeping with the regular addition of new coins to the DeFi market, some of which offer remarkable returns on inception. Institutions can therefore expect to gain an edge in their digital asset portfolio simply by using Levain’s wallet to manage their coins.
Finally, Levain deeply understands that different institutions have different operational requirements. Levain’s platform therefore enables institutions to generate an unlimited number of wallet addresses at no additional cost.
To illustrate, Institution A’s finance department can use Levain’s platform to deploy one wallet with multiple addresses, each one dedicated to a different purpose such as office expenditures, payroll, taxes, and operational expenses.
Learn more about Levain’s self-custody wallet.
Policy Engine
Across all the different functions and departments that make up an institution, stringent policies and workflows need to be set up with varying levels of control.
Levain’s policy engine is designed to meet this institutional need, enabling institutions to deeply customize their policies and workflows. In turn, they are well equipped to safeguard their digital assets in accordance with their operational requirements.
Levain’s policy engine covers three broad levels:
- Enterprise-Level Users: Grant users access with varying levels of permissions based on their organizational roles.
- Wallet-Level Users: Generate multiple wallets and manage users by assigning different wallet roles to them.
- Wallet-Level Policies: Mitigate the risk of internal collusion, bad actors, and human error with policies spread across multiple wallets.
Learn more about Levain’s policy engine.
DeFi Access
Levain is integrated with WalletConnect to enable multi-chain DeFi access, empowering institutions with the ability to harness a greater range of protocols across multiple blockchains to expand their investment mandate.
WalletConnect is an open-source protocol that bridges decentralized applications (Dapps) with any cryptocurrency wallet. In essence, this means that institutions gain instant access to DeFi’s rich ecosystem of protocols simply by creating a Levain wallet and linking it to WalletConnect.
Learn more about DeFi Access.
Portfolio Monitoring
To amplify institutional autonomy in their digital asset management, Levain is outfitted with portfolio monitoring functionality. On a single dashboard, Levain enables institutions to monitor their investments across different portfolios and easily manage their transactions.
Levain’s portfolio monitoring operates on two levels:
- Portfolio level: Enables institutions to view their portfolio as a whole or from an individual wallet perspective (eg: if they use separate wallets for different funds)
- Transaction level: Enables institutions to view their historical transaction data and transaction details. Transaction initiators and approvers are also displayed on this level.
Learn more about Levain’s portfolio monitoring capabilities.
The future of Levain
At present, we have launched the first version of Levain’s product and are in the process of onboarding our first customers. We are committed to deliver a seamless experience to our customers, ensuring that they smoothly transition from their existing provider(s) to Levain’s platform.
With Levain, institutions can expect the following features:
- Secure self-custody technology that grants them full ownership of their private keys and complete control over their digital assets
- An easy-to-use platform that is augmented with an intuitive user interface (UI)
- Reliable support and customer service across all timezones
- A passionate team who is dedicated to working and growing together with our customers on their DeFi journey
Looking ahead, we will collaborate with our customers to introduce new features to further upgrade Levain’s platform. In the coming months, we will share more updates on our long-term product roadmap.
Interested to take the first step to securely explore DeFi and expand your institution’s investment mandate? Talk to us at https://levain.tech/contact-us today.
