Welcome to the first episode of our Nexus Mutual Team Talks series, where we learn more about the people behind the first crypto insurance alternative. 

Ricky Tan, Nexus Mutual’s COO, has been with the team for a long time. He joined the team a year after the Nexus Mutual v1 protocol was live on the Ethereum Mainnet. 

What were you doing before you joined Nexus Mutual in 2020?

Ricky: I have always been interested in financial markets, technology and mathematics. Right after graduating from university in the Netherlands, I worked at JPMorgan in London on the trading floor. I first worked in Credit Derivatives Structuring, where we created bespoke solutions for large institutional clients. Later, in the Commodities Sales & Trading division, I focused on structuring and selling financial derivatives on commodities such as oil, gas, electricity, and emissions rights.

Sem: Those experiences reflect your role’s main focus today: creating bespoke solutions for institutional clients in a market that requires deep technical research skills.

How did you get into crypto and DeFi?

Ricky: I first discovered Bitcoin in 2014. Bitcoin and crypto appealed to me because it’s at the intersection of technology and finance. My experience has come full circle.

After more than five years at JPMorgan in London, I moved to the West Coast of the US to attend business school. There, I interned at a company called Abra to help out with business development and partnerships, where I saw the massive potential of crypto to become the new global rails of finance. Finance can be so much faster, and so much more open. Blockchains are a no-brainer in that context.

In 2017, I started a crypto research and consulting company called TokenData and built a network of early builders and investors in DeFi. I vividly remember going to meetups in San Francisco where founders were pitching the first iterations of what would end up becoming industry-defining protocols such as Compound, MakerDAO and Uniswap.

Sem: Crypto, and Nexus Mutual, have evolved a lot since you got into the space.

How has your role evolved since you first joined?

Ricky: Our focus has always been on building risk transfer products to make sure crypto and DeFi users stay safe, but my role did change a bit. 

I think generally, in the early days of a company or protocol, most people should end up doing whatever needs to be done. When I joined Nexus Mutual in 2020 as the first Business Development hire, it was exactly like that. I would chip in wherever there was a need: I moderated Discord, provided customer support, filed bug tickets, kicked bots out of our Telegram channel and of course helped grow the number of partnerships and cover buyers. As industries and businesses mature, people end up more focused on their actual remit. My experience has been similar, and over the years my focus shifted increasingly to strategy, partnerships and sales. 

My main goal, both as Head of BD and later as COO, has always been to make sure we sell more cover and strike enduring partnerships. The same question can be reframed from a strategic perspective: how can Nexus Mutual remain relevant in making DeFi safer? What do we provide and whom do we partner with, to bring our products to the market, in the best way possible?

Three core tenets that help us find an answer here:

1. DeFi overcomplicates things too quickly. We keep things simple, with a focus on: What is the product our main users want? How do we sell it?

2. Focus is everything. We make sure the team focuses on a maximum of three things with a lot of intensity at a given time. We keep our goals simple; it helps us decide faster. 

3. We don’t ignore the constraints. There are always constraints in strategic decision-making. We identify them early and use them to fine-tune our focus.

How do you decide which initiatives to prioritize?

We are attentive to market signals and combine those with user and partner feedback. Having said that, you also need to be patient if people are fearful, or if some other development created a general downturn. Sometimes, it’s best to wait it out. 

It is good to keep in mind that there are always a hundred different ways your product could be better. As the COO, I see it as part of my responsibility to decide what deserves our attention. At Nexus Mutual, one thing that we kept hearing about was the complexity of our previous claims process; our partners wanted to make sure we had expert Claims Assessors. We shipped that in Nexus Mutual v3. 

When the day is done, we turn back to the signals and feedback: has the demand for our product increased? And we start all over again. 

What is your approach to hiring, team building and culture at Nexus Mutual?

To start off, our team members at Nexus Mutual have been here for a long time compared to other crypto companies and/or protocols. Our average employee tenure is more than two years. It’s also interesting to note that most team members were not hired: they naturally became part of the team as they started to engage with us directly or on platforms such as our forum or X/Twitter. In crypto, because of the open nature, you can spot talented people easier and better. You see who is willing and ready to do the work before you hire them. 

We work remotely, like most other crypto companies out there. I miss getting real-time feedback, or the ability to just tap people on the shoulder, the spontaneity. Still, I think working remotely serves the spirit of decentralization well. And we’re doing pretty well hypercommunicating on Slack. 

What excites you the most about Nexus Mutual in 2026?

Ricky: Since 2019, Nexus Mutual has been at the forefront of protecting crypto and DeFi users. I am excited about unleashing our new contributions to keeping DeFi safe. 

There are a lot of exciting partnerships and new products in the pipeline, and I think 2026 will be a very strong year for Nexus Mutual. Just recently, we launched the world’s first covered vault with UltraYield and Kelp DAO. We updated our protocol to Nexus Mutual v3 and responded to many long-term members’ and users’ feedback. 

We’re more ready than ever to share our expertise in DeFi risk. We’ve launched the Onchain Risk Map as an open standard with OpenCover. Over the long term, I’m also particularly excited about partnering with traditional insurance players to fully share our expertise and technology with the global finance industry. 

Thank you, Ricky, for your time! Any last message to our readers?

Thank you for reading! If you want to learn more about how you can protect your crypto, or want to explore meaningful partnerships, reach out to the team via our website. We’re always happy to talk about onchain risk.

Stay safe in DeFi!