Who Is Felix Feng? The Index Founder and DeFi Index Investing Pioneer Explained

Felix Feng is a co-founder of Index Coop, a decentralized autonomous organization focused on creating on-chain crypto index products and structured decentralized finance strategies. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Set Protocol, the infrastructure platform that helped power Index Coop’s early products. Index Coop was launched in October 2020 to make diversified crypto investing more accessible through tokenized index products.

Feng’s work has focused on simplifying decentralized finance by allowing users to gain exposure to groups of crypto assets through a single token rather than manually purchasing and managing each asset. His work with Set Protocol and Index Coop helped develop automated portfolio products designed to make on-chain investing easier to access and manage.

Early Background and Career

Felix Feng studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. Before establishing Set Protocol, he worked in technology and startup-related roles, including at Radius and 21.co, gaining experience in business development and product development.

Feng became interested in the potential of blockchain technology to transform traditional financial products. As decentralized finance developed on Ethereum, he explored ways to use smart contracts to automate investment strategies and create tokenized portfolios.

This interest led him to focus on on-chain financial products that could simplify portfolio management, automate rebalancing, and give users access to diversified crypto strategies through blockchain-based tokens.

How Felix Feng Created The Index

Felix Feng founded Set Protocol with a vision of creating tokenized portfolios that could represent baskets of crypto assets. The project developed infrastructure that allowed users to create and manage tokenized investment strategies through smart contracts.

In October 2020, Feng and the Set Protocol team helped launch Index Coop in collaboration with DeFi Pulse. The cooperative was designed to create and maintain crypto index products, with the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI) serving as its flagship product.

DPI gave users exposure to a basket of major DeFi tokens through a single ERC-20 token. Rather than buying and rebalancing each underlying asset independently, users could hold an index token designed to represent the selected portfolio.

Index Coop subsequently expanded into additional index products and structured DeFi strategies, while its decentralized governance model allowed community members to participate in decisions about product development and the cooperative’s direction.

How The Index Works

Index Coop is a decentralized finance organization that develops and maintains tokenized crypto index products and structured investment strategies. Its products use smart contracts to represent portfolios of digital assets, allowing users to gain exposure to a collection of tokens through a single on-chain asset.

For example, the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI) tracks a basket of selected decentralized finance tokens according to its index methodology. Index products can simplify portfolio management by combining multiple assets into a single token, with portfolio composition and rebalancing handled according to the product’s rules.

The INDEX token is the governance token of Index Coop. It allows holders to vote on proposals related to the cooperative, including product launches, treasury decisions, and changes to its operations. The token is separate from the index products themselves and does not automatically represent ownership of their underlying assets.

Felix Feng’s Role at The Index

Felix Feng helped establish Index Coop through his work at Set Protocol and contributed to the cooperative’s original vision for on-chain crypto indexes. His role focused on developing the underlying technology, shaping the product strategy, and helping create a framework for tokenized investment products.

Through Set Protocol, Feng helped build infrastructure for creating and managing tokenized portfolios. That infrastructure supported Index Coop’s early products and enabled the cooperative to focus on developing accessible crypto investment strategies.

Index Coop operates as a community-led organization, so its ongoing decisions are made through its governance processes and contributor community rather than being controlled solely by Feng.

Why Felix Feng Matters in Crypto

Felix Feng is known for his contribution to the development of tokenized investment products and automated portfolio management in decentralized finance.

His work with Set Protocol and Index Coop helped demonstrate how smart contracts can package multiple crypto assets into a single token, making diversified exposure easier to manage on-chain.

This approach reflects a broader trend in DeFi toward structured financial products that simplify access to complex strategies. Instead of requiring users to manage every position individually, tokenized indexes can provide a more streamlined way to access selected segments of the crypto market.