Vladimir Novakovski: Why Robinhood Chain And Lighter Both Bet On Ethereum (Composability Thesis)

Transcript

For us, the focus is really to build the most efficient way to trade the most liquid token. At a high level, something like this makes a lot of sense. These conversations like four or five years ago, it would have been like, okay, like what what is what is this blockchain thing again? Like what's a token like? There's some pockets of the industry that take this like very tribal. There have been a lot of, you know, bad actors in the past. The way lighter works, right, is like we're on top of Ethereum. We post proofs. You every day we're processing hundreds of millions of orders. Uh, and in in volume that means, you know, multiple billion. I'm Vlad, co-founder and CEO of Lighter.

>> Just like the streets of Manhattan. I'm going to keep this quick. Over 70% of our viewers are not subscribers. Yes, you. Every week, we interview some of the best entrepreneurs and investors in the financial industry. The easiest way to support our channel is to hit the like and smash the subscribe button. Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy today's show. Guys, welcome back to the rollup. We're here with Vladimir Novakovski, the CEO of Lighter once again in Tokenization Tower. Vlad, good to have you back. >> Good to be back. >> Back in New York, you are after a stunt in London with the Robin Hood flat earth or the the world is flat event.

>> Oh, that's right. That's right. Hop around the pond. >> How was the event? How was uh how was London? How was the whole, you know, announcement, official kind of per decks of the Robin Hood wallet? Obviously, Robin Hood chains gotten off to a hot start. Um, how was everything over there? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, you know, as I like to say, I think the other lad has more of a flare for the theatric than, you know, than I do. So, it was a really fun event with uh kind of a unique theme there. And uh yeah, as a um one one of our uh community members wrote after like, you know, the death of London has been greatly exaggerated.

It was a lot of fun to be there. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I think the event it felt like Robin Hood's position in crypto has and its amplification and its marketing has drastically increased. Um and you know we had you here uh with that um announcement and partnership video just a couple days prior. Obviously that's gone live. Robin chain is you know growing significantly. The instance of lighter is uh starting to pick up liquidity oi volume etc. Um so it sounds like it was a really successful event etc.

>> Yeah. One one uh funny thing about that event was um you know there was the live demo of a trade. >> Yeah. >> Uh per trade on on Robin Hood chain and uh uh you know I think what's become kind of a a meme now uh you know Vlad Tennov said like you know look at the speed on that right which is kind of our engineers were happy about that. But the funny part is that that was actually the the the trade during the demo was actually the first trade ever done. Like 30 minutes before that the system wasn't quite working. So it was like, you know, I think our team and the Robin Hood team kind of took, you know, gamble to uh to actually show that live and it worked out.

>> Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, um, kind of looking holistically, Lighter's obviously, uh, grown significantly in the past several weeks to months. Token wise, awareness- wise, I think like the market's waking up to what you guys are doing. Um, since we last spoke, you guys also implemented a some speed adjustments to the uh, uh, basically latency on the platform, uh, new listings. Maybe just catch us up the last two, three weeks. Um, what have been the biggest updates from the lighter side? uh what's been the core focus?

>> Yeah, a lot of kind of um continuous improvements on the infrastructure side as you said. Um we we published a uh a tech uh deep dive um recently as well that kind of shows how the whole stack works. like we actually have uh 3,000 Mac minis that are generating proofs that every single transaction that happened on lighter and not not only settle trades, right, but like every order, every cancel, every liquidation, all of that is handled correctly and fairly to every participant. So there's like 3,000 Mac minis around the United States that are generating proofs of that as we speak.

Um so we published that. I mean I I think um also just like how how we think about latency, how we think about costs, how the the new instance is working. I mean I think the metrics on that one very um off to a great start. I mean that um you know I think overall Robin Hood chain is off to a great start too. But for us the big project going forward as we've talked about before is options. So that's going to be um that's going to open up a lot of opportunities like for example what you know imagine options on preo stocks >> right because like you know whether that that stock is um even if the actual

stock isn't traded actively yet like that doesn't mean the option couldn't be and so right you can actually have um >> some you know because it's it's one thing to have a per which we have that already. But for example, um you know, institutions that actually want to trade um stocks and options, like they can't trade the preipal stock, but you know, imagine that they could trade a tokenized version of the option. >> Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. >> So, so we're we're working on all of that. Um you know, I think kind of full speed ahead here and and we we we met a lot of folks in in London who are eager to be partners on various aspects of that stack.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So I think one of the things that people are trying to understand with the per uh plat uh kind of landscape at large here is this kind of transition into a regulated uh world and the updates from the latency side, the speed options, all very important endeavors from the technical side. But this implementation of the uh per platform on Robin Hood chain for Robin Hood, it is a separate instance of lighter running on the chain. And so, you know, Rob and I have thought through these things a lot about how are these platforms going to go and, you know, is there going to be a KYC AML version of of lighter on a specific venue where

it's institutionally tradable? Is there going to be, you know, there will there will obviously always be the, you know, main instance of lighter, right? And so thinking through the liquidity dynamics, the fragmentation dynamics and just kind of the technical architecture that you guys have built to kind of create this new instance on Robin Hood chain. Why do you feel that that is the superior way to move into this kind of more regulated uh uh especially domestically available per eventually? Why is this kind of separate instances of lighter the best way to do that? And then kind of second order is how do you think about the the liquidity dynamics and the kind of fragmentation amongst these instances?

>> Yeah. So there are definitely trade-offs to be made around architecture, right? Um and we're partnering with bunch of folks. Um the the biggest partnerships are Robin Hood and Telegram Wallet, right? Like if you look at the structure of those two, they're they're quite different, right? like Telegram wallet actually uses lighter core. Robin Hood uses uh the new the new instance uh we have um you know I think if you go to uh there's a website called Lithub like GitHub with an L that shows uh >> a bunch of the integrations partnerships >> we've done you know there's there's variety there right now you know um I think for Robin Hood specifically it

makes a lot of sense for them to do it this way you know they're growing their chain I mean there's a lot of activity on that chain I think it's like one of the best launches of a new chain that we've ever seen. So, >> you know, I think they they're right um to make that >> bet like you know in a world where their chain didn't get much adoption and the only interesting product on it was per in that world it probably wouldn't have made sense to do it the way we did it. But in when in a world where that chain is growing, I mean remember it's still it's you know Robin Hood chain ultimately sits on top of Ethereum just like lighter core. And so that makes it interoperable. That's >> like >> you know I think >> not um not always clear how the tech

works underneath, but we're educating folks more about it. So the the zero knowledge proofs actually make it really easy for market makers to move capital back and forth between those two instances. So they're not it's not like siloed, you know, um worlds where never the two sides shall meet. You know, the the market makers can quickly move capital around and we're, you know, right now it's like within minutes and that's actually going to >> be even less uh time when some of the work we're doing with on lighter VM with Axium, some of the work we're time we're spending with like Ethereum Foundation, like making all the Ethereum L2s really interoperable.

>> Yeah. like what that means to a trader like if you're a trader you know you want to trade um a tokenized stock you know using lighter on Robin Hood chain or you want to trade you know gold per lighter core I mean as long as liquidity is there for both you're good like you you don't really care how the liquidity got there but the reality is that market makers they can quickly balance their books the way large market makers think about it is like one large order book globally liquidity and it's not fragment like a black and white fragment or not fragment is you're only as fragmented as there's slowness in moving capital back and forth. If that

doesn't exist then then you're in a really great spot and the the advantages you get from the separate instance and one is >> um you know you can have different types of assets like different you know promote those the different customer bases yeah the regulatory side as well right I think >> that there's a world where >> like let's say Robin Hood core customers in the US start trading per through this kind of framework right then certainly It makes sense to have a separate instance for that if that's what we're building towards with them. Makes sense to have that separate instance because that may have slightly different parameters like >> you know even in a world where lighter core and ramen hood both have licenses.

>> Yeah. like the parameters of those and the leverage settings are not going to be exactly the same, >> right? >> Um just like in Trafy like you know CME and you know um ICE you know they don't have exactly the same parameters across the board either, right? Like they're different decisions to be made and so anyway the the thing is that you want the flexibility to be able to do that while still being interoperable kind of when it comes to the infrastructure layer. >> Yes. like in summation the interoperability dynamics of the ZK proof technology that lighter has built and was running on thousands of Mac minis is it enables market makers to be able to quickly shift from lighter core to the Robin Hood instance um and there's no like regulatory hurdle here

it's the same kind of it's the same instance it's the same level of requirements from what I understand as far as KYC these things obviously it's you know not available for US users etc >> not yet right and then When we get to a world where as you mentioned potentially Robin Hood US core users trade pers on the app through a another instance of lighter this one would obviously be uh these users KYC they do the background they they put their ID through Robin Hood and then that you know they would have their own account on this instance for Robin Hood core when it comes to interoperability I'm struggling to understand how how would those like would the market makers

of lighter core Robin Hood current and then that instance of the US users be able to all kind of interoperate as well given that there's like a regulatory block not a technical block. Well, the regulator soy block only applies to market makers that would not want to go through KYC or KYB. Right. Right. The ones that do, which I think, you know, many of the larger ones are happy to do it would not have a hurdle. >> Right. And so there's a world then where you've got somebody like a Citadel who is market making multiple lighter instances.

>> Well, Citadel will probably only participate in the regulated one. Correct. But there are others that have >> kind of various entities on shore and offshore that will participate on both sides. And so you're >> but on chain the capital can move quickly, >> right? Exactly. Yeah. And so is is this vision of these instances is this part of like a you know I mean maybe I'm you know overdoing it here but are will we see you know half a dozen of these? Um >> well it only makes sense. Yeah. I mean like I was saying >> this framework only makes sense if you have a really strong distribution.

>> Yeah. you know, there not a lot of um >> it's a bet on Robin Hood. >> Yeah. There not a lot of platforms there there there, you know, there's more than one, right? But there's not like thousands of platforms that have amazing distribution. >> So um so you know that's I think we'll kind of and and in some cases um it may you know like in the case of Telegram they have great distribution but actually makes sense to use lighter core. M >> um so I think we're willing partners to all these guys and uh yeah I mean I I think like um the the the thing about it >> is like imagine like talking about regular right like us like we're very

familiar with US regulations at this point and are in some part working with >> the innovation advisory committee to help >> shape them but like just zooming out like maybe in in some jurisdiction somewhere in the world they have rules where um like let's say to trade equities you need to be KYC but to trade per you don't just hypothetically right >> sure >> so and let's say there's like a platform that wants to offer that like let's say the new bank of that country wants to offer product like that to their customers like >> and to be compliant with whatever like maybe their local regulations are a bit weird like I just described >> y >> but okay well that's where you have to meet the customers where they're at >> y >> you still want to use lighter on the

back hand and being interoperable. So you can those rules can be implemented while still having as much access to liquidity as you can given that constraint. >> So then it it kind of gets me to the thought here of like we're not really looking at lighter as a per platform trading front end for massive distribution. Sure, there is going to be a lot of onchain growth. There will be a lot of, you know, website traffic to lighter.xyz XYZ as the crypto bull kind of comes back, which I think is, you know, we're in this transitory uh period here. But what what we're starting to really see is like the the development of a liquidity layer that can be plugged into distribution channels, you know, that that currently exist and offer a superior product. And basically what

like what you're building is you're not really building like a you know, you're building a UI and you're building, you know, you want to have a really good experience for your traders on the main on core and etc. But what you're building is you're building a a technological underpinning of pers for distribution across any kind of consumer front end globally. >> Right. Well, it's a great question. When we were starting out and uh like when we were describing to because you know we we're we're not you know our our background is trfy in Silicon Valley, right? And we obviously understand blockchain >> from a technology perspective, but like we didn't grow up with cryptonative community, >> you know, you know, we're like the kid

who moved to new school when it comes to that. But the point is when we were starting out, like a lot of our early investors were Silicon Valley investors and they kept asking us like, >> okay, are you a product company or are you an infrastructure company? And >> um we're what's really cool about the onchain world is that that's not a choice we have to make. >> Exactly. >> You can actually be both. >> You can be both. And that's that's that I think that that's what we love about the space. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vlad, you got to be careful on those tweets, man. You get the people going. I'll tell you that. Um and so when you're looking at the uh kind of growth of this liquidity layer, it all comes back to lighter the token.

And in our previous conversation as we as you went to launch Robin Hood, um you know, we had kind of spoken a bit about the revenue story and the and the growth story and the buybacks, but what you guys came out and put a you guys put the transaction hash on X and you burned uh a significant portion of lighter tokens. I believe at the current at the price it was around $30 million or so. Um, and so there's kind of this dynamic right now about wondering about buybacks and like there was just this clarity that no, you know, was that I think that the market was looking for in terms of like, all right, lighter is buying back these tokens. They're in this, you know, multi-IG here. Are they are they ever going to come onto the market? Uh, what

are they for? But you guys kind of made the very like, you know, black and white stance of here is here's what we're doing. And so talk to us about this decision-m from a community perspective, from a protocol economic perspective, and why you felt this was the right choice and what kind of standard you're setting for your uh investors. >> Yes. So I think we we're definitely learning a lot from the community. Um, you know, I think like the um, you know, the the the core essence of what we're doing hasn't changed, but the way we communicate about it has I think gotten sharper from hearing community feedback. Um I think the buyback example there is a good one where um like we kind of we we had this idea before where

as a US entity and we you know we built in the US from day one like we don't think it makes sense to like play this game of like decentralization theater in terms of >> y >> like having all these other entities if you're building in the US it's like that's like this is where the financial system >> yeah like the tra traditional financial system has been built and and is really strong that this is where onchain system should play a huge part anyway. So so we're always building us we have this US entity. So like efficiency wise it makes more sense to burn something with you know different basis cost basis that that was bought versus you know burning

the the actual the ones for that um you know that are in in the treasury wallet. like it's better to hold on to those because those have a higher basis and then burn the other ones, but it's the same economics to everybody. >> Correct. >> So, so that I think that was a bit confusing to people before we did it, but it was explained um in a clear way and the community had input into again not not into like why we did it, but how how it was communicated. Yeah. >> Um but but I think >> um speaking more broadly, right, like the whole idea is that the buybacks happen programmatically, right? They they've been happening for over 6 months.

>> This this system now also will be programmatic. >> Y >> um it's going to happen quarterly like you know we did it >> after two quarters the first time but then you know we're going to do it again in you know as we complete Q3 and so on and so forth. um you know as kind of things evolve um in terms of the business model you know and I'm talking about quarters years right time frame like this can be adjusted we'll communicate to the community about it but one thing that's not going to be adjusted is like value will all occur to the token >> and I think that's important to point out because >> you know there there are questions around like isn't there equity >> yes is US company you have equity uh

Yes. >> So the reality is that the equity existed pre-TGE. Um and when we for us it was like a phase shift. It's not like the goal was never to like >> you know have your cake and eat it too cuz like okay we were we had this structure that that needed to exist before the token did. But then once that phase shift happened, like all the equity investors were told, okay, what from now on your equity, the only meaning it has is that it's going to represent token holdings for you with the schedule. And >> you know, if that's not if that's not your cup of tea, fair enough. You know, you can, you know, the the last equity round was 5x over subscribe. Like if you wanted to get out, you could. only 1% of

the cap table that that um that choice was offered to took it. Right. Yeah. So, everybody else kind of voted with their feet where they're they're staying and they they like >> Yeah. >> the structure of value occurring to the token. >> Yeah. >> And that's the way it's going to be and uh you know I think >> once like we're still working through like clarity act and all those things in the US like but imagine in the future like that >> equity is tokenized from day one. Like imagine that our equity was a token >> y >> like from the beginning then we wouldn't even need to have these >> you know to to like work backwards to make it compatible with traditional system to begin with. It would have been compatible from from day one.

>> Yeah. There's actually a specific segment in the clarity act that you know is potentially going to be put through which is um there are rules that are supporting revenue sharing to token >> uh holders if the revenue is generated in a programmatic fashion on chain >> and the parameters of the distributions are governed by decentralized or dowo voting basically and so there's like kind of like a there's some nuance in the way that the chain changes can be applied to the revenue sharing, but as long as it's generated onchain programmatically from some sort of business function on chain and there's some sort of decentralized and I think there's some obviously some nuance there, then that token is not a security

and so that's a really meaningful and important thing for lighter and just for the industry at large. >> That's right. And you know some um like when you think about tokenized stocks like imagine a world where when you start a company >> and not you know company may not have um anything to do with blockchain but like the standard but like the standard way to start companies is by using DeFi rails. >> Yeah. >> Like >> capital formation etc. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean some companies I mean some some tokens should be securities and that I mean >> now that but the rules around securities can also adjust right like >> you know that because I mean the SEC is not just looking at what should and

shouldn't be a securities but even for the stuff that is a security like how that should be um who can who can hold it like a lot of those rules haven't been um modernized in decades and I think they're they're going to be >> right yeah it's I And we're in the this kind of changing of the guard era with regards to the digitization of finance and you know obviously these kind of older rules from the >> right >> 19th century to 20th century you know will kind of phase out. So just kind of >> in 100 years if there's you know we ever have the next Elon whoever that might be that >> the robot coins or whatever >> that person should start their you know whatever business they're starting on chain.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Which would be fantastic. Just to come back to the uh core there of the token. So just to be very clear, the equity that the lighter LLC or sorry C corp in D or Delaware um owns that is directly represented by the token supply outstanding effectively and they there is there's no dual structure here. The token is the equity. >> That's right. >> Okay. And then when you're thinking about um the future of the revenue story here, Robin Hood instance, uh the growth of RWAS, you guys listed skinex, other preo pers, thinking into options as well, preipo options. Um >> you know, how how is your I think I I put out a tweet that I think I saw some

data about $70,000 a day of revenue on a 7-day average basis over the last I don't know, several weeks. It's phased up to about 100k a day several months ago around 80k a day for about the several months prior to that. So over the last quarter or two quarters and obviously you know when the crypto bull kind of returns you know you'd expect that to be higher but the story here is that the revenue is diversified from the price of bitcoin and lighter the token is also now a bit decoupled from the price of bitcoin. How important is this uh diversified revenue kind of stack for lighter from the business perspective and give us a sense of of of what you're looking to 2027 on the revenue side?

>> Well, so SK Hinx is interesting, right? Because we were actually the first DEX to uh start listing Korean Yeah. >> equity pers back in February. Um, and you know, now we have a bunch more there. We have a bunch of the preipo ones. I mean I think there there's like all these exciting things happening in AI and you can now trade those like when um >> um you know if if one of these companies comes up with a new model or if like anthropic does really well in the benchmark or doesn't do as well in the benchmark you can trade those events >> uh you can trade um as a consequence of those events on lighter um >> and just briefly there Vlad it's it's

interesting that every AI news story has become a catalyst for per right it's It's it's not been a catalyst for anything else really in the space. In fact, you could argue that it's deteriorated the speculation in things like Bitcoin. But per every AI IPO news event story has become a catalyst for volume, which is revenue, which is buybacks. >> Right. Exactly. And one of the other things that I think that this kind of AI um IPO craze has resulted in is like a lot of the risk capital is um you know, we they're going to be like three massive IPOs and a bunch of smaller ones too, right? three massive kind of trillion dollar plus IPOs, one of which has happened. SpaceX, two more to go.

You know, I think once we get through all of those, there's going to be a bunch of risk capital chasing cryptonnative assets again. >> Agreed. >> So, you know, so there's there's kind of that macro picture. Um, I mean, in terms of revenue, you know, I guess to use, you know, language that the kids use, we're not revenue maxing, you know, we're not trying to like go after every penny revenue. It's like we're offering a great product. um you know to to customers offering new markets to trade and you know fees are very very low on lighter right like >> um I think obviously uh zero fees for retail and even for non- retail lower than pretty much any competitor so >> um I think right now like the goal is to continue driving that engine I mean

obviously it's it's healthy to see revenue healthy to see organic activity >> of course >> um But, you know, as we get into 2027, I mean, like a lot of these partnerships, we're going to grow with them, right? As they open up new jurisdictions, as they open up new customer bases, we're going to grow with them. We're going to continue to grow the core. And um you know um I mean I I don't know if um you know it's too far ahead to like throw out a number for 27 revenue but but um you know it's um we're already at the point where it's the margins you know how much we're paying for those provers is like 10% of the revenue. So >> yeah.

>> So it's a it's a great business model and uh our our focus is really on the customer. >> Yeah. there was quite a bit of rhetoric around the amount of rent that Robin Hood chain is paying Ethereum and like uh whether Ethereum should charge more, which I think is a whole another conversation in of itself. I guess in a more nuanced fashion then um with regards to splitting institutional growth and retail growth for for the end of this year, what do your targets look like from that perspective? Right? Whether it be with the CFTC license, Robin Hood chain instance, lighter core. How do you think about the because the these are almost two separate tracks now for you guys, right? It's, you know, you're in Miami, Ken Griffin just bought an entire apartment building down there.

He's he's leaving New York. He's ready to get down there. Those guys want to, you know, market make on on lighter, etc. And then you've got like just like retail flow, these IPOs, the crypto bull, completely, you know, separate tracks. How do you think about the the targets and the growth strategy for these two as you kind of close out 2026? >> Yeah, I mean I think on the the the maker side it's like the strategies are pretty aligned right there. There's not like you know if we have good relationship with you know X market maker like we can talk to about like okay now you can also be on this new instance and here's how you move capital around here's APIs for that and so on. I mean obviously the the taker side is

different. Um we're going full speed ahead. You know we're going back to Asia in uh um you know for kind of the series of conferences there coming into uh late September, early October. Hopefully >> um all of that process won't be met with another October 10th, >> you know, but uh because last year that was kind of the peak, right? I mean I but but I think the cryptonative world is continuing. >> Yeah. um to move ahead to and yeah, we're going to be out there talking to some of those core kind of early customers and growing that base too.

Like there's a lot of exciting things in the works on the product side there like the RFQ program. Um you know, some additional things we're experimenting on with whale traders. So we're definitely you know I think our we're going to be continue to grow our grow to market team. Now it's about half and half like half is focused on kind of core retail half is focused on partnerships and uh >> you know of course some of these partnerships have their own marketing arms that that are amazing you know best in the world and so we're like you know we have the capability of doing both. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um just want to pivot back to the preipo and kind of this catalyst for purpose trading conversation. Um thoughts on the Chinese AI market. I just had a I was just at so yesterday.

My buddy was he's a you know pretty prominent VC in the space. He was like I just spent three weeks in China just going to all the labs speaking to their entire companies and the learning and you know getting involved there and you know they'll be you know deepseek IPO or you know the Chinese version of that. There's um a memory company that is uh getting ready to IPO as well. Um you know thoughts on that being a prominent feature of on lighter core as well? >> Absolutely. I mean no question on that. Um You know, I think with the kind of specific companies there, one one interesting thing is that like, you know, kind of things come full circle, right? So, my former co-founder Scott Woo started Cognition, you know, builders of Devon. Yeah. One of the

things that they've built is like a way and kind of a neutral benchmark for how good um these different AI models are at coding. So I think they're going to be coming out with something pretty soon with like I mean they already have ranked like anthropic and openi but like it'll be interesting to see how these Chinese models stack up >> yes >> against that that could be interesting alpha to trade on lighter you know who knows but >> um but you know like a lot as far as like which ones are we adding next this week next week the week after it's driven by customer demand and it's driven by liquidity for micromakers. >> Yeah. Yeah. Love it. just kind of uh zooming out here more of you know you as an entrepreneur and as a as a CEO as we kind of come to a wrap. What were some

what are some of the key lessons that you've learned at Citadel and working through Tradfy Rails that you take with you through every decision that you make in product strategy at lighter? >> Yeah. Um I I mean I think being in trfy you know I kind of had like a couple of career arcs you know trfy then silicon valley. I feel like in Trafi from being there I learned a lot about what to build when it comes to IDER. In Silicon Valley, I learned a lot about how to build it. Meaning like how to pick the best team, how to run processes, how to find good investors and stuff like that.

But in Stratfire, I learned like kind of what to build like things like being around the flash crash, right? like 2010 like I always ask that question even um you know like like I wasn't kind of looking at some of these technologies early on and I would ask myself okay how would this have survived the flash crash or would it have survived the flash crash right how would this you know if another 2008 happened how you know how would this technology handle that >> um if if there was another maidoff right and as it turned out we had another maid off it was SBF right but >> yeah yeah interesting and then just last thing from you kind of on a similar track there with regards to your relationship with Vlad at Robin Hood.

You know, how frequent do you guys talk? What does that kind of look like? Are you guys game planning different strategies? How does that how does that relationship look? >> You know, it's it's a great relationship. I mean, the the thing about um you know, I I guess I probably shouldn't um talk about specific strategies, but one >> uh cool thing about um about Vlateneov is that um he's kind of like a Renaissance man. Like you can be talking to him about you know the inner workings of like you know tokenized stocks and then the next minute you're talking about um how uh you know like the some new mathematics models like how theorem was

proved using formal verification and he actually used to uh be a graduate student of Terry Tao who's like the best mathematician in the world. So it's like he's a lot of the those conversations are pretty far ranging. >> Yeah that's cool. That's cool. Two Vlads. Well, Vlad, um it's been a great great several weeks for Lighter. Um it's been strong from product side. Uh token side, obviously, just kind of getting clarity with the community as well, executing the buybacks. Um I mean, just looking more in the short term, what's the what's the core priorities for you guys as we kind of close out here?

>> Yeah. um as as uh we talked about you know more stuff with otherwas options just and just honestly like a lot of the stuff like adding you know one of the things that was kind of like a big hit that we weren't expecting is like these like programmatic um ways like um to implement trading strategies like >> like like TWAP strategies or others like maybe doing more with AI agents on that side >> or the pair trading as well. Yeah, pair trading. But like imagine that like you can tell AI agent like okay actually like here's like in English here's my thesis on the markets like go out and trade it.

>> Yeah. >> Stuff like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And private T-waps is something that I've heard discussed more and more. >> Yeah. >> Um where is lighter at on that front? >> Um it's certainly something that with ZK is um it fits very well with that that tech stack. Um, you know, I I think like in terms of like priorities, it's it's probably it's it's like not something customers ask for. >> Yeah. >> Like when it comes to like their top two or three priorities, it's more like the top 10.

>> Got it. Got it. Lad, thanks for your time. Hope you enjoy your time in New York. It's always great to have you here. It's a beautiful day. I mean, it's absolutely lovely out. Appreciate it, man. >> Thank you. Cheers.