cto @BirchHill_io | ex @UnitZeroLabs (acq.) @BlackRock
Joined June 2015
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jack forlines retweeted
I’ve spent the past 5 years laser focused on vaults and specifically only things that exist onchain. Working with Birch Hill and Groma showed me what’s possible when you mix physical assets and bring credit onchain.
The next part of the journey is to join capital allocators where they are at by meeting all regulatory prerequisites they’ve come to expect. It’s possible, we’re doing it, at Birch Hill. Extremely happy to be part of the team.
And if you’re reading this message and want to know more about Birch Hill please get in touch with me.
Birch Hill has raised a $4M seed round led by @multicoin, with participation from @paraficapital, @castleIslandvc and @nascent.
We’re building the regulated path for credit onchain, connecting U.S. credit to onchain capital.
jack forlines retweeted
DeFi is the future of the World Financial System.
Onchain and offchain don’t have to stay separate. At Birch Hill we’re reintegrating the credit stack so U.S. loans can settle onchain with the compliance and reporting institutions already expect.
Fewer handoffs means less information lost between lender and borrower. The efficiency gains go to both sides.
Excited for what’s next.
Birch Hill has raised a $4M seed round led by @multicoin, with participation from @paraficapital, @castleIslandvc and @nascent.
We’re building the regulated path for credit onchain, connecting U.S. credit to onchain capital.
jack forlines retweeted
Very excited to be joining Birch Hill!
While the success of crypto has never seemed more inevitable, it’s clear the next phase won’t look like the last.
Birch Hill is uniquely positioned to lead the next wave of growth by bridging the gap between traditional and onchain markets.
I may even finally be able to explain to my family what I do for a living.
Suit up!
Thrilled to formally welcome @PossiblyJT as our Head of Curation. @schlagonia, @omgcorn and Ian Plosker join from @yearnfi to lead Birch Hill Absolute Value, and @t__norm joins from @gauntlet_xyz to lead business development.
jack forlines retweeted
Today, we are announcing that Multicoin led a $4 million seed round in Birch Hill, a vertically integrated onchain credit platform that connects institutional credit supply and stablecoin-denominated demand.
jack forlines retweeted
The Birch Hill Groma Ecosystem Vault is live on @base, powered by @morpho.
Open access to USDC lending backed by @gromacorp's Boston and Providence apartment buildings, with NAV published onchain by @ChronicleLabs Proof of Asset.
Restrictions may apply.
jack forlines retweeted
Thank you to @HesterPeirce and the @SECGov Crypto Task Force for taking the time to meet with us yesterday to learn about @BirchHill_io’s vault platform, our compliance & onboarding architecture, and how we are thinking about registration.
jack forlines retweeted
Groma built rentvesting to make real estate ownership accessible to renters everywhere. Giving renters upside in the value of real estate around them is a key part of our vision: good for renters, good for society, good for Groma.
Borrowing USDC against GromaCoin is an essential part of rentvesting; the market we've just launched with @BirchHill_io on @Morpho is the first step towards growing that financing to national scale. Read their quoted post for more detail:
Only 22% of Americans under 35 own a home. A generation is locked out of the asset class.
Today @BirchHill_io published why rentvesting is the answer, and the perfect use case to scale our first market and vault. Rent becomes REIT equity. @GromaCorp finances the rent. Renters keep the upside.
Rentvesting needs a credit rail, and that's what we built. @GromaCorp borrows USDC against its real estate balance sheet at programmatic, transparent rates. As vault supply deepens, borrow rates compress, and the program scales.
jack forlines retweeted
Big launch! Been keeping an eye on @BirchHill_io since writing the State of Onchain Credit at @serotonin_hq.
Yesterday, they launched their first product, a market on @Morpho for the GRO token by @GromaCorp, powered by a @ChronicleLabs Proof of Asset feed with property-level composition data for the underlying Groma Real Estate Trust.
Each $GRO is a tokenized share in the REIT, with a total market cap of $68.6M on @base. The Birch Hill RWA USDC vault has $101k in deposits and is currently yielding 5.5%, compared to GRO's 7.7% annualized return since inception.
Seeing this launch coincide with the SEC publishing a precautionary statement regarding vault curators stuck out to me.
It's clear Birch Hill took the utmost precaution themselves when building this vault and the associated market. KYC, accreditation checks, and AML screens show this is an onchain financial product built by serious operators. Shoutout @RealBhavinVaid, @cflan_, and @jfo____.
Looking forward to seeing this grow, and will be keeping tabs on the "Rentvesting" concept being pioneered by Groma and enabled by Birch Hill with this market.
Renters of Groma's properties pay rent every month. The difference is those funds are used to purchase a stake in the REIT, deposit it on the GRO/USDC market, and borrow against it to pay the actual rent. This way, renters can make payments like normal while gaining equity and long-term upside.
Still need to do more research, but it's a very enticing concept, especially for me as someone big into personal finance and who prefers renting over homebuying given the state of the market.
ALT "Rentvesting" by Groma, enabled by Birch Hill, explained.
Our thesis @BirchHill_io on the onchain credit structures built for the next wave of regulatory developments
jack forlines retweeted
This past cycle has opened my eyes to few key constraints in DeFi:
> DeFi is self-referential. We trade ETH because people trade DeFi tokens on ETH and we use DeFi to trade and lend ETH. Our yield is endogenous, therefore purely a product of reflexivity.
> Endogenous yield farming is not entirely unsustainable. There’s lots of opportunity in being early to a new economy. New money (SoV tokens) also demand supporting financial products. But, at this point in its growth trajectory, DeFi requires more secular demand.
> IMO, the best use of core DeFi primitives (lending and borrowing, perps, AMMs, vaults, etc.) is as a substrate for RWAs.
But launching onchain RWA vaults is significantly more difficult than crypto ones.
Asset selection, tokenization, deal structuring, haircuts, pricing, liquidations – the entire stack carries more complexity. Real-world collateral also requires legal enforceability, real-world recovery mechanisms, and counterparty relationships that don’t resolve onchain without trusted intermediaries.
All the above is context for why I’m particularly excited about @BirchHill_io and @GromaCorp’s onchain credit facility built on @yearnfi vaults. Groma’s REIT holders can borrow against otherwise illiquid equity onchain, while USD lenders earn yield uncorrelated to crypto markets.
This is a meaningful step towards bringing higher-quality, less cyclical yield onchain, and one of the clearer paths I’ve seen for DeFi to reach a larger audience than it ever could’ve on pure tokens.
jack forlines retweeted
We just hosted our inaugural Institutional Onchain Summit in New York City, and the energy in the room confirmed what we already knew: institutional capital is moving onchain.
We brought together asset issuers, investment managers, institutional allocators, and partners for an evening of real conversation about what’s next for onchain credit markets. Special thanks to our co-sponsors @CastleIslandVC, @GromaCorp, @yearnfi, and @BAXUSco for helping make this happen.
And to our speakers — @wyatt_khos, @sethpriebatsch, @LehmanBrother42, @omgcorn, @web4O, Lloyd Brathwaite, Lily Yarborough, @0xCryptoSam and the @RavaMoney team — thank you for bringing the substance and conviction to the stage.
This was just the beginning. We’re taking the momentum from this summit straight into the launch of our first onchain financial products.
Back to the lab again 🌲🧪
jack forlines retweeted
Morpho helps tokenized real estate equity become productive assets onchain.
Enabled by @BirchHill_io and Groma, GromaCoin can now be used as collateral on Morpho, with liquidity supplied by @yearnfi-curated stablecoin vaults.
jack forlines retweeted
Since inception Birch Hill's mission has been to bring novel yield opportunities and high quality operators into the onchain capital ecosystem.
It's been a joy working with @sethpriebatsch and team. We're excited to announce our first vault together with @GromaCorp, live Q2.
jack forlines retweeted
Strong take from @birchhill_io 💪
In onchain finance, risk management is part of the product. Real-time monitoring, smart contract-level controls, custody, and operational discipline should be there from day one, not added after the first scare.
Millions were extracted from onchain ecosystem participants because of a single privileged minting key. The reason we haven’t just thrown up a vault to attract deposits is because we take risk management seriously. We independently underwrite protocol and smart contract risk and work with best-in-class partners where we want to leverage expertise.
This is why we partnered with @HypernativeLabs for real-time threat detection from day one. Why our vault architecture will enforce collateral and depositor controls at the smart contract level.
Institutional grade means the security stack is built before the first dollar of TVL, not after the postmortem. OpSec controls like key signing, key rotation, real-time monitoring, and qualified custody.
These aren’t features. They’re table stakes @birchhill_io
great comments by dan here and appreciate the shoutout for @BirchHill_io. were obsessed with building on the seam he describes
our whole mission is to make the onchain credit leg of this stack usable and compliant for fiduciaries
jack forlines retweeted
A year ago this was an idea. Today it's a company, a team, and a group of investors who share the belief that credit is the unlock for institutional adoption onchain.
Thank you to everyone who believed in us early. @BirchHill_io is just getting started.
Credit is the backbone of the global financial system and it is moving onchain. With RWA supply reaching $20Bn and $300Bn in stablecoins, the opportunity is clear but institutions still lack the infrastructure.
This is what @birchhill_io was built to fix.
Thank you to - @paraficapital, @CastleIslandVC, @Nascent, @FalconXGlobal, Coin Operated Group, The Operating Group, @PolarisFund, @EV3ventures, JST Digital, @Flowdesk_co, @Joshua_Frank_, @Enzo_GTE, @Naman_Kapasi and others
