> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.axis.to/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.axis.to/start-here/origin.md). # Origin Axis started in 2025. The people and the trading discipline behind it go back much further, to the earliest days of crypto market structure. ## Making markets when few others would Axis co-founder and CEO Chris Kim was the first employee at QCP Capital, where he ran the firm's most active book. At the time only a handful of desks anywhere were willing to quote non-dollar stablecoins, and his was one of them. That market looked nothing like today's. It was small, but the inefficiencies were large. Emerging market structure, cross-border barriers, and thin connectivity between regions held open real price gaps on the same asset. The work was cross-asset arbitrage: price a local or regional market against the global price for Bitcoin, other digital assets, and currencies, then trade the difference. Some of those gaps came from a promise rather than from the market. One trade ran across three legs: buy a stablecoin at a fixed 1:1 against dollars from a payments company that guaranteed that rate to its users, sell it for another stablecoin on an exchange, then convert back to dollars. The first leg did not move when the market did. Finding trades like that is the job. ## From arbitrage to a quantitative fund Chris took that experience to a proprietary quantitative trading firm, where the cross-border discipline was joined to cross-venue arbitrage, low-latency execution, and a market-microstructure edge. That operation grew into a hedge fund with outside investors, run on the same market-neutral discipline Axis uses today. ## From a fund to a protocol In 2025 the team came together, redeemed its LPs, and set out to build something larger. The trading and risk infrastructure Axis runs on was not built for Axis. It predated Axis, tested through several market cycles, and the moment to point it at a bigger opportunity had arrived. ## Why now Four things converged that had not been true in earlier cycles: * **Institutional participation became real.** After several cycles of promise, serious institutions started moving capital through digital asset markets. * **Real assets began intersecting crypto.** Not only Treasuries onchain, but tokenized gold, commodities, equities, and non-dollar stablecoins: a widening set of real-world exposures moving onto public infrastructure. * **Tokenization became durable.** Blockchain-based issuance and settlement became established enough to be treated as a lasting asset standard rather than an experiment. * **Synthetic dollars and yield tokens found adoption.** They were taken up across DeFi as a settlement and savings layer. Together these point at the opportunity Axis is built for: capital markets forming around a new asset class, with global institutional participation, and a team whose trading edge is built to supply liquidity where those markets need it most. ## Why it is built this way Axis trades, provisions liquidity, makes markets, and manages risk. That is what the team has always done. USDx and sUSDx are the onchain expression of that operation, a way to package institutional-grade, market-neutral trading into products anyone can hold. They are not a pivot into a different business. ## Where to go next * [What is Axis?](/start-here/what-is-axis.md): the fuller identity and the two tokens. * [How Axis Works](/start-here/how-axis-works.md): the end-to-end lifecycle. * [Risk Overview](/risk/risk-overview.md): the principal risks of holding USDx and sUSDx. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter, and the optional `goal` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.axis.to/start-here/origin.md?ask=&goal= ``` `ask` is the immediate question: it should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. `goal` is optional and describes the broader end goal you are ultimately trying to accomplish on behalf of the user. GitBook uses it to tailor the answer towards what is most useful for that goal. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.