Ripe Archives
Every overnight success takes years. Here's ours.
These archives trace Ripe's evolution from a wild idea — what if you could earn yield on anything? — through the realization that became our breakthrough: the real unlock wasn't yield on everything, it was borrowing against everything. One unified loan backed by your entire portfolio. We called it jUSD before it was GREEN. We pivoted from a neobank to pure DeFi. We discovered that capital efficiency beats yield farming every time.
Read this if you want to understand not just what Ripe is, but why it exists.
Note: For current functionality, refer to our main documentation. These archives are for historical reference only.
Quick Timeline
2022
Early protocol conception and design
2023
Development and building
2024
Security audits and testnet "Ripe Radness" seasons - community feedback and real-life simulations
2025
Protocol launch
2024 Content
The Vision
Why we're building Ripe Protocol — a founder's perspective
The Vision – Mick Hagen's deeply personal take on why Ripe exists and where it's headed. Not your typical corporate vision statement.
Key themes:
Real-world assets as the unlock: $13B tokenized today, $16T projected by 2030
Financial inclusion over speculation: A Guatemalan farmer borrowing against land matters more than another yield farm
Personal mission: From watching his immigrant mother pursue opportunity to witnessing poverty in Brazil
Practical impact: Turning idle assets (homes, land, businesses) into productive capital
The core insight: "Ripe Protocol is fundamentally about unlocking opportunity... giving people access to tools and services that previously belonged only to the elite."
This isn't about disrupting banks or maximizing APYs. It's about a farmer getting a loan, a family earning on their home equity, an entrepreneur expanding their business. Basic financial tools that change lives.
The Ripe Opportunity
The comprehensive overview that introduced Ripe to the world
Intro – High-level introduction to Ripe Protocol and why it matters
The Problem – Traditional DeFi inefficiencies: fragmented loans, pooled risk, and limited collateral
The Solution – Unified multi-collateral lending for unmatched capital efficiency
Protocol Status – Where Ripe stood in development at the time
Team – Background on the builders behind Ripe
Market Opportunity – DeFi's untapped potential for mainstream adoption
Competitive Landscape – Comparison with Aave, Compound, Liquity, and others
Go To Market – Strategy for bringing Ripe to users
Business Model – How the protocol sustains itself financially
Interactive Whitepaper
Deeper documentation of core mechanism design
Deposits & Loans – Multi-collateral architecture enabling one unified GREEN loan
The Endaoment – Ripe's autonomous treasury that funds stability and yield
Bonding Mechanism – How bonds support GREEN stability and capital efficiency
GREEN Stablecoin – The stablecoin at the heart of Ripe's ecosystem
Stability Pools – Pools that absorb liquidations and provide discounted collateral
Ripe Staking & Governance – ve-style governance power and incentives
Juice Score – The game-theoretic reputation system rewarding positive-sum behavior
Product Video
Ripe Product Video – A concise introduction to how Ripe Protocol works, highlighting multi-collateral borrowing, GREEN, and yield flows
Historical Context: This whitepaper represents our thinking at that point in time. The launched protocol does not include Juice Score (removed to reduce complexity) or GREEN bonds (removed to reduce risk).
2022-2023 Content
Blog Series: Building a Sustainable DeFi Economy
The foundational thinking behind Ripe's economic model
Introducing Ripe – Yield as the killer DeFi use-case, for crypto, NFTs, LP tokens, and real-world assets
The Stablecoin – jUSD: decentralized, capital-efficient stablecoin design
Stability & Peg of jUSD – How jUSD maintains its peg through market mechanisms
The Endaoment – Protocol-owned treasury ensuring sustainable growth
The Bonding Mechanism – How bonding boosts efficiency and unlocks collateral productivity
The Governance Token – The role of $RIPE in decision-making and value accrual
Liquidation System – Protecting borrowers while securing the protocol
The Juice Score – Incentives and coordination game theory
Note: These posts reference jUSD, which later became GREEN as the protocol evolved.
Videos
Mick Explains How Ripe Works (Whiteboard) – A founder-led walkthrough of Ripe's architecture
How Ripe Works (Explainer Video) – Animated breakdown of Ripe Protocol's key mechanics
The Hightop Transition
When we chose to focus entirely on Ripe Protocol
Hightop Sunset, Ripe Sunrise – Why we paused our consumer app to build foundational infrastructure
We're Doubling Down on DeFi – Our conviction about decentralization's future
Development Philosophy
On Humility & Learning – How "Jam Sessions" shaped our iterative approach
The Story Continues
These documents capture where we've been. The whiteboard sessions. The strategic pivots. The moments we almost gave up and the breakthroughs that kept us going.
But the best protocols aren't museums — they're living systems. What you're reading is history. What you're using is the future.
Ripe keeps evolving because you keep building with it.
From the archives to the frontier. See you there.
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