Joseph Schiarizzi, known widely in the cryptocurrency community by his online alias CupOJoseph, is the founder of the DeFi protocol Nerite and for his educational content explaining the risks and mechanics of the DeFi ecosystem. Schiarizzi is also a frequent public commentator on industry ethics, tokenomics, and market trends.

Education

Joseph Schiarizzi earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science from The George Washington University in 2018.^{[1] [2]}​

Career

His professional history before founding his own DeFi projects is similarly varied across different accounts. He has been identified with roles in traditional finance, including as a quantitative researcher or software engineer at Citadel and as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. He has also been linked to software engineering and developer roles at technology and crypto-native companies such as OpenSea, ConsenSys, Gitcoin, Uber, and Blocknative ^{[3] [4]}. Across these roles, his work has spanned quantitative finance, full-stack development, and blockchain protocol engineering ^[5].

Schiarizzi has founded and contributed to numerous projects in the Web3 space, with his work primarily focused on DeFi infrastructure, developer tools, and novel applications.

Nerite

Nerite is the primary DeFi project founded by Schiarizzi. The protocol has been described in various ways across sources, including as a liquidity management protocol, an on-chain derivatives exchange, and MEV-aware infrastructure. The most detailed public description comes from a governance proposal submitted to the Uniswap community in January 2025 ^[6].

According to the proposal, Nerite is a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) protocol on the Arbitrum network, described as a "friendly' sanctioned fork of Liquity V2." The protocol is designed to be immutable, preventing the addition of new collateral types after launch to enhance security and minimize governance overhead. Nerite allows users to borrow a native stablecoin, USDN, against deposited collateral. The USDN stablecoin is designed to be redeemable for $1.00 of collateral and integrates with the Superfluid protocol to enable it to be streamed for real-time payments. The protocol also features a "Protocol Owned Liquidations" (PoL) system, which directs value from liquidations to stakers in its Stability Pool rather than to MEV bots. A "Tranched Redemptions" mechanism helps maintain the USDN peg through arbitrage incentives ^[6].

To launch the project, Schiarizzi authored or was the subject of several governance proposals to the Uniswap DAO for a "Nerite x UNI Pilot Program." These proposals, submitted between late 2023 and early 2025, aimed to have the UNI token listed as a collateral asset on Nerite and to have the Uniswap Treasury deposit funds into the protocol to earn yield and help bootstrap liquidity ^{[4] [6]}.

Educational Content and Writings

Under the alias CupOJoseph, Schiarizzi has produced a significant body of educational content aimed at explaining complex DeFi concepts and warning users of potential risks. He uses platforms like Medium, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) for this purpose ^[7].

His most-cited articles include "DeFi Vaults Are Not Savings Accounts" and "The Truth About Yield Farming." ^{[8] [9]}​

• In "DeFi Vaults Are Not Savings Accounts," Schiarizzi argues against the misconception that automated yield-generating strategies are risk-free. He highlights a range of risks, including smart contract bugs, economic exploits, centralization risks, and impermanent loss, stating that DeFi products cannot be considered "savings accounts in the traditional sense of the word." ^[8]
• In "The Truth About Yield Farming," he deconstructs how high Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) are often generated from inflationary token rewards rather than sustainable, fee-based revenue. He describes these high yields as a form of customer acquisition cost for new protocols and warns that they are often temporary and carry significant risk ^[9].

His YouTube channel provided tutorials and guides on topics such as Solana, Arbitrum, introductions to Solidity programming, and security best practices like using burner wallets ^[7].

Other Projects

Schiarizzi has also been publicly associated with the founding or creation of several other projects ^[10]:

• OrbSwap: A project in development as of late 2024, presumed to be a decentralized exchange or swap aggregator ^[10].
• Game Wallet: Announced in May 2023, Game Wallet is a project to convert classic Nintendo Game Boy devices into secure, offline hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies. The project demonstrates an interest in novel applications for crypto security ^[10].
• Open Dollar: Several sources identify Schiarizzi as the founder or CEO of Open Dollar, a stablecoin protocol that allows users to borrow against liquid staking tokens. He was also credited as a contributor to the project in the Nerite Uniswap proposal ^{[5] [6]}.
• Open-Source Contributions: Schiarizzi's GitHub profile shows contributions to a wide array of Web3 organizations and projects, including DefiLlama, Offchain Labs (the team behind Arbitrum), Camelot DEX, and the core Ethereum website. He is listed as an "Arctic Code Vault Contributor" on the platform ^[11].

Industry Commentary and Public Stance

Schiarizzi is a vocal participant in crypto industry discourse, frequently offering analysis on market trends, regulation, and the conduct of other projects.

On Regulation and Market Trends

His commentary on the intersection of U.S. politics and the crypto market has been cited by financial press. In May 2024, amid speculation about the presidential election's impact on crypto, Schiarizzi was quoted by Unchained Crypto. While identifying as a liberal and not a supporter of Donald Trump, he stated, "...from the perspective of crypto markets, I can say without a doubt that Trump is far more bullish for crypto than Biden, and it's not even close." He later added that regulatory clarity under a potential Trump administration was a significant bullish catalyst for the market cycle ^{[1] [4]}.

On DeFi and Salary Streaming

He has expressed a forward-looking vision for DeFi's applications. In a November 2024 post, he described a future where salaries could be streamed by the second in yield-bearing stablecoins, allowing an employee's salary to earn interest continuously before being spent ^[10].

Story Protocol Controversy

In 2022 and 2023, Schiarizzi's name became linked to a controversy surrounding Story Protocol, a decentralized intellectual property project. However, public records and media reports present highly contradictory accounts of his role and actions ^[12].

One set of reports, originating around late 2022, identified Schiarizzi as a co-founder of Story Protocol who exited the project after the team implemented a high daily fee (variously reported as 4.5% or 45%). This event sparked community accusations of a "soft rug pull." In this narrative, Schiarizzi defended the fee as a mechanism to "shut down the protocol + can return funds to the DAO" ^[3]. Another report from November 2023 identified him as a "Founding Engineer" who departed after seven months to start his new venture, Nerite, amid the community backlash ^[4].

A second, completely different narrative emerged from a clarification article published by Bitget in late 2023. This report stated that Schiarizzi had publicly refuted claims of being a founder. According to this account, he clarified that he was hired for a three-month contract as a dev-relations engineer that had ended, that his first name was Joseph (not Jason as some initial reports claimed), and that he had no involvement in the decision to implement the controversial fee ^[4].

A third narrative, from reports published in mid-2025, positions Schiarizzi as a vocal critic of Story Protocol's leadership. In this version, he condemned the actions of Story Protocol's actual co-founder, Jason Zhao. He was quoted as calling a $360 million IP token reserve initiative "An elaborate plan to DUMP ON RETAIL," highlighting the large discrepancy between the project's multi-billion dollar valuation and Its negligible on-chain revenue ^{[12] [13]}. This body of conflicting information makes his exact involvement with Story Protocol difficult to verify from public records.

Interviews

DeFi, Stablecoins, and Protocol Design #01

In an interview published on September 22, 2025, on the YouTube channel thefett, Joseph Schiarizzi discussed his professional background in decentralized finance and outlined his views on the development of stablecoins and DeFi protocols, as presented from his own perspective.

Schiarizzi stated that his involvement in DeFi began around 2017 and has included participation in multiple projects at different stages of development. He referenced earlier initiatives such as Open Dollar, a stablecoin project deployed on Arbitrum that introduced transferable debt positions, as well as his work with Liquity, an ETH-collateralized stablecoin protocol based on a redemption mechanism intended to maintain price parity.

The discussion also addressed Nerite, a protocol derived from Liquity V2, which Schiarizzi identified as his current area of focus. He described changes in redemption design that prioritize positions with lower interest rates rather than those with the lowest collateral ratios. He also noted that decentralized stablecoins typically rely on overcollateralization, which he characterized as a structural approach that increases resilience while constraining supply expansion when compared to fiat-backed stablecoins.

In addition, Schiarizzi discussed streaming payments and programmable financial instruments, explaining how stablecoins designed to support continuous value transfer may enable alternative payment and accounting models. He also commented on broader conditions within the DeFi ecosystem, including liquidity fragmentation across a growing number of stablecoins, technical limitations affecting Ethereum smart contract development, and shifts in community structure as the ecosystem has expanded.

In conclusion, Schiarizzi described a landscape in which crypto-collateralized and fiat-backed stablecoins coexist, with decentralized protocols continuing to explore different monetary designs while centralized stablecoins remain closely integrated with traditional financial systems. ^[14]