#27: Sebastien Derivaux, Steakhouse Financial | Building Steakhouse, MakerDAO's RWA Legacy, and DeFi risk management

Today’s guest is Sébastien Derivaux, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial. We discuss the evolution of real-world assets in DeFi from MakerDAO’s pioneering experiments to today’s institutional-grade credit infrastructure, the recent mF-ONE private credit controversy and what it reveals about risk management in tokenized assets, and how Steakhouse built a $1B+ vault curation business on Morpho. Seb shares unfiltered lessons from five years of bringing TradFi credit on-chain—from Société Générale’s groundbreaking tokenized bond deal to defaults to launching Grove as a Sky Star allocating $1B into CLO strategies.GUEST LINKS:* Sébastien Derivaux: https://twitter.com/SebVentures* Steakhouse Financial: https://twitter.com/SteakhouseFi* Steakhouse Financial Website: https://steakhouse.financialHOST LINKS:* Ryan Rodenbaugh: https://twitter.com/ryanrodenbaugh* Vaults.fyi: https://vaults.fyi* Vaults.fyi X: https://x.com/vaultsfyi* Wallfacer X: https://x.com/wallfacerlabsSUBSCRIBE TO WALLFACER PODCAST AND SHARE WITH FRIENDS:* Apple * Spotify * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WallfacerLabs* Substack: https://wallfacerlabs.substack.com/s/podcastTIMESTAMPS:* [00:00] Introduction & Background* [02:20] MakerDAO’s Early RWA Experiments: Société Générale, Centrifuge & Lessons Learned* [10:02] The Economics of RWAs: Cost Savings, Efficiency & What Actually Works On-Chain* [16:31] Why Crypto Needs RWAs: Yield Sources, Composability & Liquidity Challenges* [24:20] The mF-ONE Controversy: What Happened & How to Think About Private Credit Risk* [31:00] Commercial Break* [34:17] Risk Management Philosophy: Lenders vs. Investors & Diversification Strategy* [42:46] Comparing RWA Risk to Crypto Collateral & Evolution of Market Perception* [48:53] Building Steakhouse: Three Business Pillars & Becoming a Morpho Curator* [51:45] The Future of Curation: Market Structure, Competition & Traditional Finance Entry* [57:08] Vault Governance: Non-Custodial Design & How Morpho Captures Value* [59:58] Grove Protocol & Sky’s Star System: Decentralized Allocation Strategy* [1:04:33] Looking Ahead: Term Lending, Yield Curves & 10-Year Vision This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wallfacerlabs.substack.com