Lighter CEO on 'Democratizing Finance' with a zero-fee, ZK perp DEX

About this episode

Vladimir Novakovski discusses the creation of a zero-fee, ZK-powered perp DEX and its implications for the finance industry.

In episode 8 of The Big Brain Podcast, Lighter founder Vladimir Novakovski explains why he built a zero-fee, ZK-powered perp DEX as an Ethereum L2, how it stacks up against CEXs and rival perp chains, and what they learned from recent market stress ahead of their token launch. OUTLINE 00:00 – Introduction 04:50 – What Lighter is 06:15 – Why Ethereum L2 and ZK 11:03 – Zero-fee retail model 18:11 – Robinhood relationship & RH Chain 20:30 – L1 vs L2 value capture 27:08 – TGE timing and token value 30:29 – DYDX, Hyperliquid and CEX vs DeFi 35:52 – 10/10 crash and LLP risk 39:50 – Infra upgrades and closing Guest links: Vladimir Novakovski - https://x.com/vnovakovski Lighter - https://x.com/Lighter_xyz Show links: Larry - https://x.com/lawmaster Namik - https://x.com/NamikMuduroglu

People in this episode

Guest: Vladimir Novakovski

Topics covered

• Democratizing Finance
• Zero-fee DEX
• Ethereum L2
• Market Stress
• Token Launch
• CEX vs DeFi

Keywords

• zero-fee
• ZK-powered
• perp DEX
• Ethereum L2
• token launch
• market stress
• CEX
• DeFi

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lighter, Robinhood, DYDX, Hyperliquid, CEX, DeFi

Places: Ethereum

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