John Gu – Crypto Market Making & The Cold Start Problem (S7E30)
Episode publishedPodcast: Flirting with ModelsFlirting with Models
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Hey, everyone. Corey here. Thanks for tuning into another episode of flirting with models. If you're enjoying the show, I'd greatly appreciate it if you take a moment to rate, review, and most importantly, with a friend. Word-of-mouth is how this podcast grows. And if you'd like to learn more about Newfound's platform of return stacked mutual funds, ETFs, and model portfolios, head over to returnstacks.com. Now on with the show. Alright, John. Are you ready to go?
Yes, sir.
Alright. 321. Let's jam. Hello, and welcome, everyone. I'm Corey Hofstein, and this is flirting with models, the podcast that pulls back the curtain to discover the human factor behind the quantitative strategy.
Corey Hofstein is the cofounder and chief investment officer of Newfound Research. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Newfound Research's funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Newfound Research. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients Newfound Research may maintain positions and securities discussed in this podcast. For more information, visit thinknewfound.com.
My guest today is John Gu, founder and CEO of Caledan, one of the most active market makers in crypto and a firm that has provided liquidity to more than 200 token launches. John's path runs through MIT, AlphaSimplex, Citadel's principal strategies group, and tower research before landing in Singapore at the dawn of the ICO era, where what started as a trade on the kimchi premium became the foundation for one of the most active liquidity providers in digital assets. The thesis of our conversation is what I'll call the cold start problem. In traditional markets, every newly listed stock arrives
Yeah, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. I listened to quite a few number of your podcasts, really enjoy them. So it's really an honor to be here.
Thank you for the kind words. I'm excited to dive in here because this is a bit of a novel conversation for what we've had on the podcast so far, which I love to have it, you know, seven seasons in and I don't know something like 80 episodes when I can find a guest who can really bring some novel perspective and viewpoints. It's a special opportunity. So let's dive in now. I know John from our pre call you had an interesting path to get to where you are today. You did your studies at MIT. You spent some time at Alpha Simplex right in Boston with Andrew Lowe. You were in Citadel's principal str
So I went to MIT. You know, I actually had a tough decision of whether or not to go because it was quite expensive and I had a full scholarship to the local University of Maryland. But my dad was being the Asian parent that he is, is like, you definitely are going. When I got there, I actually was quite struck by how ahead a lot of people were. So I got there, I decided to study computer science. I met these people who had already built their own three d ray tracing engines and published games and like, wow, this is a whole different world. Among with these people, I also met folks who really
Well, let's talk about how this all rolls into the origin story of Kaladin because unlike a lot of the guests I speak to, your origin story is more organic. I would almost dare to call it maybe unintentional at a certain point. You're in Singapore, the ICO era hits, you start exploring inefficiencies like the kimchi premium and at some point it becomes clear to you that this isn't just sort
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