Gee

All thoughts are my own. If you don’t like them — just unfollow. CTO
@LunarBaseX

[Gee @_0xGee]

Survived a few cycles, bad ideas, and better ones - here’s the story.

• Mined 500+ BTC in 2009 with a uni friend after reading about Bitcoin in a magazine. Threw away the PC. Still hurts.
• 2017 - joined a friend’s pre-ICO. Sold nothing, learned everything.
• 2018 - built a crypto marketing agency, survived the bear, switched to full-time dev.
• Now turning years of chaos into structure - building
@Something.

Broke some stuff, fixed some, and kept going. ⚡

[0x @0xProject]

"[Prop AMMs] will progressively render RFQ irrelevant."

0x Blockchain Researcher Robert Paluba @dumbbets1 dives deep into the good, bad, and ugly of Prop AMMs at @ETHCluj.

[Gee @_0xGee]

@hthieblot Agree

[Gee @_0xGee]

ETHereum is the most tricky EVM just because of the block time. It was a good initiative from flashbacks a couple weeks ago. Still exploring it. Maybe I’m dumb but I don’t see any sustainable business models for ETH rn. Maybe later with some tweaks and new proposals.
A balance between speed and gas fee is the key. ETH doesn’t have neither of that. So I prefer smaller L2 with no prop AMMs at all, looks more profitable and promising.

[Gee @_0xGee]

Kipseli is not a pure prop AMM imao. A lot of so called props are just rfqish repacked projects. Exploring the space I found out that there are not so many pure one. Another problem is profitability. Don’t be confused with a huge volumes. Volumes are not a problem with a tight spreads. Tight spread is not a problem either. Business model and distribution are the problem. Hedging is the problem. So I guess many of “prop AMMs” won’t see the sunrise next summer.

[Gee @_0xGee]

All these stories are about the same. My first startup was a tough hardware one. I was young and foolish. I was impressed with the people who used to call themselves VCs. Truth came later. I haven’t raised that time. I just got the experience. Many years I’ve been doing that, building, raising, failing. Sometimes I feel it doesn’t worth it. Venture money are the most expensive in the market.

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

I don’t really have many VC horror stories.

The worst ones are just meetings where there isn’t much interest. Everyone is still polite, but you can feel it’s not going anywhere. With my first company, I pitched a lot of VCs and got a lot of polite rejections.

With Linear, I approached fundraising differently. I tried to always be in a position where I didn’t need funding.

I also didn’t do pitch meetings unless there was real mutual interest. I would take casual meetings, but tried to avoid pitch meetings, until I thought the timing was right, I was in the process, and I was interested and I could see the VC interested too.

Early on, we raised a small amount from angels. We didn’t want to commit to a VC at the very beginning, and with three co-founders we knew we could build the first version without much money.

After we announced the company, investor interest started to pick up. I told most VCs no and said I was focused on building the product.

Then Sequoia reached out. I took a coffee meeting with one of the partners because, well, it was Sequoia.

The partner later pushed me to come in and “meet more people.” I assumed this might turn into more of a pitch meeting, so I came prepared with slides and some thinking. I was willing to do it, again because it was Sequoia.

Before committing to the meeting, I told them clearly that I wasn’t raising and didn’t want to waste their time. They still wanted me to come in.

After the pitch, someone asked how much we were raising, since it wasn’t in the deck.

I said what I had already told them: I’m not raising.

They asked, “Well, if you were raising, what would you raise?”

I said I hadn’t really thought about it, and we wrapped the meeting.

They didn’t invest in that moment, but a few weeks later, once we actually decided to raise, they fought against other term sheets and led our seed round.

About a year later, Linear became breakeven/profitable. Every round since has been more focused. I’ve mostly met casually with VCs, usually engaging with 3–5 firms per round, and only doing a pitch if I thought they were good and they really wanted it. I’ve still gotten plenty of passes too.

Each round has taken about 2-3 weeks, because I've built the relationships, then just completed the show, and closed within couple of weeks.

With every round, I’ve also given VCs some homework. I send them a memo and questions about the business, ask them to write answers, and then we discuss them live.

For our Series B, several people from Accel flew to where I live, booked a hotel space, and came with binders of research about our company. It wasn’t a formal pitch meeting. It was a discussion.

I share this because for every VC horror story, there are also stories where investors really go the extra mile.

There are many cases where the VC builds the case, defends and believes in the founder, and does everything they can to make the investment happen, even when the rest of the partnership isn’t fully there yet.

I’ve only raised in 2012 and from 2019 onward, so I do believe there were times when VCs had more power and could abuse it more. YC, in some ways, helped put a stop to that.

But my guess is that VCs more often do something extraordinary than treat someone badly. You just don’t hear about those extraordinary experiences as much.

I’ve seen VCs fly anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice to try to convince a founder. I’ve been called many times to help sell a founder on a firm. VCs will do everything, call in every favor, to impress the founder.

And I don’t envy the job. It seems grueling. You have to pass on a lot of people who are obviously passionate about their business, and people take it personally. At the same time, you have to work incredibly hard to get into the best deals.

[Gee @_0xGee]

I guess 2026-2028.

[CZ 🔶️ BNB - Parody @czbinanceprd]

2026 may be your last realistic chance to build life changing wealth in crypto.

save the tweet.

[Gee @_0xGee]

I’m thinking to publish our own oracle. I’ve been exploring existing oracles for a while. Even the best one updating quotes on blue chips quite rare. So as we updating it a couple times a block anyway, why don’t we just make it public?

Maybe it’s gonna be useful for other prop AMMs

[Gee @_0xGee]

@CoFoundersNik As a parent I would teach them that the fatter is always does what he promise. Other lesson will be learned later.

[Gee @_0xGee]

Agree with every word.

[The White Whale @WhiteWhaleLabs]

Dear Solana:

Solana is my favorite blockchain to transact on. It is still one of my favorite assets to trade. And when price is attractive, I still think there is a good case for accumulating it.

But I am less bullish on SOL’s next-cycle price targets than I was last time.

Last cycle, while everyone was calling for $500+ SOL, I publicly said I planned to be out before $250. Solana’s ATH came earlier than BTC and much of the market, but that call ended up being pretty damn close.

This time, unless I see a real fundamental shift, I will probably be lowering my targets. As things stand now, I would likely be out before $200 next cycle.

That is not because I hate Solana. I don’t.

But love is not a sound investment thesis.

The reasons are pretty straightforward.

Pump fun has historically made up a meaningful chunk of Solana volume, and I believe the pump (and broader memecoin casino) meta is dying. Maybe it evolves. Maybe something replaces it. But pretending that was not a significant driver of activity feels dishonest.

Solana DeFi has also taken a serious hit. A lot of Solana DeFi was tied into Drift, and the damage there impacted dozens of protocols. It hurt the broader perception of Solana DeFi.

Then there is the capital markets side.

A lot of Solana DATs were formed at some of the worst possible price points, then unwound, restructured, or de-risked at some of the worst possible price points.

CT forgets everything in 72 hours but institutional capital does not.

If a bunch of institutions got dragged into Solana exposure near the highs, then unwound for losses, that leaves a mark. It does not mean they will never touch SOL again. But it does mean the next wave of institutional appetite may not be as easy, clean, or deep as people assume.

Then there is the cultural layer.

Solana feels disjointed right now. Some of the most prominent Solana voices have spent an incredible amount of time relentlessly shilling an entirely different blockchain. Yes, ZEC is it's own Layer 1.

It does not exactly scream focus on Solana itself. It reads as devs thinking their bag is cooked and so they start pumping their next bag.

Only now does there finally seem to be real traction around addressing the inflation issue, which should have been more meaningfully a long time ago.

But what really read as desperation to me was the @PhoenixTrade push. That moment actually influenced my vision more than any of the others.

Look, I have traded over $5B in perps across various protocols. I have tested or used almost every “perp DEX” worth testing. And Phoenix is about as basic as it gets.

Yes, the engineering under the hood is interesting. Fine. Mad respect to the builders.

But traders do not ultimately care about engineering.

They care about three things:

Does it work?

Can I make money there?

Is it safe?

And right now, the best Solana-adjacent perps venue is @pacifica_fi . I say Solana-adjacent because it is mostly the stables on-ramp and Solana TVL. It is not generating massive activity for the Solana network itself. And even Pacifica has already talked about building its own L1. (A decision I'm skeptical about, even as a fan)

My exact reaction to the huge marketing push on one of the most basic perp dexs I've ever traded on was: they are so very desperate for something to gain traction on Solana it actually scares me.

Solana talks a lot about what it wants to be when it grows up. And to be clear, the vision is compelling. The ambition is real. The talent is definitely real.

But ambition is not maturity.

Every kid wants to be a doctor, an astronaut, or a superhero when they grow up.

I care more about what something actually is than what it says it wants to become.

So what is my favorite new blockchain?

Solana.

Because you can still love something and still be rational about it.

🫡 From the depths —
The White Whale 🐋

[Gee @_0xGee]

I remember a cold January. Construction outside the window, snow and night. Back then no one knew about LunarBase. It all felt unreal.

[Gee @_0xGee]

@cz_binance I guess you missed one already existing @LunarBaseX pure propAmm on EVM

[Ella Zhang @ellazhang516]

Congrats to the 25 teams graduated from @EASYResidency S3!

Our incubation is strictly thesis-driven. We don’t follow trends; we try to define categories.

In Season 2, we focused on the prediction market, leading to the successful integration of https://t.co/4nB876XJK3 and https://t.co/WofqWMVG8X into the Binance ecosystem. For Season 3, we moved deeper into Agentic Finance. We looked for:

•Next-Gen Oracles: to verify complex off-chain data without trust assumptions—we found Cournot;
•On-Chain FX & Stablecoins: to reach the underserved in frontier markets, like USD-i/Issac—a neo-bank for 2 billion Muslim people—and Orbswap;
•Sovereign Privacy: we discovered essential infrastructure like 0xBow and SilentSwap;
•Exotic RWAs: and now we are moving beyond treasuries into new frontiers with Openstocks, Renaiss, and Gemint;
•We are so excited about those AI Infra projects and Applications: Newsliquid, Bank of AI, Brief Tech, and Taco AI, and Functor;
•Proprietary AMMs & Everyday DeFi: Innovative models from Lunarbase, Nemesis, Dapital, https://t.co/AqqMLkbN2v, and PokerFi.

Every team is building sth interesting, meaningful, and unique.

We are going to work on Payment/Stablecoin/FX for theme for S4, exciting details will be released shortly. Builders, stay tuned.

[The Bridge @jointhebridge]

I'm an accelerator, a founder house, a program.
The name doesn't matter, here is what I am:

8 weeks in San Francisco to build the foundations of a generational company

- non-US based founders
- pre-idea, pre-team
- 40 spots
- $250k investment for the best teams

what I cover: flights / housing / food / visa support / co-founder matching / personalised support / network access

by Entrepreneurs First
backed by Patrick & John Collison, Demis Hassabis, Daniel Gross, Nat Friedman, Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt & others

alumni have built: Cleo, Aztec Network, Gensyn, PolyAI, Neptune Robotics, Magdrive

Comment your edge ! Our next cohort is open now

[Gee @_0xGee]

Appreciate this @0xProject and your hard work on Making DeFi great again 😍

[0x @0xProject]

The price you see isn't always the price you get 🪤

Some liquidity operators are gaming aggregators and traders are paying for it. We're exposing how.

Full breakdown in the replies 👇

[Gee @_0xGee]

@defiprime @0xProject @abandeali1 We have describe the receipt-based swaps in our white paper in December. And for the Institutional grade DeFi we need an Institutional grade venues and crystal clear execution.

[Gee @_0xGee]

@EricForgy @0xProject that's why we in @LunarBaseX use a recipe for each swap - what you quote is what you swap. No dirty games

[Gee @_0xGee]

Interesting

[mijovic @mijovic988]

1/ Every SLOAD in every EVM contract ever written has been a cold page fetch. Not because of bad code — because of a fundamental design decision in Ethereum's storage model.

Monad is addressing this. 🧵

[Gee @_0xGee]

It was back in 2022 while we were building @FairFi_ and I spent a huge amount of money during the bear market. BUIDL they said, but none of the VCs invested. FairFi was about yield farming automation with an AI decision module. And the main issue was AI. But just look at the market right now — everyone's gone crazy with AI + Crypto. I was just too early.

[Gee @_0xGee]

That's why I was so temper implementing any to areal work flow with real humans and developers. Some heartbeats still work, but as it said here I'm "plumbing" it every day.

[Yash @yashhsm]

https://t.co/N1jh5cxyeU

[Gee @_0xGee]

Great breakdown. But written from the holder POV, not the LP's. Deeper liquidity helps the chart. But LPs on memecoin pairs face brutal IL - auto-compounding fees compounds the risk, not cures it. An LP pocketing SOL and walking away whole beats being locked in a position going to zero. wet-router is great for creators holding supply. Not obviously great for pure LPs.