In the last cycle, the cryptocurrency industry encountered a counter-cyclical situation for the first time, and the speed of bubble elimination was accelerated by the influence of the "eternal bull market" mentality. In the recently released COBO ARGUS 2023 Annual Review, we reviewed the performance of COBO ARGUS over the past year, especially in terms of data. From 2023 to 2024, COBO ARGUS's Total Value Locked (TVL) increased from $24.42 million to $240 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 874%. This time, we turn our attention to Shenyu, the co-founder and CEO of COBO, as he reviews the development process of COBO ARGUS, a product under COBO. Unlike the previous annual review, this is a more internal perspective review. As an institutional-grade DEFI asset management tool, COBO ARGUS was originally born to meet the internal needs of the team. Shenyu, as both a user and a product initiator, shares his perspective on the development of COBO ARGUS over the past year. He also discusses how COBO ARGUS has continued to iterate along with the maturation of the DEFI market. The next development direction of COBO ARGUS is inevitably intertwined with the development needs of DEFI. As users engaged in market-making, providing liquidity, and arbitrage in DEFI continue to grow, COBO ARGUS will focus on providing them with more sophisticated permission management tools.

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 In the last cycle, the encrypted industry encountered a counter-cyclical situation for the first time, and the "eternal bull market" mentality led to a faster elimination of bubbles.
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By Cobo Global
In the just-released <a href="http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=Mzk0OTI3NDAzMQ==&amp;mid=2247485140&amp;idx=1&amp;sn=4ec9cc09b18936d067822dcd18be0229&amp;chksm=c35b9214f42c1b028e3f3cd7a7c675abf309c5f91e84141cb75b986264d19f5a4410bd582a40&amp;scene=21#wechat_redirect" target="_blank">"Cobo Argus 2023 Annual Review"</a>, we reviewed the performance of Cobo Argus over the past year, especially in terms of data— from 2023 to 2024, Cobo Argus's TVL increased from $24.42 million to $240 million, with a 874% annual growth in TVL.
This time, we focus on Shenyu, the co-founder and CEO of Cobo, as he reviews the development process of Cobo Argus, a DeFi asset management tool under Cobo. Unlike the previous annual review, this is an internal perspective review. Shenyu, as both a user and the initiator of the product, shares his views on the development of Cobo Argus over the past year. He also discusses how Cobo Argus has continued to iterate with the maturation of the DeFi market, and the next development direction of Cobo Argus, which will inevitably be closely tied to the development needs of DeFi, focusing on providing more refined permission management tools for users engaged in market-making, liquidity provision, and arbitrage in DeFi.
As someone who has experienced multiple bull and bear cycles, Shenyu also reviewed the previous cycle: What are the differences between the last cycle and this cycle? What are the different market characteristics? How should we respond?
In addition to the review, Shenyu also shares his outlook for the future, including: What are the tracks and trends he is optimistic about in the near future? Looking further ahead, what are his expectations for the crypto industry in the next 5-10 years?
As a provider of secure and compliant custody wallet solutions tailored for institutions, Cobo has always placed a high priority on regulation and compliance, and believes that this will also be a key event affecting the entire crypto industry in the next phase. In terms of regulatory and compliance direction, what future events should we focus on?
Finally, Shenyu also shares a book he found impressive over the past year, a crypto media he frequently reads, and how to manage time in the midst of crypto noise to focus only on important information and use the most essential tools for investment.
<h2>Interview Highlights:</h2>
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The Financial Accounting Standards Board's cryptocurrency accounting rules are expected to take effect by the end of 2024, which will strengthen companies' and enterprises' willingness to hold digital assets and expand off-exchange leverage capabilities.
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Once the highly anticipated BTC ETF is approved, we also need to pay attention to:
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ETF derivatives other than BTC;
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The digital asset reserve trends in some small countries;
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The daily use of cryptocurrencies in third world countries and regions with high inflation.
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For the first time, the encrypted industry encountered a counter-cyclical situation in the last cycle, and the "eternal bull market" mentality led to a faster elimination of bubbles.
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From the birth of Bitcoin to last year, it has been an inflationary cycle. This is the first time we have encountered a counter-cyclical situation, and it is our first experience of the impact of macro tightening on the industry.
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The development of the Ethereum ecosystem was expected, while the popularity of Solana was more driven by trading behavior. The bottom-up innovation of the Bitcoin ecosystem was unexpected.
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The DePIN track is currently in its early stages. In the long term, its implementation will face at least two major challenges: network effects and regulation.
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The development of AI and the Internet of Things relies on the development of the middle and underlying infrastructure of blockchain.
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A possible future scenario in the crypto industry is that AI, robots, and IoT devices are granted limited authorization to trade and operate digital assets. This stage is likely to take 1-2 cycles to arrive.
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Below is the full interview:
<h2>What to Focus on After the Approval of BTC ETF?</h2>
What are the key events to focus on in the direction of regulation and compliance in the future?
The first focus is on the approval of the BTC ETF.
In March 2023, a large number of North American banks had their channels to Crypto cut off, and in early 2024, the main focus is on the approval of the ETF, which will bring new channels for traditional financial funds to enter the crypto industry in a compliant manner.
In 2024, we need to focus on how the asset scale will change after the ETF is approved; what derivative products based on the ETF will emerge; and the landing and development of asset management on a global scale after the ETF is approved.
In addition, after the approval of the ETF, we also need to pay attention to whether it will expand from Bitcoin ETFs to other currencies such as Ethereum. This occurrence would release a clear positive signal, indicating that blockchain assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are being accepted like traditional assets and are beginning to enter the balance sheet.
In addition, there are several key events to focus on in 2024:
1) The effective date of the Financial Accounting Standards Board's cryptocurrency accounting rules is expected to occur at the end of 2024, which will have a significant impact on banks and enterprises, indicating that digital assets can be included in the balance sheet at real-time values.
Once the cryptocurrency accounting standards take effect, companies' holdings of digital assets can be included in the balance sheet at real-time values, better reflecting the true value of digital assets. This will strengthen companies' and enterprises' willingness to hold digital assets.
In fact, in the last cycle in 2021, some traditional companies began to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum as part of their own funds, but digital assets could not be included in the balance sheet and could only be calculated in some other way, making it difficult to reflect the company's revenue and changes in real time.
If this trend continues to expand, we will see the impact on the banking side, meaning that banks can also hold digital assets as alternative assets, or support collateralized lending— lending fiat currency against collateralized digital assets, providing a better off-exchange leverage function, rather than the current large amount of on-exchange leverage.
2) Pay close attention to the digital asset reserve trends in some small countries. Especially whether the central banks of small countries have started to reserve digital assets (as an alternative to gold), which I think may be a very big trend in the coming period.
3) Pay attention to the daily use of cryptocurrencies by ordinary people in third world countries and regions with high inflation. Ordinary people, especially the post-00s generation, have already begun to widely use digital assets in their daily lives. Whether this trend will further strengthen, and if it does, whether it will face new regulatory risks and challenges, are bothThe performance of the Bitcoin ecosystem in this round has been somewhat unexpected to me, especially the bottom-up drive and innovation that has taken place in this ecosystem. Therefore, I may pay attention to some attempts and innovations in the Bitcoin ecosystem, hoping to see some breakthroughs and developments in this round of the market.

## Cobo Argus Product Review

Please summarize the development process of Cobo Argus over the past year.

Cobo Argus was initially a security tool used by the Cobo team. Later, it was found that everyone had the same need, especially during the bear market when there were many hacking incidents and a high level of risk exposure in DeFi usage. Therefore, we decided to push this self-use product to the market, transforming it from an internal tool into an enterprise-level tool, providing underlying decentralized capabilities—implementing secure asset management from the underlying framework. This is a more scalable solution, which is relatively rare in the industry.

During the bear market, we productized some of the expertise accumulated in the previous bull market, built an infrastructure, and allowed everyone to continue iterating on DeFi asset management on this "foundation." Cobo Argus is a scalable underlying infrastructure for DeFi asset management.

So, what are the expertise of Cobo Argus?

In simple terms, Cobo Argus is a decentralized tool based on Safe multi-signature, which enables efficient collaboration among multi-person teams. Specifically, some low-risk operations with high-frequency demand can be separated and assigned to robot operations, which can greatly reduce the cost of manual operations, improve operational efficiency, and ultimately increase overall compounded returns. DeFi fundamentally earns compounded returns.

Through the inspection and pre-authorization management of multi-signature tools, operational risks can be reduced, such as common phishing attacks and signature fraud risks in the past one or two years. Essentially, Cobo Argus implements risk control at the contract level through pre-authorization on the chain.

In addition, with the addition of robot (single sign) functionality, it can enhance the rapid response capability for DeFi emergency events.

Unlike the stock market, DeFi operates 24/7 without closing, and it is borderless. Many emergency events occur in the middle of the night. In addition, DeFi has high volatility, and its composability makes it easy to create a domino effect, leading to the collapse of the entire market. This consumes a lot of energy for DeFi investors and keeps them constantly on edge.

The layered architecture of Cobo Argus can authorize some events that affect fund security to robots through event alerts. Once an extreme event occurs (triggering a predefined threshold), the robot will automatically withdraw funds from smart contracts to multi-signature wallets.

Before this, the wallet only had one highest authority, and every time a sudden event occurred, this highest authority person had to operate in real time. This means that this role needs to monitor on-chain risks 24/7, while also holding the highest authority key, which is not only a heavy responsibility and high risk, but also very energy-consuming.

The underlying decentralized capabilities of Cobo Argus can grant limited authority to robots to respond quickly to risk events, eliminating the need for manual intervention, allowing DeFi practitioners to "sleep well."

Who are the target audience of Cobo Argus?

DeFi teams and individual large holders are beneficiaries of Cobo Argus, as it can improve work efficiency for both.

For teams and institutions, this decentralized capability can amplify internal collaboration efficiency in a highly secure manner.

For individuals, specific operations can be authorized for automated execution by robots, enabling rapid automated response to some risk events, staying ahead. Previously, it was all driven by external event-driven alerts, followed by manual responses, which was much slower. For Cobo Argus, an effective analogy is—a decentralized version of bank special account management, with DeFi properties meaning managing these large funds with a transparent asset management tool.

What are Cobo Argus's strategic plans for 2024?

The main goal for 2024 is to make the product experience of Cobo Argus more in line with the needs of ordinary users. Currently, the user experience is more suitable for professional users, and there are still some barriers for ordinary users.

Specifically, in 2024, the main focus will be on making the trading module more universal and user-friendly, which requires quite a bit of work. In addition, many new DeFi protocols have emerged in this round, and Cobo Argus plans to adapt to more new protocols in 2024.

Why is the next stage focusing on polishing the trading module?

In my opinion, there are currently three types of users in DeFi.

The first type is asset management users, who mainly use DeFi as a transparent asset management tool to obtain transparent financial returns.

The second type of users are market makers who provide liquidity for the underlying protocols of DeFi and conduct arbitrage. They have a need for a good tool to manage liquidity on-chain.

The third type of users directly use DeFi as a mature financial tool, mainly focusing on trading and lending modules.

Our first module is basically aimed at DeFi asset management users, which was originally the biggest demand for Cobo Argus.

With the expansion of the user base and their Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi, there are also a certain number of users who engage in market making, providing liquidity, and arbitrage between centralized and decentralized platforms. Along with this comes the demand for decentralized tools for permission management, which belongs to the permission management on the trading side, requiring more detailed permissions, down to the function level.

## Personal Recommendation

Please recommend a book that left a deep impression on you in the past year.

"The Pyramid of Money." This book is relatively thin, a popular science book that can open up thinking and broaden horizons, providing a forecast for the future. The book mainly discusses the evolution of money and how cryptocurrencies in the future will derive credit currency as a top-level currency. I personally agree with this viewpoint and believe that the future is heading in this direction.

How do you manage time to focus on important information in the midst of the noise when regularly reading crypto media?

The CoinSummer team has an AI daily report internally, which captures highly popular content through AI tools. Recently, we have also opened a concise version.

Every day, I spend 5-10 minutes reading this daily report on the way, and save the parts that need careful reading to continue at the office. This is basically a routine way to drive it.

The most frequently used tool in DeFi investment?

Of course, it's Cobo Argus. Are there any other choices? lol

COBO联创神鱼对COBO ARGUS发展历程及BTC ETF通过后的关注点 COBO联创神鱼对COBO ARGUS的发展历程以及比特币ETF通过后的关注重点