Introduction

What is Arkis, and why does it matter?

What is Arkis?

Arkis is a digital asset prime brokerage credit protocol for institutional borrowers and lenders to interact in a zero-trust environment.

Lenders get decentralized, secure credit provision vehicles with whitelisting, guaranteed repayment flow, and the maintenance of benefits from over-collateralization due to protocol control over assets within the ecosystem.

Borrowers can achieve maximum capital efficiency within a guarded environment with up to 5x leverage and exotic collateral and margining options.

The DeFi Ecosystem

The DeFi market is characterized by its fragmentation across several axes:

• Blockchain Diversity: Asset positions are spread across multiple blockchains, such as Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, etc., complicating the management of assets and leverage strategies across these platforms.

• CeFi / DeFi Fragmentation: Liquidity is fragmented across centralised and decentralised venues. While DeFi has yields, CeFi still provides the deepest spot and liquidity for derivatives. Asset Managers operate in both domains and seek portfolio margining across them.

• Variety of Protocols: Asset Managers engage with a multitude of protocols (for example, Uniswap, Curve, Lido, AAVE, Pendle), diversifying their investments across different activities. This diversification can lead to a portfolio where the aggregate performance may offset individual losses, leading to overall profitability.

Arkis’s Approach

Arkis aims to address these sector challenges through a series of targeted solutions:

• Margin Trading through Smart Contracts: By utilizing smart contracts, Arkis is able to offer leverage that optimizes capital use while maintaining a framework for risk management.

• Portfolio Margining System: Instead of evaluating each position in isolation, Arkis employs a unified approach to maintenance margin calculation, considering the trader’s entire portfolio within Margin Account and centralised exchange subaccount. This method allows for the potential offsetting of losses in one area with gains in another, thereby increasing capital efficiency.
• Yields for Lenders: Lenders on Arkis earn yields on their assets by financing trading operations of worlds best hedge funds and asset management firms onchain. This arrangement aims to create a mutually beneficial ecosystem for lenders and borrowers. In the meantime, Arkis ensures that the lender's funds are secure by providing a safe investment vehicle for position monitoring and liquidation.

Arkis Protocol helps Asset managers get leverage in a capital-efficient and flexible manner. Lenders earn a passive yield on their assets by providing their assets for leverage operations while Arkis facilitates the process, making it secure for LPs.