Ryan Galvankar is the Founder of Plaza Finance, a protocol building programmable derivatives in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. He leads the development of innovative financial instruments designed to provide customizable risk-return profiles for cryptocurrency investors.

Overview

Ryan Galvankar established Plaza Finance to address limitations in the DeFi ecosystem by creating programmable derivative tokens that offer more sophisticated investment strategies beyond traditional trading options. The platform focuses on developing tokenized vault structures that enable the creation of various risk-return profiles across different assets ^[1]. Under Galvankar's leadership, Plaza Finance has positioned itself as "the public square for on-chain bonds and leverage," aiming to democratize access to advanced financial instruments in the cryptocurrency market.

Galvankar's vision for Plaza Finance centers on three core principles: open access, global liquidity, and incentive-aligned fee markets. He has described programmable derivatives as "the next wave of global capital markets infrastructure" ^[1].

Education

Ryan Galvankar pursued his higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was part of the prestigious Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. He earned dual degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Economics with a focus on Finance from The Wharton School, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Electrical Engineering. This rigorous program, completed between 2016 and 2020, equipped him with a unique blend of business acumen and technical expertise.

Prior to his university education, Galvankar attended American Heritage Schools - Broward Campus from 2012 to 2016, where he laid the foundation for his future academic and professional pursuits. ^[5]

Career

Plaza Finance

In 2024, Galvankar secured a $2.5 million pre-seed funding round for Plaza Finance, led by Anagram Ventures ^[2]. This initial funding supported the development of the platform's first programmable derivative tokens.

In April 2025, Galvankar led Plaza Finance's launch on the Base blockchain network, introducing two flagship products:

1. bondETH: A yield-generating token that provides holders with a fixed USDC income stream backed by a diversified pool of liquid staking and restaking tokens (LSTs and LRTs) ^[3].
2. levETH: A leveraged Ethereum exposure token designed to amplify returns without the liquidation risks typically associated with traditional leverage methods ^[2].

The launch followed significant community interest, with Plaza Finance attracting over 600,000 testnet users and $1.5 million in early deposits prior to the official release ^[1].

Under Galvankar's direction, Plaza Finance formed a strategic partnership with LayerZero, an omnichain interoperability protocol, to enable cross-chain expansion of its derivative products. This collaboration aims to extend the reach of Plaza's tokens beyond the Base network to multiple blockchain ecosystems ^[2].

Galvankar has outlined an ambitious roadmap for Plaza Finance, including plans to expand the platform's product suite with additional derivatives such as bondBTC, levBTC, and instruments based on Solana and real-world assets (RWAs) ^[3]. This expansion strategy aims to position Plaza Finance as a comprehensive marketplace for tokenized investment products across the DeFi ecosystem. ^{[6] [7] [8] [9]}

Interviews

Nebular Conference Talk #01

On August 2, 2024, Ryan Galvankar took part in an interview featured on the YouTube channel Nebular. During the discussion, he presented his analysis of the Cosmos ecosystem, focusing on its current limitations and future directions in the context of decentralized finance (DeFi). Representing Plaza Finance, Galvankar identified liquidity constraints as a recurring challenge for Cosmos-based networks. He observed that, despite the extended presence of Cosmos in the blockchain sector, its networks continue to report lower total value locked (TVL) and transaction volumes relative to platforms such as Ethereum and Solana.

Galvankar described two primary approaches for increasing user adoption within Cosmos: introducing new participants to the cryptocurrency space or offering financial products aimed at users already active on other blockchain networks. He stated that positioning Cosmos as a standalone brand may be insufficient in light of the larger marketing and capital resources available to competitors like Solana. Instead, he proposed utilizing Cosmos’s interoperability features, including the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, as a basis for developing financial instruments intended to appeal to a wider range of users.

In his remarks, Galvankar also examined perpetual decentralized exchanges (DEXs). He pointed out inefficiencies arising from isolated liquidity pools within individual platforms and suggested that programmable derivatives, structured as tokenized, redeemable products linked to vaults, could potentially address these issues and reduce the risks typically associated with synthetic assets.

The conversation further addressed the limited involvement of institutional investors in DeFi markets. According to Galvankar, the prevalence of highly volatile assets may discourage institutional participation. As part of its response, Plaza Finance is designing financial products, including Ethereum-backed bonds with returns paid in USDC, which are intended to provide investment options with greater stability for both institutional and retail investors.

Galvankar concluded the interview by outlining Plaza Finance’s plans to launch a public testnet and indicated that feedback from participants would inform ongoing product development. ^[4]