DeZy Review, Usage Tips and Referral Benefits

DeZy Logo

On 1 November 2022, DeZy announced that they are discontinuing their SGD and XSGD yielding services.

It appears they will develop and adopt a different business model in the coming future. More details found in their official announcement.

Key points:

  • 100% of user funds are safe, secure, and ready for withdrawal. Withdrawals can take up to 24 hours but are usually processed much faster.
  • all rewards programs will be discontinued on the first of 1st of November 2022.
  • funds will continue to yield at 5.65% until the 15th of November 2022.
  • new deposits are discontinued effectively immediately.
  • new sign-ups are discontinued effectively immediately.
  • users are advised to withdraw all their DeZy balances by 15 November 2022 or earlier.

To address any questions related to the above, DeZy will be hosting an AMA session on the 3rd of November at 6pm SGT in their Discord channel.

Table of Contents

Company

Decentralised finance, made easy. Frictionless, user-friendly access to higher returns.

DeZy is a Singapore based fintech established in 2021. It was started by four co-founders:

  • Eric Dadoun (CEO)
  • Harald Lang (CTO)
  • Sharmini Ravindran (CMO)
  • Simon Landsheer (strategic advisor)

Business model

“DeZy offers you up to 5.65% with 0 fees and 0 lock in. We do this by offering you risk managed and fully insured exposure to DeFi protocols.”


DeZy is a tech stack that manages xSGD. They help to deploy xSGD to generate a yield available for users. As of February 2022, the payout rate is up to 5.65% APY.

This service helps non-crypto users and those looking for passive yield opportunities access the benefits of decentralised finance in a simplified manner.

Investment process flow
Investment process flow

Users are only involved in the first step of depositing fiat Singapore dollars from banks and last step of withdrawing back to banks.

DeZy helps to abstract away other portions of the DeFi yield generation process like:

  • foreign exchange
  • crypto asset wallet management
  • deployment of funds to DeFi via partners
  • DeFi risk mitigation

Here is a blog article by DeZy explaining how their business model is sustainable in the long run.

For more details, visit DeZy’s blog

Key points:

  • DeZy is never in custody of users' funds.
    • They only facilitate user funds to move between onboarding partners and the DeFi protocols integrated with.
    • This also means that if for whatever reason DeZy were to go offline or become unavailable, user funds are still present and recoverable on the blockchain.
  • DeZy enables simplified access to Decentralised Finance via fluctuating dollar backed stablecoins.
  • DeZy earns from the spread generated on top of the interest payout offered to customers.

Risk disclosure

DeZy works with proven protocols, and stablecoin single-sided yield strategies. However, nothing is 100% safe and funds are still exposed to the risks of underlying protocol hacks/failures and smart contract hacks, where the loss of funds is possible.

As of April 2022, users' risks are diversified across a range of audited decentralised finance protocols such as Unagii, Vauld, Orion Money, mStable, TrueFi, and Notional Finance.

Risk mitigation approaches

“We limited our own upside margin potential because we prioritised customer protection and we will always operate in that manner.”

  • DeZy does not hold or expose funds to Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other volatile crypto assets.
    • Use of only 1:1 backed stablecoins.
  • At no point in the DeZy process are funds used for leverage trading, paying out other users or anything other than allowing users to yield on their balance.
  • Insurance built in as a default feature.
  • Diversify across a wide range of protocols to ensure no single point of failure.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

“We’ve got to be intentional about inclusion.”

Some DeZy Cares projects include:

Investors

  • DeZy raises US$2.2M in Pre-Series A funding round led by Leo Capital with participation from Iterative Capital. [Feb 2022]
  • Undisclosed funding from Singapore investors such as DeFiance Capital, HH Investments, Impiro, and angels such as Tranglo founder HY Sia [Sep 2021]

Key metrics

  • S$3.75M+ in deposits [Jul 2022]
  • S$200K in customer rewards [Jul 2022]

Presence in Singapore

  • DeZy is currently headquartered in Singapore. As of July 2022, DeZy is a team of 10 with 6 being based out of Singapore.
  • Entity: Dezy Pte Ltd (UEN: 202116623N)
  • Address: 68 Circular Road #02-01, Singapore 049422 [Feb 2022]

Memberships

  • Blockchain Association of Singapore [Mar 2022]
  • Singapore Fintech Association

Regulation by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

DeZy is not licensed by MAS.

DeZy is structured to operate within the existing regulatory framework in Singapore. The team is mindful of only offering permitted services.

DeZy is constantly monitoring their business model together with their Singapore legal team and 3rd party partners to ensure an up-to-date view of the regulatory environment in Singapore and appropriate compliance.

Security

Audits

In April 2022, DeZy announced that they had engaged Tech Security SG, a Singapore based audit firm to run a complete security audit of all internal infrastructure used in their service.

“No major issues were found during the security audit with Tech Security SG. We made a variety of incremental improvements to security based on the feedback provided during the audit process. All systems have been upgraded to the latest industry best practices.”

Who is Tech Security SG?

Tech Security SG offers a range of cybersecurity services within include web, mobile and network penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, IT security audit, source code review.

Their clients include SGX, RHB, Circles Life, Singapore Police Force, Gov Tech and more.

Copper multi-sig vault

Shared by an administrator (Eric) on Discord in July 2022 after a user raised concerns about exit scams:

“Copper vaults are accessible by two individuals in the company via a multi-sig setup. Any action taken to engage with the Copper vaults by these individuals require a counter signature by Copper as well and in the event of either of the individuals at Dezy (or Copper) no longer being accessible / contactable, there is a 3rd party legal firm who can stand in as an emergency signer.”

Social media

Ecosystem

DeZy Rewards Program

Launched in March 2022, the DeZy Rewards Program is a fun reward mechanism introduced on top of DeZy’s 5.65% yield.

Key features (terms and conditions apply):

  • Set, forget and earn:
    • Park a minimum of S$5000 and earn bonuses of $25/$50/$100 when you do not withdraw for 30/90/180 days.
  • Savings Ninja:
    • Deposit $1,000 monthly and pick up cash bonuses along the way.
  • DeZy Ambassador Program:
    • Give $25, Get $25, for each friend who goes DeZy with you.
    • Get bonus rewards when hitting certain milestones.

Learn & Earn

Launched in July 2022, Learn & Earn lets users complete quizzes after reviewing the learning material to:

  • earn deposit rewards
  • increase their deposit limit. (new DeZy users start with a deposit cap of $30,000)

βœ”οΈ Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Easy to get started | Streamlined access to crypto investing

Novice crypto investors who are just getting acquainted with crypto asset investing are one DeZy’s targeted market. DeZy allows one to grow their wealth with DeFi protocols without having to understand the intricacies of blockchain.

There are no complicated blockchain transactions. Customers just have to deposit funds and watch them compound over time.

The minimum deposit to get started with DeZy is S$200.

Insurance of funds with InsurAce

In April 2022, DeZy announced that they have partnered with InsurAce to introduce insurance coverage on all deposits made with DeZy. Investors are automatically covered with zero additional cost. No actions required!

“Our partnership with InsurAce ensures that you are completely covered in the case that any of the underlying protocols we deploy into get hacked.”

“Your DeZy balance and yield are insured in the case of smart contract vulnerabilities and custodian risks.”

Learn about about the coverage details here.

What is InsurAce?

InsurAce provides reliable and secure insurance services to decentralised finance users, allowing them to secure investment assets against various risks including:

  • Smart Contract Vulnerability
  • Custodian Risk
  • IDO Event Risk
  • Stablecoin Depeg Risk

Less impacted by volatility in crypto markets

DeZy builds on top of XSGD and USDC, and is not exposed to other stablecoins nor other crypto assets with fluctuating values. This makes it less impacted by volatile crypto markets.

DeZy posted a blog article highlighting this to address the worries of users during the turmoil in the Terra/Luna ecosystem in May 2022.

Returns compound daily

For each day that one leaves their deposit in DeZy, their interest compounds. Account updates happen daily at 9:00am Singapore time.

Withdraw anytime you want

With DeZy there’s no lock in period, which means users can withdraw funds anytime they need.

Zero fees

DeZy operates on a zero fee structure and earns from the spread generated on top of the interest payout offered to customers.

❌ Drawbacks

Lower interest compared to other platforms

The payout interest offered by DeZy is lower than other competitors. The reason might be because it takes a more conservative approach to yield generation via stablecoins instead of other volatile crypto assets.

Maximum cap on investment amount

Investors can deposit up to $20,000 in each transaction. However, the total deposit value per account is capped at $30,000.

Accounts can continue to yield above the $30,000 balance, meaning that total balances (total value of deposits and savings made through yield) in DeZy can go above $30,000.

Usage Notes

Depositing funds

DeZy’s integration with StraitsX by Xfers mean that users are now able to deposit into their DeZy account directly from their bank accounts. DeZy supports FAST transfers into a unique CIMB deposit account. Instructions are available via DeZy mobile and web dashboard.

My first transfer was $200 (minimum investment amount) from a POSB account via FAST and it was reflected within minutes inside my DeZy account balance.

  • When performing bank transactions related to crypto, it is strongly advised to not use words like “crypto”, “bitcoin” etc inside the comments/description of the transaction.
  • Maximum transaction size is $20,000 per transaction.
  • Maximum deposits for accounts are $30,000 as of March 2022.

Minimum balance of S$500 to receive referral benefits

Users need to have a minimum balance of S$500 before they can enjoy referral benefits.