Ruslan Fakhrutdinov from Extended Perp Exchange talks about building a unified margin across perps, vaults & yield, spot, and an integrated lending market. He explains critical components for a trustless perp DEX such as self-custody and on-chain solvency checks. Ruslan shares his experience with user acquisition programs, the total cost of execution vs. zero fees, and Extended's transparent fee model. We also discuss gauging sustainable product market fit in a post-airdrop environment and the roadmap for cross-asset collateral.

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Notes:
* Perp DEX market share grew 15-20%
* Vault earns up to 1% in liquidations
* Using 90% of vault shares as collateral

Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:03 Ruslan's background
01:12 What is Extended?
03:14 What must be on-chain?
05:55 Perp DEX liquidity
07:09 Calculating price of execution
09:06 Zero fees, good or bad?
13:22 Promotions vs regular users
18:32 UX design
21:35 Mobile trading apps
23:43 Perp DEX aggregators?
27:51 Vault system
29:50 Estimating Vault risk
34:28 End stage Vault design?
38:10 Spot market plans?
42:46 Validators
43:34 Next 5 years
46:10 RWA on DEXs
47:53 Wrapping assets vs native
49:06 Wrap up

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ⁠⁠ellipsislabs.xyz⁠⁠.

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Zcash cofounder Ian Miers discusses zero-knowledge proofs, why Bitcoin's public ledger creates massive privacy problems, how SNARKs enable trust without exposure, quantum computing threats to cryptocurrency, identity and reputation systems, and why a blockchain needs privacy to function as actual money.

Notes:
• Zcash launched as first industrial zero-knowledge proof application
• Zero Coin published 2013 (before Ethereum or SNARKs existed)
• Quantum computers need thousands of qubits to break RSA
• Blockchain transparency makes Bitcoin "Twitter for bank accounts"

Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:19 What's Ian up to?
01:25 Creating Zcash
05:59 Why ZK tech is a big deal?
08:34 Zero knowledge proofs & Bitcoin
10:36 Verifiability vs privacy
14:02 The 2025 Zcash resurgence
17:20 Other research
20:45 Stablecoins & real world assets
24:15 Ellipsis Labs Ad
25:02 Regulation
28:57 Government privacy overreach
33:11 Zcash proposals & current development
35:51 Swaps
39:29 Zcash as medium of exchange?
41:37 The possibility of privacy on Bitcoin
43:53 Other privacy tech?
50:18 Monero vs Zcash
53:37 Developer block rewards
57:12 Developer rewards & adoption
59:39 Quantum risks
1:02:45 Quantum timelines

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ⁠⁠ellipsislabs.xyz⁠⁠.

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Keone Han and Kevin McCormick from Monad Foundation join us to talk about their upcoming mainnet launch on November 24th, why building quality infrastructure takes years not months, their unique Momentum grants program that prioritizes user acquisition costs and retention over vanity metrics like TVL, and how to maintain team focus when crypto Twitter operates on a two-day attention span.Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

Notes:

• Monad mainnet launches November 24, 2025

• Momentum grants focus on cost-per-user acquisition

• Team values long-term building over quick releases

• Testnet ecosystem includes 15+ applications

Timestamps:00:00 Start01:20 Why Monad ICO now?02:55 Vibe check06:37 Time to market12:28 What makes Monad unique?14:47 Node count & requirements17:34 Open source & centralization20:15 Monad vs ?23:28 Could ETH borrow from Monad?28:07 Token valuation34:02 Winner take all?34:46 Attracting users42:39 Attracting partners with $$$45:53 Airdrop & community51:14 Monad momentum54:13 Monad apps

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Annanay Kapila, CEO & Founder of QFEX, joins us to talk about his journey from high-frequency trading at Flow Traders and Tower to building a revolutionary exchange platform. We discuss how crypto market structure solves traditional finance inefficiencies, his Y Combinator experience, regulatory strategy, 100X leverage mechanics, prediction markets, and why sports betting actually works. Launching December 2025.

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ⁠⁠ellipsislabs.xyz⁠⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kaledora Linn, Co-Founder at Ostium, joins us to talk about revolutionizing onchain trading by bringing traditional finance assets like stocks, commodities, and FX to DeFi through perpetual contracts. We explore why perps are superior to tokenization for trading, the evolution from single-asset to cross-asset platforms, how macro news drives modern volatility, capital efficiency challenges, and why retail traders prefer perps over options. Plus institutional use cases and the future of "perpification."

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ⁠ellipsislabs.xyz⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DeFi Dave, Head of Growth at Cap Money, joins us to talk about how Cap found product-market fit for restaking. Dave breaks down Cap's three-sided marketplace connecting stablecoin users, market makers (operators), and risk takers. Operators access undercollateralized loans backed by restaked ETH/BTC, paying 8-11% to beat their strategies. If they fail, risk takers eat the loss—users stay protected. We also dive into lore building, why most restaking hype was overblown, and how Cap brings Wall Street on-chain.

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Gordon Liao, Head of Research at Circle, discusses the explosive growth of USDC to a $50 billion market cap. Gordon also explains how stablecoins are revolutionizing cross-border payments, the regulatory landscape shaping crypto, Circle's strategic IPO timing, and why blockchain-based payment rails will disrupt tradfi.

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Notes:

• USDC reaches $50B market cap

• Cross-border payments cost 6-7% traditionally

• Stablecoins settle transactions in seconds

• PayPal launched PYUSD competitor

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:40 Who is Gordon?

02:21 Responsibilities at Circle

05:27 What's unique about DeFi?

11:50 Why is fractional reserve bad?

12:40 Separating lending & payments

13:23 AMM functions

15:20 xy=k (inverse variation)

18:06 Circles's mission statement?

21:16 Arc: An L1 Blockchain for Stablecoin Finance

23:15 Proof of Authority

24:32 Ellipsis Labs Ad

25:19 Staking in dollars?

27:48 Courts & laws as slashing mechanism

28:55 Permissionlessness

32:06 Stablecoin competition

34:24 Smaller banks

36:34 Small bank creating stablecoins?

38:19 Will $1 equal $1?

41:29 Arc's value add

45:11 Arc timeline

45:29 Initial use cases

48:23 Liquidity fragmentation

50:35 Managing Circle's multi-chain operations

53:18 Market volatility

55:52 circuit breakers for volatility

57:42 Auto-deleveraging

58:29 Controlling a decentralized marketplace

59:46 Hedge funds & perps

1:02:29 Will TradFi even participate in these markets?

1:04:46 Degens gonna degen

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Backed by Paradigm, Electric Capital and Haun Ventures. The founders, Eugene and Jerry, have experienced Citadel Jane Street in the Solana Core team since launching their order book DEX, Phoenix. They’ve done over $80 billion in trading volume by making onchain order books competitive with centralized exchanges. 

Ellipsis is hiring for New York-based engineers. Work with a small focus team who are results driven, collaborative, and use a modern stack. If you’re an engineer who wants to work on infrastructure that’s already proven itself in the market, go to ellipsislabs.xyz.

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Austin Federa, founder of Double Zero, joins us to talk about building a new internet optimized for blockchain. We dive into how Double Zero uses private fiber networks from trading firms like Jump to reduce jitter and latency for validators, why proof-of-utility beats proof-of-stake for infrastructure, how they secured a rare SEC no-action letter, and the wild token launch that had everyone screaming online.Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com# Notes:• Double Zero has 30% of Solana validators connected• Network has $23 billion in total connected value• Validators pay 5% of block rewards as fees• 50% of revenue is burned, 50% to fiber contributors• Token launched at $0.075, spiked significantly• 7.5% free float, 34% circulating supply at launchTimestamps:00:00 Start02:18 Launching DoubleZero03:37 Layered protocol stack08:00 Partnering w/ high frequency trading firms09:28 Monopolies vs Open Source12:43 What is "jitter"?15:14 Reducing jitter16:58 Current public internet market making18:13 Flash Boys comparison19:57 Fiber quality tiers21:39 Fiber vendors22:28 High quality fiber uses24:01 Fiber is actually 2/3 the speed of light24:51 Fiber uses in TradFi27:20 DoubleZero stakeholders30:00 Fiber bandwidth limits30:50 Opting into DoubleZero33:13 30% of stake weight on Solana34:57 How much faster?36:18 First mover advantage?37:13 Solana MEV & speed37:51 Is DoubleZero a blockchain?40:51 Fees & rewards42:44 Burning tokens44:22 Chain agnostic45:47 $23B in "connected value"?46:51 Holding DoubleZero tokens49:08 Legal & trust design50:25 Validator rug pulls?51:45 Malicious validators53:34 Reasons why firms would NOT use DoubleZero?55:22 Geography matters57:47 Proof of utility59:51 B2B utility token1:02:34 SEC letter1:04:45 Subject framing for the SEC1:08:22 Token sale1:08:58 Token NGU1:10:05 Binance Alpha1:12:09 Online hate a distraction?1:13:18 Initial token float?1:15:15 Token unlock schedule1:16:50 FUD fightingThe Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs: https://www.ellipsislabs.xyz/

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Facundo Werning, former Tether country manager for Latin America and now at Agora, joins us to talk about his journey from Argentine policy work to the front lines of the stablecoin wars. We dive deep into how stablecoins actually work in emerging markets, why Agora is positioning itself as the credibly neutral alternative to Tether and Circle, the real state of crypto adoption in Argentina, and why traditional banks are about to get completely upended.

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NOTES:

• Argentina has more US cash per capita than America

• Stablecoin yields hit 10-12% vs banks' 3% in Argentina

• Agora shares revenue with partners unlike competitors

• $10B in stablecoins = $400M yearly opportunity cost

• Tether built dominant last-mile retail distribution

Timestamps

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume.If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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James Christoph explains why MicroStrategy can't be replicated, DATs are doomed, and crypto markets are more efficient than people think. Plus: Celestia's inflation problem, Ethena's systemic risks, and why Hyperliquid nailed their stablecoin strategy.

If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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