Superform Founder Interview: Banks, Fintech, and FTX, All Collapsed

Compiling: Plain Language Blockchain

Have you ever experienced your bank account being suddenly frozen, borders draining your funds layer by layer, or watching greed accumulate without warning? On the ruins of traditional finance and early black boxes in crypto (like FTX), a silent revolution about “financial sovereignty” is erupting.

This episode features an exclusive interview with Vikram, a former top crypto core member of Block Tower and co-founder of Superform. He was a professional trader managing billions, but chose to “retire” at the cutting edge, vowing to tear down the walls of centralized finance. From his departure confession, explaining how USDC generates transparent 6% yield, to how self-custody truly makes your money belong to you—this is not only an industry deep-dive but also a survival guide for protecting wealth in a crisis era. If you’re satisfied with the current financial system, this article will reveal what future banks will look like.

1. Superform’s Mission: Building a “Real” On-Chain Bank

Host: Vikram, you worked at the top crypto fund Block Tower and are now co-founder of Superform. If you had to explain what Superform is to your mom in one sentence, how would you do it?

Vikram: We’re building a new, better banking system.

For a long time, traditional banks have systematically taken our funds without giving much back—they’ve let us down. Later, FinTech companies tried to fix this, but they found poor user experience (UX) and still locked in user funds. Essentially, FinTech is just a pretty fortress built on broken infrastructure.

I left the fund because I want retail investors to win. In crypto, everything should be transparent and verifiable. Black boxes like Celsius or FTX caused huge disasters, but our yields come from the real demand for crypto assets in underlying protocols. The core is: Self-Custody. The returns people saw before were real, but they never truly owned the assets during access. Self-custody solves this trust issue.

Host: Welcome to the Drops series podcast. We focus on uncovering founders who are not yet mainstream but have potential. Vikram, the crypto market has changed dramatically this week—how do you feel? Are you sleeping well?

Vikram: Honestly, not much. Woke up in the middle of the night, looking out the window thinking, “It’s about time I did this interview.” All the pain points people complained about last week are exactly what we’re working to solve.

2. The Trader’s Transformation: Why Do Professional Traders No Longer “Trade Coins”?

Host: I spoke with another founder today who said he traded circuit breakers like a beast recently. During such volatile times, do you still participate in trading?

Vikram: I haven’t touched the secondary market in four years. Since leaving the fund, I haven’t traded at all. It’s the best decision for my mental health.

Host: That’s a very disciplined choice. As a former pro, why did you completely step away from trading?

Vikram: Four years ago, trading was my whole life. I experienced bull and bear cycles at the fund, and finally saw a harsh truth: most people in this game don’t really make money. Most newcomers in crypto are just speculating—buying hot coins, NFTs.

The only value in these speculations is attracting attention, which fuels DeFi. Although now there are protocols that generate real income, most so-called trading protocols aren’t designed to make users money—they’re like gambling with the house. So I decided to build a Yield Platform—one of the few things in crypto you can do without losing money.

Host: Mobility should be good for funds—you survive on it. Why do you think most funds are underperforming now?

Vikram: Nothing new under the sun. Most crypto funds last cycle were just “long only.” They’re VC funds aiming to get crypto exposure. When the market drops, they struggle. Although more complex strategies exist now, last week we still saw many “deaths.” Overexposure and greed never change.

3. Vision: Turning Speculation into Financial Sovereignty

Host: If trading is so hard to profit from, what motivates you now?

Vikram: I came in because I believe you can have a fully permissionless market, which is impossible in traditional finance. In traditional finance, you give your money to banks—they earn 7%, you get 1%. But in crypto, when you access the same products, you own the entire software layer and share in it.

However, all the investment targets we looked for before were just speculation. The biggest applications in cycles are trading and prediction markets. I want to build protocols that turn this speculative energy into real assets. We aim to create the foundational stack for future finance—moving everything from banks to FinTech onto the chain. No KYC needed—that’s the only way to achieve financial freedom.

Host: A few years ago, Silicon Valley popularized the idea: use FinTech for front-end, blockchain for hardware. Do you mean we need to rebuild not just the core infrastructure but also the front-end?

Vikram: Existing FinTech can integrate blockchain, but they do so on broken old systems. They take what we build—these free, decentralized, cool things—and add extra charges at every layer. They take control, turning it into “funds, their part,” not yours. If you want to focus on decentralization and non-custodial ideas, you need to build a complete bottom-up stack.

4. Days at Block Tower: Crypto Funds’ “Moat”

Host: Let’s talk about your background. What exactly did you do at Block Tower?

Vikram: I entered the space in 2016, managing DeFi investments at Block Tower. During DeFi’s explosion in 2020, our main strategy was arbitrage between centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX).

Our moat was deep understanding and ability to build on DeFi protocols’ infrastructure. We set up trading facilities across chains. Back then, a lot of capital flooded in, full of idealism. My co-founders and I realized that the layer supporting large funds wasn’t there yet. This gap pushed us to launch our own protocol, even Superform.

Host: People often think making money in crypto is easy, and some even quit their jobs to trade full-time. Where do you think this “illusion” comes from?

Vikram: Because early on, anyone could start with low stakes. There was no “institutional advantage” yet. I could beat big funds just by finding small coins on CoinGecko’s fifth page, easily outperforming those only buying Bitcoin and Ethereum. That “fair competition” illusion was perfect. But in the end, you realize managing backend, middle office, and risks is extremely hard.

Host: What’s the craziest position you’ve held?

Vikram: In 2021, we traded a meme coin called Samoyed on Solana. It was during the hype—trading on Raydium for two weeks. Typical trade—relying on “culture,” now on “value.” As long as it made money, no one cared if it was a dog coin.

Host: So, can retail traders still make money trading today?

Vikram: It’s much harder now. My advice as a former pro trader: Stop. The market now has clear structural information disadvantages—institutions hold the advantage. Stock picking long-term is mediocre, and in crypto without investor protection rules, you’re betting against those with more info.

Now I keep my funds in a few DeFi protocols like Morpho, Superform, Euler. I no longer trade on secondary markets. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best strategy.

5. Sales, Risks, and “Web 2.5” Users

Host: You said “everything is sales,” even deep DeFi analysis. What does that mean?

Vikram: Why isn’t DeFi mainstream yet? Because we haven’t done enough sales and education. Many think putting money in banks is safer, but a well-designed, low-risk DeFi protocol can be safer than traditional banks that might fail or lock your funds. We need to show and educate people that on-chain systems are trustworthy.

Host: You left a high-paying role at Block Tower in 2021 to start your own business. What was your mindset then?

Vikram: It was the hardest decision of my life, with huge opportunity costs. But at 25, I thought if I didn’t step into the arena and build my own thing, I’d be on the sidelines forever. Building is emotionally rollercoaster—much tougher than investing. Investors can do one thing; builders must excel in many areas.

Host: Superform started as a Yield Marketplace, but you realized a missed market.

Vikram: Exactly. We thought crypto natives would love us. But we found they only want higher yields. Our product—simple, safe, user-friendly—is actually aimed at “Web 2.5” users.

Host: Who are “Web 2.5” users?

Vikram: People hurt by FinTech. They’ve had funds frozen on Venmo or Robinhood because platforms shut down markets. They’ve heard about crypto benefits but can’t operate complex protocols independently. They’re in between Web2 and Web3—that’s the audience we want to reach with mobile-first apps.

6. Politics, De-banking, and Crypto’s Social Role

Host: Why do you think it’s urgent to build this now?

Vikram: If we don’t act now, FinTech companies will take over these permissioned techs and turn them into tools to expand user control.

Host: Is this distinction obvious to users?

Vikram: To ordinary Americans or Europeans, maybe not. But for those deprived of rights—political groups, emerging industries, even figures like Trump who faced de-banking during campaigns—it’s life-saving. You never know when a wrong word or sensitive transaction will get you blacklisted by banks.

Host: I’ve experienced that myself. In 2019, Revolut de-banked me after I transferred $7,000 to buy Bitcoin—now I have nothing. My accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore data companies were recently locked without explanation.

Vikram: That’s why trust is fragile. These systems shouldn’t require blind trust. The essence of crypto is “trustless.” Now, many of our transactions use stablecoins because we no longer trust banks.

7. Dissecting Yields: Why Does USDC Offer 6% APY?

Host: This is a core question. My uncle lost all his money on Celsius and FTX. Now you tell him USDC yields nearly 6%, he’ll think it’s a scam. How do you explain that this 6% isn’t “amazing”?

Vikram: That’s the industry’s key question. Celsius’s mistake was wrapping a centralized black box with DeFi.

Our yield comes from the real financing demand for crypto assets in underlying protocols. For example, someone wants leverage long, so they pay interest to borrow USDC. That 6% is the real cost of market activity.

The most important difference: in Superform, every dollar you have—where it’s deployed and how it earns—is transparent on-chain. We don’t hold your assets; you have self-custody. Self-custody is the only solution for FTX.

8. Branding, Mascots, and Simplified Products

Host: You have a pig mascot called Piggy, positioned as “DeFi’s Pudgy Penguins.” Most DeFi founders only care about APIs. Why do you think a cute pig can win?

Vikram: In DeFi, we’ve tried almost every hardcore way to attract users. The only thing we haven’t tried is being “fun.”

We can talk about security and transparency, but that only attracts the tech-savvy. To bring in the next billion users, we need community and culture. Piggy symbolizes a traditional piggy bank—makes finance less scary. Yesterday, Superform announced acquiring Piggy’s brand, using it as a cultural symbol to reach the masses.

Host: You label various experience assets in the app as “USD” or “BTC,” which eases understanding but might mislead users?

Vikram: That’s a balance. Many new users are scared off by terms like “wrapped tokens on certain chains.” Our goal is not to create barriers upfront. Of course, at the trading layer, we provide detailed disclosures and warnings. We try to find a middle ground between “not scaring users” and “being transparent.”

9. Looking to 2030: Will DeFi Become Invisible?

Host: Suppose it’s 2030, and Superform has revolutionized DeFi with millions of users. What must be done in the next five years to reach that?

Vikram: First, self-custody must become normalized. Users shouldn’t need to remember 24 seed phrases to use products safely. Second, we need to build safety nets similar to traditional finance—insurance, downside protection, layered products.

Though banks will be bailed out by governments, we aim to create similar protections through technology in DeFi. We want to prove that decentralized finance can be not only more free but also as safe or safer than traditional finance.

Host: Finally, what’s the one thing you want people to remember?

Vikram: The future is bright.

People are being destroyed by existing institutions—crypto is the only systemic solution. It’s not just technology; it’s a social movement to “take back control of your life.” If you’re unhappy with assets being taken away at will, join us. Now is the time to reclaim the conversation.

Host: Thank you, Vikram. Thank you for your honesty and for recognizing that we need to make this space understandable for parents and relatives. If we don’t simplify everything, we’ll never reach where we want to go.