Jean Rausis developed a strong passion for understanding and improving IT systems early in his life, which eventually brought him international recognition in the field of cybersecurity.
Early in his career, he founded a security consulting firm, partnering with leading companies and government entities to safeguard their IT infrastructures. In 2019, he co-founded SMARDEX in Montreux, Switzerland, with a mission to empower users with secure, transparent, and efficient financial tools.
We recently spoke with Jean Rausis, Co-Founder of SMARDEX, about his transition from cybersecurity to decentralised finance and why his project chose to remain self-funded to preserve protocol integrity.
Read more about SMARDEX’s mathematical approach to solving impermanent loss and their new AI-driven tools in the interview below.
You started your career in cybersecurity, then moved into finance, and later into DeFi. Can you talk about that journey and how those experiences led you to build SMARDEX?
I started in cybersecurity, where I learned to build systems that remain strong under adversarial pressure. Moving into finance showed me that the same dynamics exist in markets, which drove me toward DeFi as the place to rebuild secure, transparent financial infrastructure. SMARDEX emerged from combining that mindset with the need to fix AMM inefficiencies and design more resilient on-chain primitives.
SMARDEX is self-funded and decentralised. Why was it crucial for you to build it this way to maintain independence both financially and in how the project functions?
We declined traditional VC funding because control concentration is the root of most systemic failures in crypto. Self-funding allows us to prioritise long-term protocol integrity instead of short-term valuation strategies. Independence guarantees that governance, economics, and future products prioritise users, not a cap table. If we decide to raise funds, we will do so with highly trusted partners who will safeguard holders’ interests.
When you and Eric identified Uniswap’s impermanent loss flaw, what convinced you that the fix was mathematically achievable?
Impermanent loss isn’t a bug but a structural bias that consistently shifts value from LPs to arbitrageurs. Our simulations and mathematical models demonstrated that fictive reserves could turn this effect into impermanent gain under real market conditions. Once the equations withstood adversarial stress tests, we knew the fix was feasible. In any case, our upcoming solutions will surpass this one. This was just our first product.
How does the RA2 market-making and technological R&D structure ensure sustainable innovation inside the ecosystem?
RA2 combines professional market-making with in-depth protocol research, providing us with real market data to validate theories. Since RA2 trades using its own capital, the incentives promote discipline and precise modeling. This setup continuously feeds improvements into SMARDEX, USDN, the AI layer, and everything else coming soon.
We know SMARDEX is working on new innovative products. Can you tell us more about what you’re building and what makes it different?
We prefer to keep the details under wraps for now, but I can say we are building true DeFi. You will learn about it soon enough.
What makes SMARDEX AI different from other Web3 AI tools in delivering scalable, actionable insights for traders and investors?
SMARDEX AI is built directly on on-chain data and liquidity mechanics, not just generic LLM outputs. It functions as a meta-agent that assesses risk, models scenarios, and translates protocol-level information into user-level actions. Its feedback loop with real trading results keeps it continuously self-correcting and scalable.
USDN is a fully on-chain stablecoin. How does it avoid depeg risk without relying on custodians or external platforms?
Rather than relying on bank reserves, USDN operates as a delta-neutral structure that balances collateral deposits with long-only perps. This architecture keeps net exposure close to zero while generating organic yield. All minting, burning, settlement, and hedging logic is on-chain, eliminating off-chain solvency risk. It can depeg, and we accept that, but flexible market incentives make it highly profitable for the market to peg it back if necessary. Most stablecoins struggle with their rigid peg, but we welcome fluctuations as part of a shock-absorbing mechanism.
When volatility hits, how does USDN’s incentive model drive the market to organically repeg instead of panic-sell?
When USDN deviates from $1, arbitrage becomes profitable through minting, burning, and perpetual rebalancing, naturally pulling the price back. The incentive model encourages rational actors to stabilise the system instead of causing panic. Funding flows and liquidations drive the structure toward equilibrium rather than intensifying shocks.
What’s next for you and the team heading into 2026?
Our priority is to grow USDN responsibly across DeFi while maintaining full on-chain transparency. SMARDEX AI will develop into a true co-pilot capable of guiding users through complex yield and liquidity decisions. Also, we will continue advancing our AMM design with a soon-to-be-revealed solution that ensures superior capital efficiency for SMARDEX.