Vaults have been the backbone of traditional finance — a way to manage complexity across multiple strategies. But as DeFi and AI advance, some are asking whether that model is becoming obsolete. DeFi offers nearly unlimited yield opportunities, but the market remains deeply fragmented. One company is building what it calls the first DeFi-native prime broker on Solana. Project Zero is a single, aggregated entry point designed to cut through that fragmentation. Joining me is MacBrennan Peet, Founder of Project Zero. MacBrennan, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
The big question — does TradFi still need vaults? You have said DeFi and AI advances have essentially eliminated the need for vault managers. Walk us through that argument.
The one thing DeFi does really well is allow you to codify parameters you want and then deploy them automatically — instead of having a manual middleman, which is essentially what vaults, ETFs, and other structures represent. We have been very focused on letting codified agents run these strategies on behalf of users instead of someone who is much more error-prone manually interacting in between. That is our stance.
If vault managers are becoming redundant, what fills that gap for investors who still want professionally managed, multi-strategy exposure without doing it themselves?
We recently launched a stablecoin vault and a Solana-focused exposure vault, which balances across a range of markets we provide margin over. There is no human in the loop — these are built entirely off machine learning grade algorithms that we have run on Project Zero specifically. The vaults have clearly defined permissions around which assets they are allowed to use, transparently accessible to anyone who wants to participate. Humans are involved in designing the systems. But once they are in place, DeFi is a programmatic ledger — you assign whatever exposures you want and step away. We have leaned into that, which is a significant break from what you see in traditional finance.
You describe Project Zero as an entry point across several MENA markets specifically. Why has that region been such fertile ground?
We have double-digit percentage of our overall users from this region. A few things are driving that. First is access to US financial products. We have seen the emergence of what the industry calls real world assets — which may bundle mortgages, data centre loans, car loans, and more. It is very hard to access these if you are coming from Turkey, Israel, the UAE, and many other markets. On Project Zero, users in those regions can access these products with just an internet connection and bundle them into yield strategies that an AI agent then manages programmatically — without a middleman, without extracted performance fees, without an error-prone human in the loop. That has been a significant driver of growth in this region specifically.
What is the goal for Project Zero in the next five to ten years — both in the US and across MENA?
Credit markets are emerging on-chain. People holding assets in their wallets on blockchains like Solana want to continue holding that exposure while accessing immediate USDC or specific asset liquidity without selling. They are borrowing against those assets — and this is growing to billions and billions of dollars in value. Right now, Project Zero has universal margin and credit risk aggregation across approximately 90% of Solana's lending TVL. We want to expand that toward 100% coverage within our risk limits. We also want to expand asset types — currently we do spot, but we are very interested in extending credit against derivatives. Enabling traders to run basis trades, carry trades, and rate trades utilising derivatives and spot across venues — with unified margin, unified risk, unified credit, and unified rates — that is the vision.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
