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Bastien Baude

Publications and source records attributed to Bastien Baude.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Capital allocation on decentralized lending platforms

This work complements our previous paper, which studies borrower-side strategies in decentralized lending markets, by focusing on lender-side capital allocation. We consider a lender who seeks to allocate a fixed budget across multiple markets sharing the same supplied asset. Accounting for the impact of supplied capital on lending rates, we derive closed-form solutions under three interest-rate models: linear, kinked, and adaptive (Morpho's AdaptiveCurveIRM). Backtests are conducted first on USDC and then on WETH Morpho lending markets on Ethereum. We also show that, under the kinked rate model, an allocation that brings a market exactly to the kink is never optimal on the lender side, whereas it can be optimal on the borrower side. This asymmetry may create tension between lenders and borrowers around the kink and thereby exacerbate rate volatility.

q-fin.MF

Optimal risk-aware interest rates for decentralized lending protocols

Interest rates in decentralized lending protocols are set algorithmically and adjust to supply and demand for liquidity. In this study, we propose an optimal interest rate model that maximizes the expected lender wealth while incorporating penalties for liquidity risk and interest rate stabilization. This objective benefits both sides of the market: it improves yield and reduces liquidity risk for lenders, while encouraging borrower activity indirectly through higher utilization and directly through stabilized borrowing costs. The dynamics of the utilization rate are modeled using point processes whose intensities depend on the interest rate. When intensities are linear, the optimal interest rate model is derived from a system of Riccati-type ODEs. In the nonlinear case, we approximate it using a Monte-Carlo estimator coupled with deep learning techniques. Finally, using block-by-block data, we conduct a risk-adjusted profit and loss analysis to compare industry-standard interest rate models to the deep learning-based one.

q-fin.MF

Optimal execution on Uniswap v2/v3 under transient price impact

We study the optimal liquidation of a large position on Uniswap v2 and Uniswap v3 in discrete time. The instantaneous price impact is derived from the AMM pricing rule. Transient impact is modeled to capture either exponential or approximately power-law decay, together with a permanent component. In the Uniswap v2 setting, we obtain optimal strategies in closed-form under general price dynamics. For Uniswap v3, we consider a two-layer liquidity framework, which naturally extends to multiple layers. We address the problem using dynamic programming under geometric Brownian motion dynamics and approximate the solution numerically using a discretization scheme. We obtain optimal strategies akin to classical ones in the LOB literature, with features specific to Uniswap. In particular, we show how the liquidity profile influences them.

q-fin.MF

Leveraged positions on decentralized lending platforms

We develop a mathematical framework to optimize leveraged staking ("loopy") strategies in Decentralized Finance (DeFi), in which a staked asset is supplied as collateral, the underlying is borrowed and re-staked, and the loop can be repeated across multiple lending markets. Exploiting the fact that DeFi borrow rates are deterministic functions of pool utilization, we reduce the multi-market problem to a convex allocation problem and obtain closed-form solutions under three interest-rate models: linear, kinked, and adaptive (Morpho's AdaptiveCurveIRM). The framework incorporates market-specific leverage limits, utilization-dependent borrowing costs, and transaction fees. Backtests on the Ethereum and Base blockchains using the largest Morpho wstETH/WETH markets (from January 1 to April 1, 2025) show that rebalanced leveraged positions can reach up to 6.2% APY versus 3.1% for unleveraged staking, with strong dependence on position size and rebalancing frequency. Our results provide a mathematical basis for transparent, automated DeFi portfolio optimization.

q-fin.MF