Yesterday, we launched NEO. I’ve been looking forward to finally talking about what we’ve built, because I think the idea behind it has the potential to change how people think about launching and structuring tokens. In 2021, I was part of the core development team at Olympus DAO. Olympus became far bigger and more successful than any of us expected, and it remains one of the most important things I’ve had the opportunity to work on. It also showed me firsthand what can happen when a new piece of monetary design reaches the market at the right moment. The industry has evolved considerably since then. Market structure is better, token design is more sophisticated, and we now have real-world assets beginning to exist as genuine onchain primitives. I’ve spent much of the last few years thinking about what those changes make possible and, specifically, whether the basic architecture around token liquidity can be improved. NEO is the first implementation of that work. The idea begins with a distinction that I think is more important than it initially sounds: Paired does not equal backed. Almost every token has some form of liquidity. An asset sits on the other side of a pair and allows the market to function. That infrastructure works extremely well, but it does not mean the token itself is economically backed by the asset it trades against. I started asking what happens if we keep the existing liquidity layer exactly where it belongs, but add something underneath it. With NEO, there is a normal market and liquidity layer, but behind it sits a vault containing tokenized QQQ. The QQQ in that vault is not there to facilitate trades. It is protocol backing, and NEO can be redeemed against it. That changes the structure of the token. As trading occurs, protocol fees can add additional QQQ to the vault. NEO that returns through the system is burned. Market activity therefore does not only create volume and price discovery; it can continuously increase the amount of backing underneath the remaining supply. We call this the rising floor. The important point is that this floor is not a chart level, a target, or a promise about where the market should trade. It is an economic value derived from assets held by the protocol. That is why the distinction matters so much: Paired does not equal backed. I think this could become a much broader design principle. For most of crypto’s history, liquidity has existed around a token. NEO explores what happens when market activity can also build something underneath the token. If that model works at scale, I think it opens up a different way of thinking about token construction altogether: liquidity on one layer, protocol-owned backing on another, and trading activity progressively strengthening the economic base of the asset. That is much bigger to me than one launch. We deployed the contracts yesterday and intentionally remained quiet at first. Before explaining the thesis publicly, I wanted to see the protocol operating under real market conditions. The initial activity has been substantially higher than we expected and so far the system is behaving as intended. Now we can start explaining what is actually here. Over the next several days we’ll release documentation, videos and deeper technical material around the mechanism. There is a lot more to the system than can reasonably fit into one post. More importantly, what went live today is only the first stage. We already have step two and step three built out, and we are working on a much broader set of ideas around how backing, liquidity and onchain assets can interact. The protocol you see today is the first proof of concept, not the end state. The timing is especially interesting because tokenized equities are finally becoming usable onchain assets. QQQ is the first backing asset we are using, but the much larger opportunity is that stocks, treasuries and other real-world assets can now become components inside token architecture itself. That design space barely existed when Olympus was built. Now it does. During Olympus, there was a point where it became clear that the mechanism itself had escaped the original protocol. People were studying it, modifying it, building around it and thinking differently because it existed. I think the idea behind NEO has that kind of potential. Not because every token should use this exact implementation, and not because one model solves every problem, but because I think backing can become a first-class component of token design rather than an afterthought. @fattybagz , who also worked on Olympus, is building this with me, alongside a group of people across protocol development, markets and infrastructure that I’m extremely happy to be working with. I’m particularly interested in what other developers, market makers and liquidity providers make of the architecture once they have had time to pull it apart. If the idea is as useful as I think it is, I expect people will find applications for it that we have not considered yet. Olympus was an extraordinary chapter to be part of. The years since have given me a lot of time to think about how a new monetary experiment might be designed differently. Today, that experiment is live. NEO is the first implementation. And I think we are only beginning to understand what this model can become. $NEO Contract Address: 0x37f5b13345c6723E17CE45d388c9C4f7aD8342C3

CLIMB is one of the most intuitive, simple, and efficient parts of the system. Typical launch pads make it easy and trust-less to know that one can’t pull the liquidity. But this inherently adds inefficiencies when there is a redeemable floor below it. Once the floor price is above a certain rung in a liquidity ladder, the value in that rung would effectively never be utilized again. Why should that value be left on the table? Instead, when the floor rises above price of a rung, that rung is banked, and the paired asset is added to the backing, raising the floor price. The liquidity can never be removed or withdrawn, only when it meets certain criteria can someone sweep a rung and it is added to the backing.

It is great to see these novel primitives being built and people leaning into a system that captures value vs excreting it. Looking forward to see Ducat in action and where the potential synergies may lie!

NEO is a normal token with a vault of QQQ underneath it. The floor is the QQQ in the vault divided by the NEO in circulation. Every action does something to that number. None of them move it down. Buy: you buy from the pool like any token. 2% of what you spend goes into the vault as backing. As NEO trades above 1.3× premium, the vault sells a small portion of its reserve into the premium at most once an hour (max 0.03% of what's left) and 80% of that QQQ becomes backing too. Hold: do nothing. No staking, no rebase, no claim. The floor rises under you as others trade, and when it climbs past a rung of the protocol's own liquidity, that QQQ is swept into the vault. Sell: you sell into the pool like any token. 2% of the NEO you sell is burned. Fewer NEO, higher floor for everyone who stayed. And the pool never trades below the floor, anyone can redeem there instead. Borrow: deposit NEO, borrow QQQ up to 95% of the floor value. No fee, no interest, no liquidation. The collateral is worth more than the loan by the vault's own bid, and that bid never falls. Repay when you want; never repay and you've redeemed at 95% with the option open. Liquidity without selling. Loop: borrow, buy more NEO, deposit, repeat. Leverage without liquidation. Redeem: hand NEO to the vault, get exactly the floor in QQQ. Any amount, any time, no permission. Your NEO is burned.

The $NEO floor is up 664% since launch. For every $1 of floor value beneath a holder’s NEO at launch, there is now $7.64. That growth comes from two things: more $QQQ in the Vault and fewer NEO in circulation.

Part 03: PACE PACE (Premium-Activated Capture Engine) activates when $NEO trades above its backing threshold. It programmatically sells a bounded amount of reserve supply into that premium, routing most of the $QQQ proceeds into the Vault. Premium becomes backing.

RUNG 06 [██████████] 100% Rung 6 has been fully banked. $NEO continues through the CLIMB (Concentrated Liquidity In Monotonic Bands).

Part 02: The Floor $NEO’s floor is defined by the $QQQ held in the Vault relative to circulating supply. NEO can be sold back to the Vault at that floor for QQQ, with the returned NEO burned. As backing grows and supply contracts, the floor moves higher.

Time to CLIMB

gud tek

GBlink! @BlinkCashX is actually delivering on something we’ve all been talking about since ’21. Simplifying how users get funds into onchain apps and doing an incredible job of making the rails disappear.

The world’s first PredictTime Builders PitchDay is coming soon We’re looking for teams building products around @Polymarket and prediction markets 5-8 selected teams will pitch their products live on X, demo what they’ve built, and get feedback from experienced founders in the prediction market space Winners will get: - Exposure across the Polymarket ecosystem - Support and guidance with their Polymarket Builders grant application - A closer connection with the Polymarket team, including access to a private group for direct communication - Private 1:1 sessions with the judges - Introductions to relevant VCs - Additional exposure across PredictTime media We’re already putting together a strong lineup of judges from some of the most exciting projects in the space, including Polysights, Gondor, Dimes, Wallchain, and more Building something the prediction market ecosystem should know about? apply here: forms.gle/XtckUzzwTGAvjmkK9 *applications close: September 21, 2026

Go bald or go home!

Everyone should be able to access high-quality financial assets, wherever they live. That's what tokenization unlocks: taking the best of US capital markets and making them available on a global scale. The industry is still small compared with global finance, but the advantages are becoming harder to ignore. Traditional market infrastructure was built around fixed hours, closed networks and layers of intermediaries. It was never designed for 24/7 execution, programmable assets, composability or self-custody. The needs of investors have moved faster than the rails underneath them. We're working to change that. What gives me confidence is seeing how many different people are now pushing this industry forward. Founders are building new products, LPs are bringing liquidity, traders are finding new uses, and infrastructure teams are making the whole thing work. It's a privilege to be in the trenches with all of you. We are still early, and there is a huge amount left to build. It will also take time and effort for the old guard to get onboard. This is worth fighting for.

Out here supporting 🤧

A little Fantasy Finance alpha for everyone to read on their Friday!

That’s who won the Birkin!