Kevin Rusher, founder and CEO of Regnum Aurum Acquisition Corp (RAAC), joins us in episode 71 of Colors of Web3 and Entrepreneurship. Kevin, a Web3 native with a background in accounting and finance, shares his fascinating journey from writing a fintech paper about Bitcoin to becoming a power user in DeFi and eventually leading RAAC. He recounts his early experiences moonlighting for a crypto exchange doing KYC/AML checks and helping build a medium-scale GPU mining facility, managing one of the largest Ravencoin and ETH miners in the world at the time. This deep dive into the practical side of crypto laid the foundation for his current innovative ventures.

RAAC's core mission is to provide the most seamless bridge between TradFi (Traditional Finance) and DeFi. Kevin explains that RAAC is built on four main pillars: lending, borrowing, collateral liquidity, and rewards. The company addresses the inherent volatility in DeFi by offering stable collateral, starting with one-to-one backed real estate NFTs that are redeemable for the underlying title. Beyond real estate, RAAC has secured commitments for $3 billion in assets, primarily gold, to mint stablecoins, turning traditionally illiquid assets into revenue-producing ones pre-production. RAAC’s approach is unique, being a DeFi product built by DeFi natives for DeFi natives, yet harnessing traditional finance.

⌛ Timestamps:

00:00:00 Episode trailer

00:00:31 Show & guest introduction 

00:05:38 How GPU Mining Works

00:14:32 Crypto’s growth and institutional involvement

00:15:33 Kevin's hobbies

00:17:06 Introducing RAAC

00:21:48 Integrating real estate with stablecoins in DeFi

00:27:16 Chainlink and oracle solutions powering RAAC

00:33:02 Understanding institutional interest

00:36:02 Bringing RWA on chain via stablecoins

00:38:51 Bridging TradFi and DeFi

00:40:51 Highlighting the core offering: Real estate meets NFTs

00:43:12 Closed loop ecosystem in DeFi

00:44:42 Legal challenges in real estate tokenization

00:47:03 What is Section 8 real estate

00:49:02 Risk management for RAAC's business model

00:52:06 Analyzing competitors in the RWA market

00:55:02 RAAC’s revenue model and business strategy

00:57:16 Team dynamics and operational agility

00:59:50 Challenges in articulating complex idea

01:02:21 Reputation issues in the Web3 space

01:05:36 Where RWA are headed in Web3

01:10:51 Advice for aspiring Web3 entrepreneurs　

01:15:28 Episode outro and next episode preview

Follow RAAC & Kevin:

RAAC's Website: https://raac.io/

RAAC's Twitter/X:  https://x.com/RegnumAurum

Kevin's Twitter/X: https://x.com/kkrusherr

My social media:

Twitter/X: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/LamWeb3⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/lamweb3/⁠

Website: ⁠https://lamtrinh.xyz⁠

My old article about the 2-3 prevailing narratives of 2024-2025: https://substack.com/home/post/p-143541984

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