Benedikt “Ben” Schulz is a German entrepreneur and venture capital investor whose work sits at the intersection of fintech, blockchain, and incentive design. He is best known in crypto as the Co-Founder and President of Turtle Club, a Web3 protocol focused on monetizing and redistributing value from on-chain user activity across decentralized applications and partner networks. Schulz’s profile combines operating experience in early stage software businesses with capital markets exposure, a blend that informs his focus on sustainable growth mechanics in decentralized finance.
Overview
At Turtle Club, Schulz works on business strategy, partnerships, and the economic design that connects user behavior to protocol incentives. Turtle Club frames its product as a unified distribution protocol, intended to help protocols and partners coordinate rewards for actions such as liquidity provision, staking, swaps, and referrals. In practice, this positioning places Turtle Club in the broader category of DeFi growth infrastructure, a segment that includes tools for liquidity bootstrapping, user acquisition, and retention loops that are measurable on-chain.
History and Background
Schulz studied economics at the University of Cologne and Maastricht University. His early professional experience included roles in controlling and finance at Deutsche Telekom Healthcare, followed by corporate and investment banking work at HypoVereinsbank, part of UniCredit. This finance-first foundation later influenced his transition into venture investing and the evaluation of token-based business models, where capital structure, distribution, and incentives are core design variables rather than back-office functions.
Entrepreneurship and Investing
Before Turtle Club, Schulz built and operated in the enterprise software and fintech space. In 2016, he founded insoro, a procurement and platform-oriented startup that later merged with QUIN Technologies in 2018, where he served as Chief Marketing Officer until 2020. He also worked as an investment manager at tokentus investment AG, a Germany-linked investor active in blockchain and digital asset ventures. These roles placed him close to both the operational realities of scaling products and the investor perspective on market fit, defensibility, and distribution.
Role at Turtle Club
Schulz is associated with Turtle Club’s approach to incentives, liquidity, and treasury strategy. In a CryptoSlate SlateCast episode focused on liquidity monetization and user engagement, Turtle Club leadership discussed moving away from short-term incentive spikes toward more gradual, sustainability-oriented reward curves. Schulz highlighted a treasury approach that emphasizes reinvesting assets into DeFi activities, such as staking or lending, rather than relying solely on selling tokens received through partnerships. Related context is available in CryptoSlate’s coverage of Turtle Club’s strategy for sustainable Web3 growth at this SlateCast episode.
Use Cases and Market Position
Turtle Club’s model is aimed at protocols that want to distribute rewards based on measurable activity and partners that can route users to those protocols. Typical use cases include:
- Liquidity bootstrapping campaigns designed to attract and retain long-term liquidity providers.
- Incentive programs tied to swap volume, staking participation, or other on-chain behaviors.
- Partner-led referral and distribution initiatives across multiple chains and dApps.
- Treasury-aligned strategies intended to reduce the perceived harm of repeated token emissions.
Within the broader DeFi and Web3 ecosystem, this category reflects an ongoing effort to turn growth spend into measurable, accountable outcomes, while limiting the boom-and-bust cycle associated with mercenary liquidity.
Selected Milestones
- 2016: Founded insoro, later merging with QUIN Technologies.
- 2018: insoro merged with QUIN Technologies.
- 2018 to 2020: Served as CMO at QUIN Technologies.
- Investment role: Worked as an investment manager at tokentus investment AG.
- Co-founded Turtle Club and became Co-Founder and President.
Risks and Considerations
Schulz’s work at Turtle Club is closely tied to protocol incentives, token economics, and partner integrations, areas that carry structural risks. Incentive systems can be gamed, potentially attracting users who optimize for rewards rather than product utility. Smart contract and integration risk can emerge as incentives are distributed across chains and partner protocols. Regulatory considerations may also apply depending on token design, rewards distribution, and jurisdictional treatment of incentives. Finally, growth infrastructure is sensitive to market cycles, as demand for liquidity and user acquisition tools tends to rise and fall with broader DeFi activity.
