Lucas Kozinski is one of the founders of the Renzo Protocol, a liquid staking token and strategy manager for EigenLayer. ^[1]

Education

Kozinski graduated from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in 2013 with a Master of Business Administration, Management, and Finance. ^[1]

Career

Before attending the University of Maryland, Kozinski worked for four years in business operations for Lockheed Martin. After graduating, he worked as an operations consultant at CACI International Inc., a national security technology company, until January 2014. In April 2014, he worked as a strategy and operations consultant for Point B, a consulting company. During this time, he also worked in the business strategy and operations department of the Tezos Foundation, a Swiss foundation that promotes and develops new technologies and applications, until 2019. ^[1]

In 2020, Kozinski worked in business strategy and operations for Tokensoft Inc., a technology and security platform. During this time, he became a founding contributor for Lunar Labs Inc., a Web3 contributor to the Moonwell DeFi protocol on Polkadot, where he worked until June 2023. In July 2023, he co-founded the Renzo Protocol alongside James Poole and Kratik Lodha. ^[1]

Interview

Renzo ezETH

In January 2024, The Edge Podcast’s DeFi Dad interviewed Kozinski about Renzo’s ezETH and staking on EigenLayer. At the start of the interview, he shared some of his background in crypto: ^[2]

“As far as my personal background, I got into crypto in 2014, was impacted by Mt. Gox, sat out for a couple of years, and then came back in late 2016, early 2017. I've had a chance to contribute to the Tezos Foundation in 2018, helping bring that project to market, spent a little bit of time at TokenSoft, and also was a founding contributor to a lending protocol named Moonwell, which was launched on Moon River, Moonbeam, and now on Base as well.”

He then discussed what Renzo was and how it began development: ^[2]

“Renzo was an idea that came up early last summer, around June or July. A few of us came together and realized the potential of the EigenLayer, but at the same time, we noticed how complex the ecosystem was being built to create a marketplace. We decided to build Renzo from the ground up to optimize for some of these complexities that we thought would emerge in the EigenLayer ecosystem. So, what Renzo allows you to do today is natively restake Ethereum. When we say 'natively restake,' it just means that you can deposit Ethereum; it's not an LST token or anything else. The huge benefit there is that it's in the EigenLayer.”

“There's been all this hype around LST caps and being able to get exposure to EigenLayer, while EigenLayer from the very beginning has not capped native Ethereum. Because they have not capped native Ethereum, we've been able to make it very easy for people to get exposure to EigenLayer and not worry about LST caps. What that really means is anybody could actually go directly to EigenLayer, but you need 32 Ethereum, you need to run your own Ethereum node validators, and then you have to build out the integration to EigenLayer via Eigen pods, and that's not easy to do. So, our goal with the MVP product or the beta product that you see live now was to give people access to that.”

When asked how ezETH, Renzo’s liquid staking token (LRT), differed from other LSTs, he responded: ^[2]

“The first and biggest differentiation that you're actually going to see go live with Renzo is this ability to deposit Ethereum or an LST and not have to ever worry about another token. For example, getting an LST to be restaked, you'll be able to just deposit that. The next thing that you're going to see play out once these DeFi integrations play out and AVSs start launching is how protocols are going to be able to secure those AVSs. This is really important because you guys did a really nice job on your last show to highlight Renzo on how easy it is to just deposit and get ezETH. Well, the further you get down the stack with an EigenLayer, the more complicated it gets, and if you have a protocol that's built from the ground up and optimized, you're going to be able to do a lot more.”

“The way to think about Renzo and ezETH is that it's going to be a weighted exposure AVS that optimizes for sharp ratios. So, we've been working on this portfolio construction methodology with partners like Onlet and a few other researchers in the space that defines max loss. The most important thing at the very beginning is how much risk are you willing to take and what is the max loss if there was a slashing in that. Based on that max loss, what is the sharp ratio, the risk-adjusted strategy to optimize to go and secure the right weighted average of AVSs. And that's where the complexity really comes in, so you have operators that have the autonomy to select different AVSs.”

He also discussed a future Renzo token, known today as REZ, and the issues around how to implement it into the ecosystem: ^[2]

“There are three components that are really important to possibly having a Renzo token in the future. One is governance. There is quite a lot that could be done with governance in a protocol and an ecosystem that's as complicated as EigenLayer. For example, how do you decide on which new assets to support as deposit assets, which operators does the community want to support, which AVSs do they want to support, which AVSs do they not want to support, and changed their mind on, how to define the max loss and the amount of risk that positions are willing to take. These are all real problems that need to be solved, and it's, in our opinion, not for the heart of a centralized team to do that and that should be done in transparency via governance.”

“The second piece is Renzo does charge a fee. Renzo charges a fee based on staking rewards, and once AVS is launched, it will also charge a fee that it splits with its operators for AVSs. There are no fees on any kind of points; you can't price points, so you can't use them as collateral within the protocol. So every single point that Renzo users get exposure to, whether it's EigenLayer, ezpoints, AltLayer, those are being passed 100% to those users. But the piece that I'm trying to point out here is the community could also decide what those fees are that should be charged in the future…And then the last one is really as we're starting off with a more centralized operator set, Lido did the same thing; it helps with its scaling because there's less coordination effort and the quality of the operators and the infrastructure that they run make it a lot more secure to use Renzo.”

Panels

Liquid Restaking

At the ISOG OFR Restaking Summit, Kozinski participated in a panel discussion on the importance of liquid restaking in the crypto ecosystem, emphasizing the need to align incentives effectively among stakeholders. He discussed Renzo's approach to liquid restaking, focusing on a risk-measured strategy to capture value for investors while safeguarding against potential risks. Kozinski also touched upon the significance of integrating liquid restaking with other DeFi protocols, foreseeing its potential to accelerate adoption and provide additional use cases within the ecosystem. ^[3]

Restaking: Opportunities and Obstacles

At ETHDenver 2024, Kozinski participated in a panel titled "Restaking: Opportunities and Obstacles." He highlighted its approach to aligning incentives for supply and demand sides in restaking, emphasizing partnerships with BNB and the importance of native ETH and LST deposits. The conversation delved into smart contract risk, security, and the evolving staking landscape in the crypto market, suggesting a nuanced approach to managing risks and capital allocation. ^[4]