Animal Capital, WonderFi Partnering To Drive Crypto And DeFi Adoption By Minorities And Gen Z

With a goal of bringing DeFi technology to the masses, WonderFi has teamed up with Animal Capital to launch Money Goals.

Context: In September, Benzinga spoke with WonderFi regarding the firm’s intent to make finance open to all through a curated app experience, so people can buy assets, earn interest, and get broad exposure to the space via index-type products.

The company aims to achieve its vision for decentralized finance (DeFi) through a finance model that replicates market-making, borrowing, lending, and exchanging without expensive middlemen.

“The current financial system doesn’t provide equal opportunities for people, whether it’s people from lower socioeconomic rungs, women, or visible minorities,” co-founder and CEO Ben Samaroo told Benzinga. “It’s all rooted in how the financial system is opaque and tightly controlled.”

Growth: Innovations in crypto sometimes experience a drop-off in use as complexity can often create a barrier to adoption. Animal Capital has created a team led by Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, Noah Beck, Marshall Sandman, and Michael Gruen to address this challenge. The team named Money Goals is a financial literacy initiative targeted at Gen Z.

Through a partnership, Animal Capital and WonderFi will work to help younger generations think more critically about their money.

Speaking with Benzinga, Richards described the traditional finance journey as tough on his peers because they are frequently unaware of the most basic ways to make and manage money.

"Among my followers, I often hear the same feedback,” the influencer and entrepreneur said.

“I invested in Bitcoin BTC/USD or Ethereum ETH/USD and it's down ‘X’ percent today. Time to sell. That initial inclination to sell is what we need to combat against. Simple concepts like cost price averaging or ‘averaging down’ and hedging can help keep young investors engaged and excited in the market.”

What To Expect: The Money Goals initiative will expose the young followers of some of the biggest influencers and entrepreneurs like Richards, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, and others, to commentaries by some of the world’s most renowned finance experts.

"I'm really excited to work with not only Josh and Kevin but other creators who have meaningfully participated in the DeFi space,” Sandman told Benzinga.

“Creators know better than anyone how to communicate with broad audiences in specific ways that will help move the needle and in this case hopefully drive adoption!"

Related Link: DeFi Theft and Fraud Losses Reach $10.5 billion in 2021, Mostly on Ethereum