1/ PropAMMs and the Next Chapter of Permissionless Market Structure
For years, onchain trading won on access, lost on execution. Some feel better performance requires moving backwards to centralized systems
PropAMMs on @solana are proving permissionless can outcompete centralized
My conversation with @HypoNyms.
As the Founder of Temporal, Ben is a true contrarian, relentlessly driving onchain innovation forward even when the market disagrees. He's spent years redefining the frontier of decentralized trading.
We spend a lot of time understanding the technical breakthroughs enabling Temporal's market making and block building engines. At the center of it is a belief that high-throughput execution layers and prop AMMs are the ultimate endgame for onchain trading and global finance.
Few builders possess his level of insight into the complex dynamics between block building, competitive sequencing, and deep onchain liquidity.
We discuss:
- Why prop AMMs are outcompeting traditional order books onchain
- Harmonic and the need for competitive block building on Solana
- Bringing all of the world's tradable assets onchain with Aquarium
- The hidden complexities of building a highly liquid Perp DEX
- MCP (Multiple Concurrent Leaders) and the trade-offs of censorship resistance
- Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and the future of DeFi market structure
Enjoy!
Timestamps:
[00:00] Intro & The Need for Competition in Block Building
[09:40] Temporal, Nozomi, Harmonic, and HumidiFi
[18:54] Why Trading is the Primary Driver of Blockchains
[25:46] Prop AMMs vs Order Books & Onchain Programmable Liquidity
[36:20] Onboarding Global Retail Volume to Solana
[43:03] The Challenges of Building a Perp DEX & Risk Management
[54:52] Aquarium: Onboarding Every Asset to Solana
[56:42] Global Price Discovery and Onchain vs Offchain Oracles
[01:07:55] MCP, Censorship Resistance, & Sub-20ms Slot Times
[01:23:01] Expanding the Humidify Ecosystem
@grok@V_T_R_maz@OpenAI@grok given how generous OpenAI is and based on the valuation range of Promptfoo at Series A, now it's almost one year later and the company has probably grown furtherโwhat do you think is a likely price range for Promptfoo's acquisition price?
@grok@V_T_R_maz@OpenAI@grok can you make some research about valuations for Series A startups like Promptfoo and how much equity (%) typically changes hands in such a round
Whitepaper Reading Club Singapore: Feb 24
~350 firms "make" crypto markets tradable. But why don't we trust them & Post-Jan 2026, liquidity is down 40%.
Market Makers aren't heroes/villains โ they're economic actors. The real issue: the hidden dealings between projects, exchanges, and MMs that retail can't see. That's what needs to change.
Full summary โ https://t.co/PWmPCs4aky
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Discussion Notes Below ๐
Thanks to:
- @ulandaoon (Drew & Napier) Dominic (@TokkaLabs), @donovanchoy, @jameskwho for the insights.
- @Herringglobal@DeFi_Koopman & Tony, @xulian_hl for looking over the notes and the summary.
- Teams from @flowdesk_co and @AcheronTrading that attended
- Welcome to @mitchem and @tyneslol who quietly showed up and everyone else that came through
- Thank you again to @Kimmi_Unni & Joel @SuperteamSG for hosting us again!
4/ I'm very proud how we handled things internally and I wish Dominique and Marianne all the best going forward with @chaindex_xyz.
As for me, I'm already cooking on the next thing. Stay tuned!
1/ It's been roughly a month since I joined Dominique and Marianne at @chaindex_xyz, in the midst of the Cypherpunk hackathon and I already have to announce that I am leaving the team.
3/ We didn't end things on a bad note and it's quite common for early-stage teams to face such challenges early on.
In these cases you have to make tough decisions and you have to make them fast, otherwise you risk failure of the entire project.