TxFlow’s first Points epoch is almost over. And the numbers are getting pretty interesting. According to DeFiLlama, @TxFlow_L1 is now sitting at: > $3.85B in 30d perp volume > $1.13B in 7d volume > $34M in open interest > $1.2M in 30d revenue For comparison, 30d perp volume: > TxFlow: $3.85B > dYdX V4: $1.42B > Extended: $7.49B TxFlow is already processing roughly 2.7× the monthly volume of dYdX V4. Not bad for a relatively new trading-focused L1. But here’s what I’m watching. The first Points epoch ends on October 19, and we’ll soon get our first look at actual allocations. I’m curious whether OI and capital continue growing alongside volume once the initial excitement settles. Because volume gets attention. But trader retention is what will tell us how strong TxFlow really is. Looking forward to seeing the first results. gFlow

$100 means $100?

One trader did $20M in volume on @variational_io and earned 88.85 points. Another did just $1M and earned 122. That’s a ~27× difference in points per $1M. Welcome to Week 44. 150,000 points were distributed across 32,382 accounts. I collected 22 public farmer reports this week. Together, these traders reported: > ~1,592 VAR points > ~$63,671 at $40/pt OTC > Equivalent to ~1.06% of the weekly points pool Full Week 44 breakdown (points | volume): > @Brokelays: 232.56 | $20M > @Ryuzaki_SEI: 211 | $7.1M > @Cllmax93: ~190 | N/A > @Frajerhejt: 175 | ~$5M > @zzyxbt: 170.10 | N/A > @givenoxbt: 122 | $1M > @me_cool_off: 102 | N/A > @CryptoYieldGuy: 88.85 | $20M > @onchainmonk: 67.11 | $2M > @Alexey_Stark: 64 | $950K > @chivasxbt: 54.78 | $11.43M > @Rencrypta: ~45.47 | N/A > @matyv_7: 26.3 | $2.5M > @SyedAli44285003: ~12 | ~$2M > @Steveee_stonks: 6 | $1.5M > @Absoluto92: 5.5 | $450K > @sharkcryptottm: 4.96 | N/A > @Zyak1991: 4.4 | $300K > @SkyIsTheTaker: 3.9 | $432K > @Zeus00nn: 3.63 | $296K > @0xRiim: 1.32 | $108K > @mystcapital: 0.89 | $100K The interesting part isn’t who earned the most. It’s how. Giveno earned 122 points on $1M with ~$550K OI. Ryuzaki earned 211 points on $7.1M with ~$1.8M OI and 48h average holds. Meanwhile, Steve pushed $1.5M mostly through swaps and earned just 6 points. Volume alone clearly isn’t enough. OI, holding time and market selection appear to be major factors. But there’s another important lesson. @Brokelays earned 232+ points, yet reported negative trading PnL. Points efficiency ≠ trading profitability. And a special congratulations to @linenmito! 🏆 90,358 lifetime VAR points, #2 on the leaderboard, ~$4B cumulative volume and ~$800K reported PnL across 10+ months. Huge achievement! I couldn’t find confirmed Week 44 allocations from some previous contributors, including @0xTimberJ, @0xpostrich, @VictorTopDefiG, @HyperliquidEco, @LekimXBT and a few others. Hopefully they’ve been exploring other perp DEXs like Arcus, TxFlow or Lighter. My takeaway: The competition isn’t simply about who can generate the most volume anymore. It’s about who can allocate capital more efficiently, maintain OI and minimize costs. And with the trading API still anticipated, the next phase could become even more competitive. Note: Figures are self-reported. Some totals include referral points. The $40 OTC valuation is illustrative, not guaranteed proceeds. Lifetime points are excluded. What did your Week 44 look like?

Only 2 days, just wait only 2 days, it’s so hard

Tell me someone better! I can’t seeeee

That looks a way better

I think one of the most interesting things @TxFlow_L1 could release next is its public API. The API Reference is still marked as “Coming Soon.” And as a Python developer, I’m really looking forward to it. Just imagine what builders could create: > Trading bots and automated strategies > Delta-neutral tools across TxFlow and other perp DEXs > Wallet analytics and trader activity dashboards > Funding rate monitors and arbitrage scanners > Real-time market data and liquidity analysis > Points farming efficiency trackers And I can already imagine @0xTimberJ making his tool even better by adding TxFlow support. Personally, I’d love to build a tool that compares an individual trader’s activity with the entire exchange. Volume, OI, fees, holding time, market share, and eventually points earned. It could even help us understand which trading behaviors are actually rewarded. Of course, all of this depends on what endpoints and data TxFlow makes available. I’ve been building similar tools around other perp DEXs, and I’d love to integrate TxFlow into Zig Analytics too. A good API doesn’t just help developers. It gives an entire ecosystem a reason to build. Really curious to see what the team ships.

gFlow

Week 2 in @arcus_xyz : Yeah, that looks terrible. I generated $10k in trading volume and OI around $1,000 in positions for like 16-24 hours through this week.

Thx brother

It’s my addiction too

This is what recognition looks like gFlow @TxFlow_L1

gFlow

gFlow

Arcus trading volume dropped 13.9% this week. But something much more interesting happened underneath. Open Interest jumped 68.6%. I was checking the latest 7D data on Zig Analytics, and @arcus_xyz stood out. Oct 6 → Oct 12: > Volume: −13.9% > Open Interest: +68.6% > TVL: +31.1% > Market Share: −0.1 pp At first glance, declining volume doesn’t look particularly exciting. But volume tells us how much trading happened. OI tells us how much exposure remains open. And right now, those two metrics are moving in opposite directions. For comparison: > Extended: OI +0.8% > Variational: OI −7.2% > Arcus: OI +68.6% That’s a pretty interesting divergence. Especially after the launch of Arcus Points and the recent expansion of trader access. And there’s another thing I’ve noticed from my own farming experience. Focusing on maintaining open interest has worked significantly better for my points than simply generating trading volume. Of course, Arcus hasn’t disclosed the exact points formula, so I wouldn’t treat that as a universal rule. But combined with the latest data, it makes me wonder: Are traders starting to prioritize holding positions over chasing volume? One week isn’t enough to confirm a trend. But if OI and TVL keep growing while volume cools down, that’s a development worth watching. Volume shows activity. OI shows how much exposure stays in the market. And right now, Arcus looks particularly interesting through that second lens. Data: Zig Analytics | Oct 6–12, 2026

I was excited about TxFlow Points Season 1. Then I read the documentation. And honestly, I have more questions than before. @TxFlow_L1 plans to distribute up to: > 1.25M Trader Points weekly > 437.5K Referral Points weekly The referral pool is separate, which means influencers with large audiences can potentially earn additional points through referrals. Meanwhile, traders without referrals can’t access those rewards. Does that really create a level playing field? It also raises another question: could referral incentives encourage more multi-account farming despite the anti-Sybil rules? And there’s a second major concern. > Exact scoring weights aren’t public > Weekly allocations aren’t final > No clear Season 1 end date or even an estimated quarter in the docs How are traders supposed to evaluate farming costs without knowing when allocations become final? I genuinely want TxFlow to succeed, and I’m still interested in testing it. But I’d like to see more clarity before committing significant volume. Transparency matters just as much as incentives. Curious to hear how the TxFlow team views these concerns.

29,000+ traders just got access to Arcus. I think the next few weeks could look very different for @arcus_xyz And not just because of the new invite system. Think about the timing. Arcus has just launched Season 1 Points, with 250K points distributed every week. Now thousands of previously waitlisted traders can finally access perps. Here’s what changed: > 29K+ waitlisted users unlocked > invite codes now automatically link referrals > $1M in personal or direct referral perp volume earns 1 invite > previously spent codes receive a 2× bonus allocation > referral links can automatically distribute available invites But the interesting part isn’t the invite mechanics. It’s what happens when a gated trading venue suddenly opens its doors to thousands of potential traders. Three things I’m watching: 1. Trading volume and OI How many of those 29K actually become active? Even a relatively small conversion rate could meaningfully change trading activity. 2. Competition for points Season 1 distributes a fixed 250K points per week. More eligible activity means potentially tougher competition for that same weekly pool. Being active early may become more valuable if participation keeps growing. 3. Liquidity and market quality More traders could mean deeper markets and better execution. But more users alone don’t guarantee better liquidity. That’s what I’d like to measure. I’ve already been testing Arcus myself, and this feels like an important moment for the platform. Until now, access was one of the biggest limitations. Now we’ll get a much clearer picture of actual demand. 29,000 new invitations to trade are interesting. How many turn into real, sustained activity is the number that matters.

One trader generated $2.14B in volume on Variational this week. The second-largest? Just $598M. A 3.6× gap between the top two traders. And this happened during another record week for @variational_io. I collected 26 farmer reports from Week 43. Here’s what stood out. ↓ The big picture: > $21.12B weekly trading volume > 150K points distributed > Top trader: $2.14B (~10.1% of weekly volume) > Second place: $598M Some farmers suspect this massive volume affected their points. But Variational’s formula isn’t public, so we can’t confirm dilution. Week 43 farmer reports: > @Brokelays: 244 pts > @Ryuzaki_SEI: 171.6 pts / $9.4M / $2.1M OI > @me_cool_off: 169 pts > @zzyxbt: ~160 pts / $25M / $2.4M OI > @Cllmax93: +154 total pts (~60 referrals) > @0xTimberJ: 144.32 pts / $20.31M > @Frajerhejt: 140 pts / $5M / ~$400K OI > @givenoxbt: 114 pts / $2.2M / ~$550K OI > @0xpostrich: 96 pts / $4.1M / ~$798K OI > @onchainmonk: 72 pts / $1M > @Alexey_Stark: 50 pts / ~$400K > @Rencrypta: ~29 total pts (incl. referrals) > @matyv_7: 24.36 pts / $2.77M > @MuddyRC: 21+ pts / $500K / ~$500K OI > @SyedAli44285003: ~20 pts / ~$3M > @SkyIsTheTaker: ~20 pts / $3.51M > @LekimXBT: 16 pts / $380K > @VictorTopDefiG: ~8 pts estimated / ~$308K > @sharkcryptottm: 5.15 pts / $286K > @Zeus00nn: 4.91 pts / $450K > @Steveee_stonks: 4.8 pts / $775.5K > @Absoluto92: 4.19 pts / $250K > @vish_hl: 4.096 direct pts / $250K > @0xRiim: 3.98 pts / $73K > @kolxbt: 2.6 pts / $900K > @rodrigomcrypto: 0.4 pts / $60K Self-reported data. Victor’s points are estimated. No W43 reports found for @HyperliquidEco or @CryptoYieldGuy. Referrals identified where disclosed. 1. The efficiency gap is enormous Points per $1M volume: > Alexey: ~125 > onchainmonk: 72 > 0xRiim: 54.5 > giveno: 51.8 > LEKIM: 42.1 > MuddyRC: 42+ > Frajerhejt: 28 Meanwhile: > Timber: 7.1 > Steve: 6.2 > zzyxbt: ~6.4 > Sky: ~5.7 > Kol: 2.9 That’s a 40×+ difference between extremes. Different strategies, OI, holding times and boosts make comparisons imperfect. Raw volume isn’t enough to explain points. 2. OI and holding time matter Look at @MuddyRC: W42: $1.72M volume / ~$500K OI → ~17.5 pts W43: $500K volume / ~$500K OI → 21+ pts Volume dropped ~71%, but points increased. Efficiency: 10 → 42+ pts/$1M. @Frajerhejt showed a similar pattern: W42: 220 pts / $10M W43: 140 pts / $5M Half the volume, but only ~36% fewer points. Sustained exposure deserves more attention than raw turnover. 3. Market selection may be underrated @Brokelays earned 244 pts focusing on newer swaps like COPP, CNA50, GASOL and COCOA. @Alexey_Stark earned 50 pts on ~$400K, focusing on illiquid pre-IPO markets. @Rencrypta reported shifting toward lower-OI markets. No proven low-liquidity bonus, but market selection looks important. 4. Efficiency ≠ profitability @onchainmonk earned 72 pts on $1M, but reported a deeply underwater LIT position. @0xpostrich reported 96 pts and ~$1.2K positive funding spread. @sharkcryptottm reported 5.15 pts at approximately zero net farming cost through hedging. High points/$1M doesn’t guarantee good farming economics. 5. Same farmers, different trends Week 42 → Week 43 (pts/$1M): > Timber: 10.2 → 7.1 > Steve: 10.4 → 6.2 > Zeus: 12.4 → 10.9 > giveno: 50.0 → 51.8 > Frajerhejt: 22 → 28 > Absoluto: 17 → 16.8 Some became less efficient. Others improved despite record volume. My takeaway after tracking Weeks 41–43: Volume matters, but it’s only part of the picture. OI, holding time, market selection and boosts all appear relevant. The most important metric may ultimately be net cost per point, not points per $1M. One question remains: When one trader generates $2.14B in a week, how does that affect everyone else’s rewards? We don’t know yet. With 32% of $VAR supply allocated to point holders, it’s worth investigating. I’ll keep tracking Week 44. Farming Variational? Share your points / volume / OI / costs below. Less guessing. More data.

Everyone is watching @TxFlow_L1 because Points Season 1 starts on October 13. I’m watching something else: the numbers before the incentives really kick in. Right now TxFlow is sitting at roughly: > $2.9B 30d perp volume > $27.9M open interest > $27.3M TVL > $870K 30d revenue And points haven’t even started yet. That’s what makes the next few days interesting. Once Points Season 1 goes live, I want to track: > how much volume grows > whether OI grows with it > how much traders spend in fees + funding per point earned Because incentivized volume tells you very little without knowing what’s happening underneath it. I’m already using TxFlow before October 13. Once the first points arrive, I’ll break down my actual farming efficiency with real numbers. That’s the part I’m most interested in. app.txflow.com/r/TXHERZIG

Arcus dropped the first Season 1 points. I spent roughly 24 hours holding positions and traded only stocks. Here’s my honest result: > 1 point > #5,902 rank > Bronze > Remaining 50% Pretty weak 😅 Clearly, whatever I did last week wasn’t enough to score meaningfully. I’m going to adjust the strategy, stay more active and see if I can improve this next week. Starting point: #5,902. Let’s see how much I can move it in one week.

Rare Friends just finished its biggest Vibeathon yet. @RareFriendsNFT and @poopie already shared it: This Vibeathon broke every previous record. I’m posting this a bit late - 7 days after the results. I simply didn’t have the time to sit down, play through everything properly and record all the gameplay. But I didn’t want to make another quick recap based only on the leaderboard. So I tested every game that made the Top 10 across all 3 categories: > Character Spotlight > Token Activity > Economy Potential That’s 30 games in total. I played them, recorded the gameplay and put this video together myself. And honestly, going through all of them made me appreciate this community even more. 30 different projects. Different mechanics. Different ways to use Rare Friends characters, $RAREFRIENDS and the ecosystem around them. Some were simple. Some were surprisingly deep. But all of them were built by people from the same community. I’m genuinely happy to be part of it. And the best part is that anyone can join. You can become part of Rare Friends by simply owning a Rare Friend. Or you can go further and build. Create your own game. Build around the IP. Get it published on the Rare Friends website. And potentially earn from what you create. That’s what makes this ecosystem interesting to me. You don’t have to only collect. You can actually contribute to the world around it. Be a part of Rare Friends.

One for me?

TxFlow Points Season 1 starts on October 12. But that’s not actually the part that got my attention. It’s what happened before the points. @TxFlow_L1 has already processed roughly: > $6.9B in perp volume > $1.8M in revenue > while points weren’t even live And now TxFlow says early supporters who traded before Season 1 will be recognized. That changes how I’m looking at the next few days. I’ve spent the last months farming and studying perp DEXs, and one lesson keeps repeating: the best time to understand a venue is before everyone starts optimizing for its incentives. TxFlow itself is also more interesting than another points farm. It’s building its own L1 around trading infrastructure, with spot, perps and prediction markets sharing the same system. And there’s another detail worth knowing: Matt Hu, the founder of BloFin, is also behind TxFlow. So this isn’t his first time building trading infrastructure at scale. But I’m not going to call this “the next Hyperliquid” or predict the value of the points before we even know the economics. What I want to measure is much simpler: fees + funding + execution + volume → points earned That will tell us whether farming TxFlow is actually efficient. Until October 12, I’m positioning early and learning the product. Once Season 1 starts, I’ll have some real numbers to compare. If you want to test it with me: app.txflow.com/r/TXHERZIG Referral gives 5% off trading fees on the first $25M in volume. Let’s see what the pre-season was actually worth.

My Perp DEX board is getting crowded. But there’s a big difference between protocols I’m already actively working with and protocols I’m simply watching. Already active: > Variational > Lighter > Arcus > TxFlow These are the ones where I’m already spending time trading, farming, testing, digging through the product/API or building around the data. Watching closely: > Titan > Popdex > Decibel > Domination Finance > QFEX > Entropy I’m not farming every new perp DEX just because it exists. Before moving something from the watchlist to the active list, I want to see a reason: distribution, product differentiation, interesting market structure, developer infrastructure, incentives – or ideally several of them at once. There are way too many new venues to treat all of them equally. So this is basically my current filter: Active → Variational / Lighter × Robinhood / Arcus / TxFlow Next candidates → Titan / Popdex / Decibel / Domination Finance / QFEX / Entropy Will be interesting to see which names move between these two lists over the next few months. Which one would you dig into first?

New week. If I had to focus on just a few things in the perp DEX space right now, I wouldn’t spread my attention across 10 different farms. Here’s what I’m watching – and doing – this week ↓ 1. @arcus_xyz – first real week of Season 1 This is probably my main one. Season 1 now has a fixed 250K points/week, with distributions every Wednesday. But the interesting part is how those points are earned. Arcus is pushing: > perps > RWA activity > collateral > referrals > Stock Token spot trading And with Stock Tokens becoming a much bigger part of the product, I want to see how strongly RWA activity is actually rewarded. Wednesday should give us another useful datapoint for estimating S1 efficiency. 2. @Lighter_xyz × @RobinhoodCrypto The weekly distribution keeps growing. And Lighter is still pushing one particularly interesting setup: long Stock Tokens on Lighter × Robinhood ↕ hedge short the same exposure on Lighter Core This is much more interesting to me than blindly generating volume. The metric I want to track is: fees + funding + spread → points earned Not just volume → points. 3. @variational_io If I had to pick just one venue to keep farming this week, it would still be Variational. The reason is simple: the product already works, the trader base is real, the rewards system has been running for months, and we’re now entering the part of the timeline where every new signal matters much more. Q3 is over. $VAR is expected in Q4. And unlike a lot of new farms, Variational isn’t something I’m trying for the first time. I’ve been farming it for months. So I’m not stopping now. This is the venue where I have the highest conviction that consistent activity could matter most. If there’s one place I don’t want to underfarm right before the next phase, it’s Variational. For me, Variational remains the #1 priority. 4. @TxFlow_L1 Another one moving onto my radar. TxFlow already has its L1 live with perps, spot and prediction markets. More importantly: TxFlow Points Season 1 is now listed as “Coming Soon.” That immediately makes the next few updates worth watching. I want to see: > when S1 actually starts > what activity gets rewarded > whether early activity matters > how aggressive the incentives are Could be an interesting one to get familiar with before the points meta properly starts. 5. My experiment for this week For the next 7 days, I’m changing one thing: every trade I make will be focused on stocks / RWA markets. No random crypto perp volume just for farming. I want to see what happens if I deliberately concentrate activity around the exact segment Arcus, Lighter and others are starting to compete for. At the end of the week I’ll share the numbers: > volume > fees > funding > points / rewards > PnL > and which venue actually gave me the best value Maybe RWA perps are becoming a real category. Maybe we’re just watching another incentive meta. I’ll have a much better answer after a week of actually trading it.

Just joined the TxFlow community And the timing might be pretty interesting. @TxFlow_L1 Points Season 1 is coming soon. Most people will probably start paying attention once the points dashboard goes live. I’d rather be here before that happens. New perp ecosystem. New community. Points around the corner. I have 5% fees discount for you and limited invites below. Time to follow the flow 🌊

Variational Week 42 gave us a much better look at how points actually work. Last week I found something weird: Two traders reported almost the same volume. @givenoxbt: $1.2M → 64 pts @Zeus00nn: $1.2M → 7 pts Almost 9x difference. The replies gave us an important missing variable: giveno was holding roughly $800K OI. Zeus said his highest OI was only around $32K. So for Week 42 I tracked more than just volume. I looked at: > points > volume > OI > holding time > market selection > swaps/perps mix > referrals / competition points when disclosed Week 42 itself: 150,000 points 31,693 accounts Up from 30,358 last week. Another ATH. Here’s every public Week 42 report I managed to collect: > @HyperliquidEco: 1,066 pts > @Frajerhejt: 220 pts on $10M > @Ryuzaki_SEI: 191.6 pts on $10.6M | ~$2.6M OI > @me_cool_off: 188 pts > @0xTimberJ: 173.26 pts on $17M > @givenoxbt: 165 pts on $3.3M | ~$400K OI > @sharkcryptottm: 141.03 pts > @Brokelays: 111.16 pts on $6.3M > @Alexey_Stark: 27 pts > @MuddyRC: ~17.5 pts on $1.72M | ~$500K OI > @SkyIsTheTaker: 15.38 direct pts on ~$986K | ~$20K avg OI > @Rencrypta: ~15 pts > @Absoluto92: 7.65 pts on $450K > @Steveee_stonks: 7.08 pts on $683.5K > @Zeus00nn: 4.96 pts on $400K > @VictorTopDefiG: 2.29 direct pts on $240K Victor is a good example of why I separated referral points this time. His trading activity generated only: 2.29 direct points while referrals added roughly: 71 points → 73.27 total Mixing that into pts/$1M would make the comparison meaningless. Now look at the traders where we actually have clean volume data. Farming efficiency ranged from roughly: ~9.5 → 50 pts per $1M More than a 5x spread. So volume clearly isn’t the formula. But Week 42 suggests something else: OI matters a lot. giveno went from roughly $800K OI last week to ~$400K this week and said himself that lowering OI hurt his efficiency. @MuddyRC did the opposite: he substantially increased OI to around $500K, traded less volume, and reported roughly 50% more points. Ryuzaki is another interesting case: $10.6M volume ~$2.6M OI 191.6 pts He also reported that holding positions for around 48h produced much better results than simply pushing raw US100 volume. But OI still isn’t the whole formula. Compare: giveno: $3.3M / ~$400K OI → 165 pts MuddyRC: $1.72M / ~$500K OI → ~17.5 pts More OI relative to volume. Still dramatically different efficiency. So my current model is: Volume + OI + holding behavior + market selection + swaps/perps mix + boosts Not: more volume = more points Market selection looks increasingly important too. @Absoluto92 stopped trading swaps entirely this week: Week 41: 8.7 pts / $790K Week 42: 7.65 pts / $450K His efficiency actually improved from roughly: 11 → 17 pts/$1M @AIexey_Stark made a similar point: $1M on a crowded market like US100 shouldn’t necessarily be treated the same as $1M on a much smaller market. He specifically highlighted OI + daily market volume as variables worth watching. There was another surprise. More wallets were farming this week, but several farmers actually became more efficient: > Timber: 9.8 → 10.2 pts/$1M > Frajerhejt: ~18.1 → 22 > Steve: ~8.9 → 10.4 > Absoluto: ~11 → 17 > Zeus: ~5.8 → 12.4 So Variational farming is definitely getting more competitive. But that doesn’t necessarily mean good farming is becoming less efficient. After two weeks of tracking this, my takeaway is: Volume isn’t the formula. OI isn’t the formula either. The combination is. And with 31,693 accounts now splitting the same 150K weekly pool, figuring out that combination is getting more valuable every week. I also tried to find new Week 42 numbers from @0xpostrich and @CryptoYieldGuy, but couldn’t find public updates. Both were important data points in my Week 41 analysis. I’ll keep tracking the same dataset for Week 43. The longer we follow the same farmers, the more interesting this gets.

Arcus Points are officially live. But the interesting part isn’t that Arcus launched another points program. It’s what they’re actually rewarding. @arcus_xyz just closed its first 3 months of private beta with: > $5B+ across spot + perps > 15K+ unique traders > $500M+ peak daily volume > $25M+ TVL And everyone who participated between July 1 and September 30 has already been included in Season 0. You don’t need to claim anything. The allocation is already there. But here’s the twist: Season 0 points won’t be revealed until near the end of the entire points program. Now Season 1 starts. Points drop every Wednesday. And Arcus isn’t simply saying: trade more = earn more. They explicitly say allocations look at how you trade, not just volume. Current ways to earn: > trading > making markets > keeping collateral deposited > referrals And there are already boosts. RWA activity earns more. Trading outside regular US market hours earns more. Stock Token swaps routed through Arcus inside Robinhood Wallet can earn boosted spot points too. That last part is especially interesting to me. Arcus has spent the last few months building around 24/7 equities. Now the points system is actively incentivizing traders to use exactly that part of the product. They’re also trying to filter out the obvious farming garbage: wash trading, self-matching, rapid deposit/trade/withdraw loops and other gaming can receive reduced or zero points. So this doesn’t look like a pure volume leaderboard. It looks more like Arcus is trying to use points to shape where liquidity goes and how users behave. And after spending the last few weeks testing Arcus myself, that’s the part I’ll be watching most closely. Season 0 rewarded the people who arrived early. Season 1 starts now.

Today is the final day of the @RareFriendsNFT Vibeathon And somehow my first hackathon turned into me building not one, but two games. > Friend Forge > Friend Portals A few days ago I was mostly thinking about APIs, data and trading tools. Now I’ve spent the week building game loops, pixel worlds, animations, interactions and integrating the Rare Friends SDK. Definitely not what I usually build. And that’s exactly why I enjoyed it so much. I also spent some time playing through a bunch of the other Vibeathon submissions. There are some seriously great games in there. People cooked. Although I have to admit… I played EtherGoo from Spokesz and I still have absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing 😭 Can someone explain me? Both of my games are playable, and both were built specifically for the Vibeathon. Games + GitHub PRs in the replies ↓ First hackathon. Two games shipped. Not a bad start.

Arcus might be approaching its points era So I went back to see what Variational looked like right before points launched. The difference is interesting. Variational before points: > $79.36B cumulative volume > 10.3K weekly active users > 4.4K avg. daily active users > ~27K wallets eventually received the retro drop Now Arcus: > ~$8.75B volume > only ~3.5K users currently have Perps beta access > points still haven't officially launched The interesting number is how small the actual trading cohort still is. Variational entered its points campaign after already building a pretty large active user base. @arcus_xyz could enter one with only a few thousand early Perps users. And those few thousand have already generated billions in volume. That's what makes the pre-points phase interesting to me. Not the size of the waitlist. The size of the cohort that was actually early.

Arcus might be quietly stealing users from other perp DEXs Over the last 7D, @arcus_xyz went from 0.6% → 3.0% market share. At the same time: > edgeX: -4.0pp > Aster: -2.5pp > Hyperliquid: -0.5pp > Variational: -0.4pp That doesn’t prove a direct migration. But the pattern is hard to ignore. Arcus is gaining share exactly while several major venues are losing it. If this continues, the interesting question isn’t whether Arcus can attract attention. It’s whether it can keep the users it’s pulling in.

My circle looks way smaller, But I’m super proud of it.

I usually build APIs, analytics tools and trading stuff For my first hackathon, I somehow ended up building a game. This week I joined the @RareFriendsNFT Vibeathon — my first hackathon / vibeathon ever. And I built Friend Forge. A small isometric Rare Friends world where you can: > explore the island with your Friend > mine Ore > bring it to the Forge > forge randomized artifacts > discover different rarities > build your Collection What started as a simple idea quickly turned into me thinking about game loops, animations, RNG, sound, UI and SDK integration instead of APIs and perp data 😭 Definitely outside my usual comfort zone. And that’s probably what I liked most about it. There’s something pretty fun about going from: “Could I build this?” to “Wait… this is actually playable.” First hackathon completed. Definitely not the last one.

I think Arcus might be getting very close to launching points I’m not saying it’s officially live yet. But the API already seems to expose the structure of a points system: > season points + rank > tiers > weekly points history > next drop time > active season tracking That’s enough for me to pay attention. So this week, I’m making @arcus_xyz one of my main focuses. Not just because of the possible points angle. But because the product was already starting to look interesting on its own: > Stock Tokens > equity perps > pTokens > isolated positions > 24/7 markets > Robinhood Chain underneath it That combination already made Arcus worth watching. If points are actually around the corner, it makes being early much more actionable. So my plan for this week is simple: farm Arcus test the product more deeply track how the mechanics work and share what I find I’m still farming Variational too. But Arcus is moving higher in my rotation this week. If the points system goes live soon, I’d rather already be active than start from zero after the announcement.

I think Robinhood Chain is becoming one of the most interesting experiments in crypto Not because it needs another L1. Because we’re starting to see the pieces: stocks perps tokenized assets 24/7 markets DeFi rails The interesting question is what happens when they start connecting

Crypto research always starts the same way: “I’ll quickly check one thing.” 2 hours later: > 19 tabs open > 3 dashboards > API docs > Python running > somehow doing math on a points program The original question remains unanswered.

This might have been the most important week of the entire Variational points campaign $VAR tokenomics finally dropped. And at the same time, farming got noticeably more competitive. The big news: > TGE moved to Q4 > 32% of $VAR supply goes to point holders > 100% unlocked at TGE > 150k points continue every week until launch > treasury-directed revenue is planned for buybacks & burns Then came Week 41: 150,000 points. 30,358 accounts. That’s a new ATH in participants. I went through public farmer reports from this week: > @0xTimberJ : 255.18 pts on $26.11M > @Frajerhejt : 103 pts on $5.7M > @me_cool_off : 80 pts > @0xpostrich : 71 pts on $2.4M+ > @givenoxbt : 64 pts on $1.2M > @CryptoYieldGuy : 22.22 pts on $2M+ > @SkyIsTheTaker : 19.51 pts on ~$1.27M > @sharkcryptottm : 18.71 pts > @VictorTopDefiG : 12.08 pts > @Absoluto92 : ~8.79 pts > @Zeus00nn : 7 pts on $1.2M > @Steveee_stonks : 6.39 pts on $717K And now the interesting part. Variational points clearly aren’t a simple volume game. The cleanest comparison from this week: giveno: $1.2M volume > 64 pts Zeus: $1.2M volume > 7 pts Almost the same volume. ~9x difference in points. Across the reports where volume was disclosed, efficiency ranged from roughly: ~6 pts/$1M > ~53 pts/$1M That’s an enormous spread. OI, holding time, markets, swaps/perps mix, boosts and probably other factors clearly matter much more than just pushing raw volume. Timber’s results tell the same story. His last three weeks: Volume: $5.5M > $17.4M > $26.1M Points per $1M: 35.4 > 20.8 > 9.8 More volume. Much worse efficiency. And now competition is getting even stronger. 30,358 wallets are splitting the same 150k weekly pool. Meanwhile we finally know what those points are competing for: 32% of the entire $VAR supply. Week 42 is going to be very interesting.

Variational just gave farmers a pretty good reminder. The best opportunities rarely look obvious while they’re still early. Now we have $VAR coming in Q4 and 32% of the supply going to the Genesis Distribution, fully unlocked at TGE. Suddenly everyone is paying attention. And no - this doesn’t mean I’m stopping @variational_io I’m still farming it. The lesson is not to stop there. Right now I have two other things on my radar: 1. Lighter × Robinhood Wallet This one isn’t speculation. @Lighter_xyz committed 11M $LIT to the Robinhood community. Trade perps through Robinhood Wallet: > 2× points Trade through Lighter web: > 1× points 2. Arcus This one is different. There is no confirmed @arcus_xyz token or native points campaign that I can find. I’m treating it as an early-user bet, not a guaranteed airdrop. But look at where the product already is: > live beta > Stock Tokens > equity perps > pTokens > 24/7 markets > billions in perp volume > built around Robinhood Chain Arcus has already crossed $3.8B in cumulative perp volume. Variational is still worth farming. Lighter × Robinhood is giving you a defined rewards pool today. Arcus is where I’m building activity while it still feels early. Three different situations. Same lesson: don’t wait until your timeline is full of allocation screenshots to start paying attention.

Almost $4B daily volume before TGE That’s a pretty serious signal. @variational_io has been printing personal records almost every few days lately. Daily volume first broke $3B. Now it’s already knocking on $4B. And that’s on top of: > ~$340B cumulative volume > $1.83B dual-sided OI > ~$236M TVL > $2.48M 2w net revenue > $2.27M 2w net profit > swaps becoming a serious second growth engine What I like most is that this isn’t coming from endlessly adding markets. The platform itself is getting deeper. More capital. More OI. More volume through existing markets. And increasingly more TradFi flow. All of that right before the points campaign reaches its final stretch and before $VAR TGE. So here’s my spicy prediction: I’m currently betting on roughly $100 per Variational point. That’s obviously not a fact - tokenomics, allocation and the final conversion still matter a lot. But looking at the protocol’s growth going into TGE, I don’t think $100/point is as crazy as it sounded a few months ago. Almost $4B daily volume before the token even exists. Let’s see how badly this prediction ages.

Are Bullpen points about to stop growing? People in the Discord are discussing September 23 as a possible end date. The team hasn’t confirmed that date, but on September 2 they did say they were working on an official closeout of the season and a move into the next phase. That leaves three very different possibilities: > Today is just another weekly distribution > Season 3 ends, but people can keep earning points > The points campaign ends and the final balances are set If you’ve been collecting @BullpenFi BULL Points, that difference matters more than the date itself. A “price per point” estimate needs two things we don’t have yet: the reward allocation and the final number of eligible points. If points keep accumulating, that second number can still change. My read: the season closeout is worth watching. But I’m not pricing my points as if the entire campaign has ended. What if really $10/pt. Which of the three outcomes are you expecting?

Lighter is currently doing more perp volume on Robinhood Chain than Arcus And I still think Arcus is the perp DEX that best represents what Robinhood Chain is trying to become. Sounds contradictory. But look at what they’re actually building. @Lighter_xyz brought a very strong perp engine to Robinhood Chain. And Robinhood is giving it serious distribution: > native Robinhood Wallet integration > dedicated Robinhood Chain instance > 11M LIT allocated to the Robinhood community > boosted points for trading through Robinhood The campaign is clearly working. But Arcus is built around a different thesis. Not: “bring another crypto perp DEX to Robinhood.” More like: “build the trading layer for Robinhood’s tokenized asset universe.” @arcus_xyz is already combining: > Stock Tokens > equity perps > crypto perps > commodities + indices > stock collateral > pTokens > 24/7 trading infrastructure And it exists entirely on Robinhood Chain. That’s the distinction I care about. Lighter is a perp engine deployed into the Robinhood ecosystem. Arcus is being designed around the ecosystem itself. Today, Lighter wins the scoreboard. Volume, OI, incentives - no question. But incentives can move liquidity very quickly. The harder question is which product still makes the most sense on Robinhood Chain when the campaign disappears. For me, that’s still Arcus. Robinhood Chain’s biggest opportunity isn’t becoming another place to trade BTC perps. It’s turning stocks and real-world assets into native onchain markets. Arcus is much closer to that thesis.

It’s east to do and earn points, but they still wait 😒

My $100/pt dream

Just forget about this position 🫣 Tbh it was risk trade on Trading Credits from team, i just lose some money few weeks ago

gm

Bro, just change the channel

I selected 20x leverage on @arcus_xyz It gave me ~13.3x. At first I thought something was wrong. Turns out I was trading $NVDA while the underlying market was closed. I deposited $10 and opened an NVDA perp: → $9.97 account equity → 20x selected → $131.89 position → $9.89 position margin → ~$215.70 expected entry → $215.71 actual fill So despite selecting 20x, my effective exposure was only ~13.3x. Then I checked the Arcus docs. Outside regular market hours, Arcus increases initial margin requirements on equity perps by 50%. The math: 20x = 5% initial margin 5% × 1.5 = 7.5% after-hours margin 1 / 7.5% = 13.33x effective leverage Almost exactly what happened in my trade. And margin isn't the only thing that changes when Wall Street is closed: → initial margin +50% → maintenance margin stays unchanged → price bands constrain moves → funding switches to SOFR + 0.5% until the market reopens That's a detail I completely missed when looking at the 20x selector. 24/7 equity perps don't mean the risk engine behaves the same 24/7. The market stays open. The rules around it change.

Thought -PnL on the latest Robinhood and Arc memes was painful Then I hit my GPT limits in the middle of a hard project I owe the memecoins an apology.

Your crypto cards may have different logos That doesn’t mean they’re that different underneath. For Part III of the Crypto Card Graveyard, I mapped the infrastructure behind 20 crypto card programs. Different wallets. Different chains. Different rewards. But once you follow the stack down, the same names start appearing again and again. Take Rain. Behind the consumer brands, I found it across: - @KASTxyz - @ether_fi - @Plasma - @KoloHub The exact structure isn’t identical in every program. But Rain keeps showing up somewhere between the crypto product and the traditional card rails. Then there’s the Baanx / Monavate ecosystem. It touches: - @MetaMask Card - @Ledger CL Card - @gnosispay - @Krak in the UK/EEA Again, these aren’t four identical products. MetaMask is built around self-custodial spending. Ledger starts from a hardware-wallet ecosystem. Gnosis Pay started as its own consumer card product. Krak comes from a centralized exchange. From the user’s perspective, they look completely different. Underneath, parts of their regulated card infrastructure converge. And we’ve already seen why that matters. Ready and Solflare were completely different products. Both relied on Kulipa. When Kulipa could no longer support the programs in July, both cards were affected. Solflare is probably the cleanest example of the distinction. The wallet kept working. The assets stayed in self-custody. Swaps and staking kept working. The card didn’t. That’s the part I think crypto users often miss. Self-custody solves custody risk. It doesn’t automatically solve infrastructure risk. You still need: - a regulated issuer / BIN sponsor - programme management - compliance - processing - Visa or Mastercard - banking and settlement relationships And sometimes the same companies provide those layers to multiple brands. There is another interesting side to this. Some of the older survivors don’t rely on one global setup. Krak, for example, uses a different regulated stack in the US than it does in the UK/EEA. Crypto.com also uses different issuing structures across markets. That may be part of what makes these programs more resilient. One partner disappearing doesn’t necessarily kill the entire global product. And this is where the crypto card market starts looking very different from the front end. At the brand layer, there are dozens of competitors. At the infrastructure layer, the market is much smaller. This isn’t a census of every crypto card in existence. It’s a map of the 20 programs I researched. But the pattern is hard to ignore: the real concentration isn’t always visible on the card. The logo is visible. The dependency isn’t. And after looking at all of this, I’m starting to think the biggest winners of the crypto card boom may not be the card brands at all. They may be the companies building the infrastructure underneath them. Crypto Card Graveyard - Part III

Being a Python dev in crypto is basically: 20% writing Python 30% reading API docs 20% figuring out why the docs don’t match reality 30% accidentally starting another side project And somehow the side project needs another API

Arcus just shipped isolated positions Sounds like a small feature. I think it’s actually an important beta milestone. Until now, Arcus was heavily centered around cross-margining — useful for capital efficiency, but not always how you want to structure risk across multiple trades. Isolated positions change that. Now traders can separate risk instead of having every position tied to the same collateral pool. What I find more interesting is the pace of iteration. Arcus launched its perps beta in July. Since then we’ve seen: - pTokens - tokenized stocks as collateral - isolated positions - OI grow from $7.17M in July to ~$17.8M today That’s the part I’m watching now. The early volume got my attention. The product iteration is what could keep it.

Great partnership

Arcus looks like:

A few days ago I looked at crypto cards that disappeared But the more interesting question is: Why do crypto cards actually die? I expected the answer to be mostly bad rewards economics. It isn’t. One pattern keeps showing up: the card can be healthy while the infrastructure underneath it isn’t. The best recent example is Ready + Solflare. Different products. Different ecosystems. Same problem. Both relied on Kulipa for card infrastructure. Kulipa wound down in July 2026. Ready’s card stopped working. Solflare’s physical and virtual cards stopped working too. The wallets were fine. User funds were fine. The card rail wasn’t. And this isn’t an isolated pattern. CEX.IO Card had a different problem this year. Its regulated programme partner was Quicko. Poland’s financial regulator withdrew Quicko’s authorization to provide payment services. Result? CEX.IO Card payments became unavailable from February 3. Then look further back. Binance’s old EEA Card disappeared after its issuer Contis stopped supporting the program. BitPay stopped accepting new card applications after its banking relationship changed. BlockFi is the extreme case where the company itself collapsed. Different cards. Different years. Different reasons. But the same underlying lesson: the logo on your crypto card is only the top layer. Underneath it are issuers, banking partners, programme managers, card networks, compliance and regulatory dependencies. And any one of those can become the failure point. Rewards still matter. Unit economics still matter. User demand still matters. But a great cashback rate doesn’t help much if the infrastructure required to process the next transaction disappears. That’s probably the biggest thing I learned from building the Crypto Card Graveyard: A crypto card doesn’t only need a good product to survive. It needs a stack that survives with it. And that leads to Part III. Because once you start mapping which companies actually sit underneath these cards, the market looks a lot more concentrated than the number of card brands suggests. Crypto Card Graveyard — Part II

The number in @world_xyz teaser is $319M The word worth noticing is “rumor.” Here’s how the story developed this week: Sept 2 → a surprise teaser. Sept 3 → the account reports 67K followers. Sept 5 → a possible $319M airdrop enters the story. Sept 6 → another teaser suggests the surprise could double at 100K followers. Sept 7 → an update broadens the surprise to all followers. In a few days, a vague surprise became a dollar figure, a follower milestone and a much wider audience. Each update adds expectations. The details still need to catch up. My take: the reveal needs to explain how these pieces fit together. Otherwise, different people will have spent the week expecting entirely different things. When you read “$319M airdrop,” did you take it literally - or as part of the teasing?

2 I’m ready

I need your follow too

Llol, check this:

solana is the world

world rule the memes

so I own the world

Owning your @world_xyz

I stand behind you

I have bag too, on my back

Me looking at this 9.9 world

Guys from @world_xyz tell your friends. tell your family. something happened to your elephant.

My timeline probably looks like I run two different accounts: One day I’m digging through perp DEX APIs, Python scripts and funding data. The next I’m comparing crypto cards, cashback and payment infrastructure. Basically: Perp DEX Herzig - Arcus / Lighter / Variational - APIs & docs - Python - funding / OI / volume - trading infrastructure Fintech Herzig - Krak / Plasma / other crypto cards - cashback - issuers - payment rails - card infrastructure They look like two completely different rabbit holes. But to me, they’re increasingly the same story. On one side, crypto is building better infrastructure for trading. On the other, it’s building better infrastructure for actually using money. Trading. Payments. Cards. Stablecoins. APIs. Different products, same direction: crypto infrastructure slowly becoming financial infrastructure. That intersection is probably what I’m most interested in exploring. Still Python dev in the middle of it all 🐍

Crypto X loves talking about new cards. So I decided to look at the ones nobody talks about anymore. Welcome to the Crypto Card Graveyard. Crypto cards have gone through multiple generations by now. Some survived. Some changed almost beyond recognition. And some of the biggest names from previous cycles simply disappeared. A few examples: - Binance Card (EEA) Launched in Europe in 2020. The original EEA card program was discontinued on December 20, 2023. Binance survived. That card didn’t. - BlockFi Rewards Visa One of the most recognizable crypto cards of the last cycle. It offered 1.5% base rewards in crypto, with selected merchant offers reaching up to 10%. Then BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 in November 2022. The card stopped working with it. - Eidoo Card Launched as a Visa card in 2020 with cashback paid in PNT. At launch, rewards of up to 10% were advertised. The original Contis-backed card program stopped working on January 25, 2023. - Bitso Card Launched in 2023 as Bitso’s crypto-powered payment card. It was officially deactivated on May 26, 2025. Bitso survived. The card didn’t. And then there’s BitPay. Its card isn’t technically dead. Existing cards still work. But applications for new ones have been paused since June 2023. Three years later, new users are still being sent to a waitlist. Meanwhile, plenty of older card programs survived. Crypto .com is still issuing cards. Coinbase now has multiple card products. Gemini is still running its crypto rewards credit card. Nexo is expanding its debit/credit model into new markets. Wirex is still running too, although the product itself has evolved. And that’s what I find most interesting. Survival doesn’t necessarily mean the original product survived unchanged. Some cards died. Some lost their original rewards. Some changed regions, issuers or models. Others made it through multiple crypto cycles. Building a crypto card clearly isn’t the hard part anymore. Keeping one alive might be. Next: why crypto cards actually die. Crypto Card Graveyard - Part I

Can someone explain what's going on here??? ethereum:0x232ce3bd40fcd6f80f3d55a522d03f25df784ee2 +13% in 24h ethereum:0xb0076de78dc50581770bba1d211ddc0ad4f2a241 +62% in 24h

First it was Lighter. Then Variational. Now Arcus is becoming the next perp project I think is worth paying attention to early. And after digging into Arcus over the past week, I wanted to see what all three actually looked like during their first ~2 months in beta. The numbers are pretty interesting. @Lighter_xyz : Month 1 - $138M volume - $2.15M OI Month 2 - $1.15B volume - $4.48M OI That’s roughly 8.3x growth in volume in a month. @variational_io had a completely different start. ~5 days into its invite-only beta: - 27 active traders - $2.42M cumulative volume - 2,020 trades By late February: - $8.8M cumulative volume By March: - $20M+ lifetime volume I couldn’t find reliable public OI snapshots or an exact active-user count for Variational’s first two months, so I’m not going to make numbers up. And now @arcus_xyz : July - $229M volume - $7.17M OI August - $1.9B volume - $12.28M OI That’s also roughly 8.3x month-over-month volume growth. And this is where Arcus really caught my attention. At the same early stage, its volume went from $229M → $1.9B while Lighter went from $138M → $1.15B. Even the growth curve is surprisingly similar. Meanwhile, Arcus ended month two with ~$12.3M OI versus ~$4.5M for Lighter at the same stage. Of course, these aren’t perfectly apples-to-apples launches. Lighter started its private beta with ~100 traders and an invite system. Variational was extremely closed early on. Arcus launched with cohort-based access to perps and a much larger ecosystem/waitlist around it. And unfortunately, historical user data isn’t consistently available enough to make a clean three-way comparison. I couldn’t find reliable month-two user numbers for Lighter or Variational. But that’s not really the point. I’m not saying Arcus will become the next Lighter or Variational. I’m saying it’s giving me the same reason to pay attention early. Lighter made me interested in a new generation of perp infrastructure. Variational made me rethink how liquidity itself could work with RFQ. And Arcus is now combining strong early traction with something I find equally interesting: perps + spot + tokenized assets + Robinhood Chain. After looking at the API yesterday and now digging into its early numbers, Arcus is firmly #3 on my perp watchlist. Lighter → Variational → Arcus. Let’s see where this one goes.

I spent the past week digging into the Arcus API. Not just reading the docs - actually figuring out how I’d build around it from Python. And honestly, @arcus_xyz is becoming one of the early perp projects I’m most interested in following. A few things stood out while going through the developer stack: - how the API is structured - what data you can pull for markets/accounts - what building trading tooling around it actually looks like - where the integration gets less obvious But the API itself is only half of why I’m watching Arcus. The bigger picture is more interesting: Arcus is building on Robinhood Chain across perps, tokenized assets and spot - basically sitting right at the intersection of two areas I’ve been researching heavily: perp infrastructure and onchain finance. So instead of doing one giant Arcus thread, I’m going to document what I find as I keep digging. Starting with the API. More Arcus notes soon.

Everyone will talk about Ethena’s new card. 4–5% cashback. Up to 6% on balances. Apple Pay. Bank transfers. Multi-chain deposits. But I think the card is actually the least interesting part of @EthenaPay . The bigger story is that @ethena is moving one layer closer to the user. USDe started as the product. Now they’re building the interface around it: USDe ↓ USD / EUR / GBP accounts ↓ yield ↓ global transfers ↓ Visa card ↓ everyday spending That’s a very different position from simply issuing a stablecoin and hoping other apps integrate it. And there’s another layer here that’s easy to miss. Most of the crypto complexity is disappearing from the user experience. You can deposit USDe/USDC/USDT, but on the other side you get something that increasingly looks like a normal money app: - bank details - username transfers - Apple Pay - cashback - fiat withdrawals - multiple currencies Crypto becomes infrastructure rather than the product itself. That’s also why the @avax part interests me. Ethena Pay isn’t just supporting Avalanche deposits — the app itself is built on Avalanche. So the stack is starting to look like: Ethena → monetary layer Avalanche → settlement infrastructure Rain → card infrastructure Visa → global acceptance And the user? They just see an app and a card. We’ve spent years asking when stablecoins would become useful for everyday payments. Maybe the more interesting question now is: What happens when stablecoin issuers stop being infrastructure for neobanks… and start becoming the neobanks themselves?

September is here. Variational Month TGE is here. The numbers are getting hard to ignore: - $289B+ cumulative volume ($29.148B in August) - $1.47B open interest - $163M TVL - 534 markets - ~10K daily active users - $1.24M net profit over the latest 2-week reporting period But the numbers aren’t actually the most interesting part. Variational took a very different route from most perp DEXs. Instead of building another CLOB, it built around an RFQ model where traders request a quote and liquidity providers compete to price the trade. That architecture is becoming especially interesting as the product expands beyond crypto. More than 30% of Omni’s OI is now coming from traditional markets. Gold alone has recently been sitting above $100M in OI. And that’s probably the part of the Variational story I’m watching most closely. Perp DEX competition is slowly becoming less about: “who built the best crypto perp exchange?” and more about: “who can bring the widest range of markets and liquidity onchain?” August pushed that thesis further. Omni crossed $1.4B OI. Variational announced a partnership with the Arbitrum Foundation around audits, gas sponsorship and product improvements. Isolated margin shipped. TradFi markets continued growing. And the team kept talking about the next major expansion: swaps. So heading into the final pre-TGE stretch, Variational isn’t just an airdrop story anymore. It has real OI. Real users. Real revenue. And an architecture that’s meaningfully different from the CLOB-heavy direction most perp DEXs took. There are still important unknowns. Token economics and the final points conversion remain the obvious ones. But from a product perspective, Variational enters September in a much stronger position than it entered 2026. For me, the biggest question after TGE isn’t the token price. It’s whether the RFQ model can keep scaling - and whether @variational_io can turn it into infrastructure for markets far beyond crypto perps. September should be interesting. Viva la Var.

August was the month I stopped just researching perp DEXs and started building more around them. My X stats - +80 new followers (500 - new followers milestone) - 43.3k impressions - 59 posts/500 replies - full detailed article about crypto cards Built: Zig Analytics / calculators / tooling Researched: Perp DEX APIs, infrastructure, fintech August taught me a few things the hard way: - Being early is an edge. Watching what happened around Robinhood, NFTs and memecoins reminded me that by the time an opportunity becomes obvious, you’re usually already late. - Don’t just watch. Participate. Research is useful, but being inside a new ecosystem early teaches you things you won’t learn from the timeline. - Build before you’re ready. A small tool shipped at the right moment can be more valuable than a perfect one shipped a month later. And September? More data. More building. More Perp DEX research. More tested cards. Still Python dev 🐍

500. At the last day of August. Every pixel of this 500 is someone who decided to follow this account. Pretty cool milestone. Thank you all 🤝 Now back to building.

Crypto people have a very different definition of “relaxing” Mine usually looks something like this:

It’s Saturday. You promised yourself you wouldn’t touch crypto this weekend What are you doing 2 hours later? A) checking positions B) farming points C) reading a new protocol’s docs D) building something nobody asked for E) staring at a chart that hasn’t moved in 4 hours I’m probably D 😭

Completely forgot I had these positions open since Jan 1 lol Placed a couple of bets on @variational_io FDV through @BullpenFi , which uses Polymarket underneath Checked them again today: +390% combined Took a while, but looks like I might finally be cashing in on both the bets and all the Variational points farmed along the way

Whale on the Horizon

Early fallout from the hype around crypto neobanks @avici Choose carefully who you trust with your funds. Solana address: FVNFzqAny8spWdPmYw6RQ9TkYa29ueFFiqCFD1gQnCEj

Nice one, little vacation for 3 days completed

Lighter and Hyperliquid are surprisingly close on one metric 24h Volume / Open Interest: @HyperliquidX - 0.79x @Lighter_xyz - 0.94x Despite the huge difference in absolute size, both are turning over less than their total open interest in daily volume Meanwhile, the median across the protocols I can currently track is 4.22x Different scale. Similar relationship between trading activity and open positions One of the things that caught me while building the new Volume vs OI module for Zig Analytics

Same as here

Be really delusional

Today marks exactly 100 days since I started waiting for the @Krak card to arrive in Ukraine Still waiting So I figured 100 days was enough time to write something useful while I wait Here’s my deep dive into crypto cards in 2026