Deeply Intents

Why are crypto options still so underdeveloped? In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Nick Foster, Co-founder of Derive (fka Lyra). We start by unpacking why options are worth pursuing in crypto and what drove Variant's recent investment in Derive. From there, we dig into Derive's institutional focus, how they think about the competitive options landscape, and what "10/10" means for the protocol. We also speed through Derive's portfolio margin and liquidation systems, plus how their tech stack shapes product decisions. We wrap up with the story behind the rebrand from Lyra to Derive and Nick's learnings from building through multiple market cycles.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Options are the most programmable financial primitive

(01:56) - Variant investment in Derive

(04:14) - The institutional focus

(09:10) - Having conversations with institutions

(10:20) - All of these ingredients fall into place

(12:53) - The competitive landscape

(14:41) - 10/10 & ADLs

(17:20) - How Portfolio Margin works

(19:09) - Liquidation system innovation

(21:57) - The Security Module

(25:07) - Derive Chain

(26:28) - Build a great product

(36:16) - Rebrand from Lyra to Derive

(40:55) - Synthetix's attempt to acquire derive

(46:43) - Learnings whilst building

(47:54) - Think carefully about incentives

(50:08) - Having a proactive mindset

(52:27) - Using AI to build

(54:44) - Encouraging side projects

(56:30) - Visions of agents trading options

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Alex Watts (ThogardPvP) from Fastlane. We begin the episode by discussing the concept of kingmaking in crypto ecosystems - why its important and the risks associated with king entrenching. Next we shift the conversation to the Monad central bank thesis as in the Monad Foundation using its treasury of MON to control yield via staking. Thereafter we shift the discussion towards risk curators and vaults exploring why they are popular. We finish the episode discussing enterprise adoption patterns and what is and what is not likely to work for institutions. 

Timestamps 

(00:00) - On Kingmakers 
(03:07) - Annie are you okay? 
(05:07) - VCs won't invest in 17 LSTs 
(05:57) - Paradigm is the best Kingmaker in the business 
(09:11) - Wealth creation event for native apps 
(16:18) - The Kingmaker and application incentives 
(21:29) - Preserve the ability for competition to disrupt incumbents 
(27:13) - The Monad Central Bank thesis 
(31:17) - This gonna sound really bad 
(37:57) - Central banks are centralized 
(45:02) - They're just professionals 
(48:21) - Loop it and leave it 
(52:24) - Programmatic interest rate policy 
(54:40) - Whats up with vaults and risk curators 
(57:07) - Glazing the curators 
(1:02:13) - Institutional adoption 
(1:03:11) - Prevailing view in crypto VC 
(1:07:17) - What's important in the institutional game 
(1:14:49) - Fast finality and short block times 
(1:16:14) - RWAs have oracles, its nuanced 
(1:22:53) - The island of misfit toys 
(1:24:42) - Ethereum is the silver of crypto

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Alex Watts (ThogardPvP), Co-founder and CEO of Fastlane. We start by breaking down Fastlane's recent deal with Chainlink for their product Atlas—ThogardPvP walks through how it was structured and who actually got paid (spoiler: no one got rich). From there, we get into the emerging trend of acquihires and licensing deals in crypto and why they might be setting venture investing back. That leads us into a broader conversation about the two types of founders in tech: those who are genuinely mission-driven versus those treating "founder" as a career path for status and quick extraction. We also talk about why right now might be the best time for VCs to allocate to crypto, before closing out with a tour through Silicon Valley history—military-industrial spending, the case for a DARPA for crypto, and what it means to be a gardener in Ethereum's infinite garden.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Founder and CEO of Fastlane
(01:27) - Chainlink acquires Atlas
(06:32) - The way the deal was structured
(12:12) - No one got rich off the deal
(16:39) - Oppose the license and aquihire model
(21:53) - This is what regulations are for
(26:03) - Focused on Monad
(27:50) - Founders make a choice
(29:30) - A little bit of a tangent
(31:10) - Things startup founders say
(34:57) - Not all VCs are the same
(39:15) - The sociopaths are scamming in AI right now
(42:15) - Best time to allocate capital to crypto is now
(45:18) - It's difficult to not be dumb
(46:33) - Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Silicon Valley"
(49:00) - Internet Capital Markets
(51:31) - Garden Curator to King Maker

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.

Is interop finally solved? In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Isaac Sheff (Senior Research Scientist) and Christopher Goes (o-founder) of Heliax about the Anoma protocol and explore how Anoma thinks about interop. In particular we discuss Isaac's research on Controllers [the authoritative state machine that orders transactions for a resource, preventing double-spends]. We begin the episode discussing Isaac's background as a consensus researcher and his prior work on Heterogeneous Paxos. We then dive into controllers and compare them to IBC, and discuss we you need different trust models for blockchains, databases, and computers. Thereafter the episode gets quite technical as we discuss the nuances of Anoma's resource model, controller tags, and next concepts called shared & causal resource history. Next we explore how controllers utilize ZK proofs for tag reduction and attestation. Finally we discuss the novel emergency override condition which one can think of as a generalization of Plasma (Ethereum), how controllers unlock private bridging, and the affordances they provide application builders who want to build distributed applications.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Consensus researchers
(04:26) - What are controllers?
(08:50) - Product perspective and revisiting IBC
(12:52) - Why you need different trust models
(19:24) - Unbundling ordering, execution & storage
(24:30) - The Anoma state model is based on resources
(29:03) - Controller Tags and double spends
(34:34) - Shared and Causal Resource History
(36:53) - Controllers are different than IBC
(40:13) - You get interop for free
(43:05) - Controllers love ZK
(47:34) - Controllers and trust assumptions
(50:45) - Emergency override condition (EOC)
(56:10) - Generalization of Plasma
(58:50) - Controller interop with existing EVM chains
(1:03:09) - Intents in Ethereum
(1:04:22) - Private bridging
(1:06:33) - Affordances for application designers
(1:10:17) - Blockchains can be useful for more than finance

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.

Why does crypto keep throwing money at attention instead of products? In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Dino, Co-founder of Fluent. We kick off with Dino's background and why he's learned never to bet against developer ingenuity, then get into the weeds on crypto fundraising strategies including what works, what doesn't, and where discipline matters. From there, we dissect crypto's obsession with attention and whether reputation systems can offer a real solution. We also explore Fluent's blended execution environment, touching on the history of WASM experiments and why product focus is valuable in the ecosystem. We wrap up with Dino's philosophy on building a company by exploring what an ideal idea meritocracy actually looks like and why he's chosen to build on Ethereum.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Don't bet against developer ingenuity
(04:46) - Give people skin in the game
(08:25) - Discipline in fundraising
(16:27) - One way decisions
(22:11) - Real recognizes real
(25:46) - The industry's obsession with attention
(28:19) - Reputation
(33:12) - Reputation checks and balances
(37:14) - Is reputation game-able?
(44:44) - WASM experiments
(46:23) - multi-VM products
(52:14) - Product focus in the ecosystem
(55:50) - Reflections on building a company
(58:48) - Idea meritocracy
(1:04:59) - Building on Ethereum

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.