Vladimir Novakovski: Why Lighter Is Built for the Future of Finance (...And What's Coming)

Transcript

some love, man. Vlad, welcome to the show, man. How are you? >> Thanks, Andy. Good to be here. >> Uh, happy Friday to you. >> Yes, although I feel like in these markets there's no, you know, every day is kind of the same, you know, so much going on. >> It is uh the end of the crypto winter. Vlad, good to have you, man. Catch us up, man. What is the latest with Lighter? How has the last couple months been post token launch? I I know you guys have been shipping a ton. would love to just get a a quick lay of the land as to what's happening over there in the lighter verse.

>> Sure. Yeah, we you're right, we have been shipping a lot of different things. Uh I I think one big initiative that's coming up is the lighter EVM which we did um kind of a technical deep dive on last week with that will ultimately allow is kind of any Ethereum developer could launch uh you know apps directly on lighter. So for somebody who's not building something that requires kind of the high throughput of are customized circuits that you know allow high frequency trading like let's say you're building a prediction market or you're building a lending platform or bridging like you can actually just deploy that directly on lighter and that would uh allow you to interact with the liquidity already on lighter and the

same balance sheet. So that that's that's really exciting you know that's kind of in in DevNet. Now, um the other big things that are coming up are universal cross margin. So kind of uh like right now the only collateral you can use for trading per on lighter is USDC and uh pretty soon um we're going to have a whole system there where you know kind of any um starting with the the safest kind of ERC assets like ETH but and you know as well as the LLP but like you know that'll really improve capital efficiency where because you know we're talking about per we're talking about um spot and tokenized assets like I think the bigger

picture here is like for all of those to be traded from the same balance sheet and in a capital efficient way. So that's big initiative for us as uh as well a bunch of other things right like adding new assets improving liquidity you know iterating on our mobile app you know the team is uh you know this is just uh still early days for us >> incredible man >> awesome um I'm curious what you're paying most attention to obviously there's so much happening in the markets but also you mentioned you're shipping tons of features what are some of the most critical things that you have your your your eyes on as of late. Are you are you keeping tabs on macro? Are you heads down building? Do you really?

Because from from our perspective, it's like, okay, per as a category does well when there's a lot of volatility in the market. And so, are you paying attention to volatility in the market? Are you sort of heads down shipping? >> Right. I mean I I think we're paying attention to it to the extent that you know there are products that our customers want to trade and we want to make sure they have the right amount of liquidity to trade them but also that the risk management engine works well and you know there are no you know we don't want another you know 1010 like uh event you know so so I I mean I think we are paying attention to volatility both from the point of view of the opportunity you know obviously there are

a lot of folks that want to trade assets like crude oil right now, you know, we're doing, you know, that's not something that 3 months ago was necessarily like the thing that the market expected, but that here we are. And so, you know, we we have to make sure our customers have the liquidity to do that. But at the same time, I want to make sure that uh you know everything works in a stable way in terms of funding rates and the risk engine and but you know we're we're not um that that being said you know most of our time is spent focusing on the on on the bigger vision right because there's this is kind of like ultimately what we want to get to is a place where you know all of these assets that exist

in Stratfire are on chain and you can trade the spot and the purpose way and kind of share the balance sheet across them and that that's that's a longer term vision. it takes, you know, time to get there. But, um, right now is like the best time to do that between all the all the tech that's available between kind of institutional like finally institutions actually get it. Like I think you mentioned previous guests from Trafi was talking about tokenization. I think a lot of folks we're talking to and in trfy really get it now and you know regulators get it as well. So this is like the perfect time to be building the future of finance. So that that's our main focus. But yeah, if there are specific markets that our customers want to trade, you know, based

on what's going on right now, we we do pay attention to that. >> Yeah. All right, Vlad, let's get into the juicy stuff, man. Um, there is a regulatory question right now surrounding the architecture of purpose platforms. Um, and there is different ways of thinking about this and I am just blatantly curious if you feel that lighter has a a or any regulatory advantage against other per platforms and why or why not. >> Sure. So I I I think that uh you know our our goal and we've been spending time in in DC the last couple of months meeting with folks kind of from you know

from the Hill the White House and the the agencies. You know I joined the CFTC's innovation advisory committee as well to help through help think through these things. You know obviously our goal is not to have like some kind of unfair advantage. I mean our goal is to help these folks who now actually are supportive of the industry and want to figure out the right rules and clarity like our our goal is just to help them understand how these technologies work. I mean ultimately these decisions should rest with you know with the regulators and the policy makers but they should be aware of all the technologies that that are available. So I'll give you an example right like how how should you think about KYC? I mean I think >> there's a range of opinions on this from >> like DeFi should have no KYC at all to

you you know DeFi should have the same KYC as as as Stratfi right and there they're there actually you know there are a lot of interesting solutions in the middle which in some cases the technology we've built using zero knowledge proofs works really well for. Um so for example you can have something where you know in like a platform isn't actually tracking customers KYC but there's some wallets that went through that process or some kind of you know AML check um kind of through a third party and then th those can be those can trade particular products or those can have particular counterparties and that's all part of the same order book but different rules in the order book where like certain

>> like for example let's say a citadel doesn't want to trade with some types of counterparties, but maybe another market maker is okay with that, right? Like you can actually build all those rules into the order book with our architecture. So I guess to answer your question, it's not like they're, you know, it's not like rules will favor one participant or the other, but I think sensible rules will be easier to implement with certain architectures. And we think our architecture is is a really good one for kind of the merge of when DeFi meets Strati. Well, that's kind of what I was getting at, Vlad, is I think that the way that you guys have set up the fee model and thinking about how market happens on lighter is quite differentiated from uh other perexes in terms of the types of fees, the way that

that the uh actual um attraction of market makers happens as well. And there's just a growing worry that regulatory action could come down. And from smart uh investors that I've spoken to, part of their kind of lighter thesis is that from the regulatory perspective, there's actually a much stronger stance here and a much stronger kind of uh moat in comparison to others. So I just wanted to ask about it. >> Yeah, I mean I think the the fee model is um one that you know we we've always believed that you know trading should be free for the retail customer. I mean, uh, that's actually one area where I think Trafi

was kind of already ahead of a lot of the the crypto space, right? And so we're I I think that that makes a lot of sense. uh but uh you know again I think the the the way we want to think about regulation right is like now that there are folks who actually kind of are you know there's a lot of goodwill and folks want to actually figure this out as opposed to um creating problems for for the industry know there's a lot of opportunity to create rules that last right so the goal isn't just to have like okay like um there right now there are no rules, but then maybe in two years everything changes again. The goal is to actually have rules that are

going to last and that make sense in in different market environments and that will work well for resale and for institutions, right? Because ultimately you need those institutions to provide liquidity. Like going back to your point about, you know, real world assets, right? Like right now it's it's great that folks have access to these per um but the way that it works in the back end is not as efficient as it could be, right? Because the market maker now they still have to hedge that position on the trafire rails. Now, if if the if the kind of the Traty institutions themselves could be on chain with a lot of these assets in a tokenized form, that that's going to be a lot more efficient and that that's going to be

ultimately those efficiencies will be passed on to the to the retail customer as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Which kind of brings us to an interesting point, Rob, because we had Logan Jesterky on Vlad and and he's a a notable Salana bull and we kind of had like this like uh hyperlquid versus Salana conversation, but it's really lighter versus Salana as well. And he has this thesis that's localized ingestion is the future of trading on chain. Essentially what he's saying is that he does not believe in the lighter model or in the model of a single sequencer or a collocation being the main way that trading is going to happen

at scale onchain. He sees it as more of a replication of traditional finance systems in the sense that you have a central limit order book. In the uh NYSC, for example, they have a database in New Jersey where if you're, you know, as close as possible to this database, you get, you know, asymmetric information flow in terms of latency. And you know he he talked about how Hyperlid's nodes are all are in Tokyo for in in in the majority. Lighter obviously has a sequencer right so like a single node. Um, and he argued that the future is much more of kind of like this distributed set of of nodes essentially and being able to uh

optimize not for proximity to the central place of information flow but actually creating a more diversified set of information from different uh players where basically the ordering or the uh possibility of being the first one to get alpha from in terms of latency gain is not necessarily because you are the one that's closest but because that alpha was generated in a region perhaps closer to your validator or to your node and this kind of goes about into uh all over in terms of global access and I'm just curious like what your thought or push back would be as to why this kind

of collocation sequencer model is the way that you guys designed lighter rather than thinking about this kind of um in you know more distributed set I think he called it ingestive localized ingestion uh is the kind of way that he framed it how would you think about this kind of uh trade-off set >> yeah I mean building you know decentralizing the sequencer has always been on our road map and so I I I don't disagree with that as a goal the question is what's the priority of it right because >> like you know yeah ultimately >> like in five years.

I you know if you ask me how's it going to look in five years like I think by then the sequencer will be decentralized. Is it going to be decentralized in in one year? We'll see. Right. Right now that hasn't been a priority for the customers and and the market makers. Um but once you know because there's still like lowerhanging fruit right as far as um you know different types of assets and you know just overall liquidity um being able you know kind of the right um you know structures for funding rates like there there's a lot of lowerhanging fruit before you get to the point where the only thing that's missing is like latency at the millisecond level. on once you get to that point, you know,

our architecture actually allows for decentralization of the sequencer in a pretty natural way because with zero knowledge proofs, like one thing that's really nice about that is as long as the proof is correct, it doesn't matter who generated, right? So if um if if there's sequencers running, you know, one in Tokyo, one in New Jersey or whatever, like if any any of them generated uh the proof of what happened that it it it doesn't matter who did it first as far as the proof generation, but you know, as far as the um processing of the trades, we we do believe that'll happen in in a distributed way over time. We just don't think that's the lowest hanging fruit right now. As far as like when we talk to traders, when we talk to market makers, um you know, they just want to

get more assets, get more liquidity, like have a really um you know, stable trading platform in terms of latency, in terms of um funding rates, in terms of volatility, like you know, leverage models, all of that stuff, right? And I think once all of that's figured out, um, you know, we we're actually very excited from a technical point of view to work on decentralizing the sequence. Like if we >> if we if our team was just focused on like let's solve the hardest technical problem ahead of us, that's what we'd be working on right now. The reason we're not is because that's just not what we're hearing from our customers as the priority.

>> Yeah. Um, >> so we don't philosophically we don't disagree with that, I guess. Bottom line. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Makes sense. >> And the market is aligned with that, right? like the market's not been rewarding necessarily the most decentralized architectures as of the last year or two. It's really been rewarding protocols that have great UX, good product, make money um and do it at scale right? >> Well, I think our like our take on that is yes, that's true. But also like I want to decouple like decentralization from verifiability, right? Like for us, yeah, it's one sequencer.

>> Um but everything it does is is is verified and and the the code for that is open source. So, so it's so you know I think part of what you get from decentralization is the verifiability which we have that already now in terms of like you know the the um having a distributed system that can help some you know HFT firms kind of at the millisecond level that's a different thing you can get but just as far as the core value which is that everything that happens is verifiable uh and anyone can check it in an open source way that that that's the big win that we kind of have had from day Yeah.

>> Yeah. >> And and so there recently was a a rather large influx of new customers from Telegram. Uh you guys had this successful partnership. I think it was upwards of 23,000 new users. Um really just an explosive growth moment. Um what was it that stood out about lighter that you know Telegram really valued? Right? We're saying it's not necessarily the you know decentralization. Uh what was it that stood out about lighter that really uh that really captured Telegram and its users? >> Right. Well, that's a good question because we're working on a variety of partnerships. We're really proud of of the partnership with Wallet on Telegram as you mentioned and uh you

know they're like I think they do a really good job on their end of like building an ecosystem of um of traders and they're rolling it out. It's it's a different type of trader than what we've had before. So, it'll be a really complimentary um user base. Uh I think you know it's it's one thing that's interesting about that is like their product is actually has some centralized components uh the way they've built it on the front end. Now, so you know, a system that's verifiable and decentralized uh like lighter can still be used in that um framework as well. So from their perspective, they they like the low

latency, they like the, you know, the low fees, they like how easy it is to integrate with. Um and you know I think our our team has generally been um very helpful to kind of work with these partners you know um so so I think from their perspective that's the part they like so essentially like if they think of like per in a box right like if you just want to introduce per like if your front end is centralized you can still it's still better to plug in kind of defy rails underneath than than a centralized product underneath right even if even if your own front end has some centralized components. So, I think that that's one interesting thing to point out, right? Because the various partnerships we're working on, some also look like that, some don't, right? Some

are completely decentralized on the front end as well. And and and again touching on the regulation point, right? Like once we have a license, there will be some players that actually could integrate with us that couldn't before because they require um you know like a broker can only integrate with an exchange that has a license and you know maybe that broker itself themselves are you know are custodial, maybe that they're they're non-custodial, right? So, so there are all these different possibilities and I think the bottom line is like the tech underneath works across the board and we're very happy to integrate with any of these partners and um you know work with them to make sure that kind of the solution provides value

to their customers. >> Yeah. And and now that uh these users are on the platform, you mentioned that uh lighter got zero fees uh for these retail users uh coming from the Telegram wallet. um right >> you know what and I and I want to you know couple this with uh the Tom Lee earnings call I was watching a month or two ago uh and he mentioned lighter uh a couple of times and so there's you know strong uh overlap in between the investment thesis into you know the lighter token as well as kind of the sudden influx of users but given that there's no fees how will the lighter token benefit from you know the zero fee environment or just generally you know

if you can't comment on token how how can the protocol benefit right uh you know from these users but the lack of fees from these users >> right so the um for something like the telegram integration like all of their users like they're they're coming in through this embedded wallet product like they're all retail right like you know you're you're not running a high frequency trading strategy through that app, right? So, it's all retail. So, then basically um that's great flow to have for the market makers, right? So, that basically what happens is like where lighter gets revenue from that is on the maker fees. So there there's you know the taker fee is is is zero because

those are not premium taker users like in HFT shop but there are maker fees there and uh you know I think that so so that partnership even to date already has brought revenue that has been used for buybacks even just in the first week. So, you know, um you know, I I guess in general with with these partnerships, we would kind of like, you know, we we work with them to kind of revisit different like how the fee split works. But in this case, I think it's pretty clear, right? It's like this is 100% retail. So, u so th those customers if they were trading through the lighter mobile app, they wouldn't be paying taker fees either, but the the maker fee is um is where the revenue gets generated there.

I I got absolutely molly wpped on a trade I placed on mobile yesterday. I what? Yeah, I placed a trade on mobile. Not on lighter, not on lighter. I want to make that clear. It was on Coinbase. I don't have a problem calling them out. Um just absolutely insane uh fee. Uh and I think it was because I placed it on mobile. >> Yeah. >> Right. I guess for us like it's more we actually want to incentivize mobile usage and we've seen that like mobile usage has gone up from um you know it was kind of below 10% now it's closer to 20% like and that's going to go up further. We're going to release the V2 over the mobile app um in in the coming weeks as well. So yeah we think like

mobile is really important. I mean that's one area where I think DeFi has been behind CFI right historically is is mobile. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um Vlad, I'm curious what you think about the valuation dynamics right now. Um obviously Lighter has just recently launched on the token front. Um people are looking at the at the token and looking seeing the amount that you guys have bought back. I think it's about 4% um and growing and it just kind of seems like as as the valuation kind of uh disparity grows between lighter and hyperlquid the case for lighter becomes stronger and stronger. Um and then you also look at other kind of like revenue generating applications in in

the space. Anything from like a sky to an aerodrome to other kind of D5 protocols and you start to really see more of this disparity. What is your what is your thought or thesis on this kind of valuation disconnect between lighter and hyperlquid? Like do you think that there's something that the market is missing here? How do you think about this kind of uh state evaluations of perp dex assets? Yeah, I mean I think like high level it's good that uh the market is kind of valuing protocols that generate revenue, right? Like I think a couple years ago we had without calling anyone out

revenue, we had projects that had like revenue that was not even in thousands, right? Like that that where and the valuations were in the billions. So I mean I think it's a much healthier market now. Um, and uh, on a on a relative basis, you know, I I think like we're obviously we're not like we don't trade these tokens ourselves like we're not macro traders. We're not, you know, we're not like running a onchain relative value fund. So I you know but I you know I think there there are others that that do that professionally that I think have done different analyses of it. But I will say well a like I think

the market is figuring it out right. It's it's it's like the idea of actually valuing protocols based on real economics. Like that's actually pretty new to the industry. So folks are still figuring it out. But I I think on on on our side like like there there are three big um you know unlocks coming up right one is kind of composability with the entire Ethereum ecosystem which we haven't like we've been building on top of Ethereum from day one but we haven't actually yet seen the full benefit of that yet. I we have from a security perspective but not from the composability perspective and lighter EVM will unlock that. So that's that's one big unlock. Another one is kind of actually having um you know working with

Traty partners to actually have a bunch of assets tokenized where you can do things like the basis trade on on lighter and again I think that's our architecture is really suited well for that both from the efficiency perspective but also because I think for a lot of trfy like the Ethereum security and verifiability is important. So I think that's the big one. And the third one is, you know, like working on getting a license and coming to the US. So those those are kind of three massive things. And so we kind of we want to keep our eye on the ball there. Like you know, maybe the market isn't pricing in the value of those. Maybe it is. I think again that's kind of up I'll leave that to, you know, professional to figure out. But but like that those are things we're excited about and we're here for

the long haul. you know, we're like it's not about, you know, price action Q1 or Q2, you know, it's it's like are we building something that, you know, like if you're building something that has the potential to be a major part of the future of finance, I mean, that's like orders of magnitude bigger than any of the current um >> projects today. >> Yeah. And as this sector continues to develop, um, you know, there's sort of this clear lead that you and Hyperlid have. It feels like there's one and two and everyone else is chasing. Kind of feels similar to the prediction market space with Poly Market and KHI as this power law tends to play out. Um, how how

do you how do you see this shaking out? Do you think this is a winner take all or a winner takemost category or do you think this is sort of a space where there's several players that can all have a piece of the pie? Yeah, I mean I think even if you look at uh like I think in general exchanges are have you know whether it's in trafire right between you know all the you know ICE and uh you know CME and all of the other folks there I mean if you know centralized exchanges you have your Binance and Coinbase and etc. I mean I I think probably a similar dynamic will play out here again like I think we're I think our vision is is really

exciting. We we think that there's like these like macro factors between um like again think about it like 3 years ago something like lighter the tech for it just didn't exist right like it wasn't possible to build so >> um now so we have that now we have the try actually you know wants to adopt you know defy rails and I think a lot of trfy is committed to doing that on top of ethereum and third kind of the regulatory climate has done a 180. So between those things like there there's such massive uh trends here that I think you know we're very well positioned to ride those

trends and kind of where where things shake out in terms of you know market share in five years we'll see right and you know we'll we'll do our best and we I think it's good that it's competitive right like building in a space that has no competition means you probably don't have product market fit. Yeah, Vlad, I'm curious if your vision has changed over the last several months, right? Like we've obviously seen this massive rise of trade any asset on chain. I think a lot of us were kind of pigeonholding periods in general into just being applications for the crypto asset set, the you know $150 billion of TVL onchain, the $3 trillion of total market cap. But it's very clear now that we're going to be

trading tokenized commodities, tokenized equities. Uh there's going to be all different types of assets on chain, speculative non-speculative. Perhaps you were always setting out to build a platform to trade anything. But how has your view on the kind of TAM of lighter changed over the last several months? Right. We've seen just a massive uptick in tokenized commodity uh equity trading, etc. How is the scale of what you're doing here in your mind changed or has it not really?

I I think yeah we we always like if you were if you look at our pitch deck back from you know um two three years ago we were always talking about how trady and DeFi will merge and that's that's kind of the ultimate TAM here. So I think from that perspective it hasn't changed but the sequence in which it's happening is a bit different than we expected. So like I think our expectation was that a lot of the trifa assets would get tokenized first kind of as spot assets and and then you'll have a really strong derivatives market on top of them on chain and until that happens the derivatives market would be would exist but it would be like pretty small kind

of like like how how um prediction markets were a year or two ago right like like you could trade um a market of like is is crude oil going to hit 100 I mean you could have traded that market in on the prediction markets before as well, but it it it was it was more of um you know an experiment. There was very little activity. So I think there's there was a little bit of like putting the card before the horse here where the you know it's like folks want to trade like I think the tokenization process is happening is maybe a little bit slower than expected but and whereas like the purpose has been happening faster than expected. So, so some some of these markets it's like okay as long as you have a data feed let's launch a per market whether the underlying is

tokenized or not and and that's okay. I mean if that's kind of how the market is playing out like that's um that's certainly something that we are adapting to and we will as soon as those underlying markets are tokenized though I think we'll add them to lighter and we'll work with kind of token issuers to do that as well like we're looking as an example at tokenized gold um as a spot asset on lighter like imagine if you actually have that you can do the carry trade um on chain Like again, we think that's kind of the where long-term the big opportunities from like because like right now for what's happening, it's like yeah, you have

these commodity per but then you know someone has to hedge those in in on the trafire rails. Uh and the I guess the good news that the demand is so high that even with that inefficiency, it's still a huge market. But imagine how big it would be if you didn't have to duplicate it. And actually, it was primarily happening on chain. So that's still the long-term vision. It always was, but the sequence of how we're going to get there is a bit different. And you know, we have some very, you know, sharp competitors here, right? So that that's and that ultimately that's a good thing. >> Yeah, man. I mean the you know the volume of onchain trading of noncrypto assets it it's just kind of

crazy to think that that could be the dominant the dominant form of lighter like it could just be a massive global stock exchange where crypto is a small amount of the volume as it is today. >> Right. Right. Well, that's interesting because now that seems obvious, but yeah, like we actually made that pitch two, three years ago at the time. It was like, okay, that's cute, but like, okay, where what are you guys doing for, you know, the core crypto assets, right? But but I think that, you know, I think the big shift there is like the around how Traty looks at these assets and kind of how regulators look at them as well, right?

Like it's it's night and day. And I mean I I think ultimately the like DeFi rails were always it's like the internet right like initially the first you know 5 10 years of the internet it was primarily like the content or or you know the the products that were all kind of from within the internet there were no like real world things and then all of a sudden you had things like Uber and Door Dash and all that right so so you kind of I mean these these rails ultimately are meant not just just for their own ecosystem but for the wider um you know for the wider market and um so that was again that was always our bet. I mean the sequencing in which is happening is a bit different. We're um learning a lot from that and and kind of building

towards where the puck is going. >> Yeah. And it's a it's a process and a journey. Um you mentioned that on this journey there's a couple things coming up that the market may or may not be pricing in. There there's three including uh the US launch uh as well as um the lighter EVM and unlocking full composability. What's coming up next? Uh and and can you just speak to the scale at which you think these things might change the game? >> Yeah, so you know the the Ethereum stories that there's like give or take, you know, 100 billion in uh TVL kind of on the Ethereum ecosystem, right? like if any of those assets can be used as collateral on lighter um that's kind of

much bigger than you know kind of anything we have today or anything our competitors have today right so that that's a huge unlock um and and yeah the timeline for that is um you know I think in in kind of the three to six months range um and then you know some of these partnerships with TRFI you know, some of them will be pretty quick, some of them will take longer, uh, you know, uh, but I think again, um, the like if it's something like the Telegram partnership where it's more of like kind of giving customers easy access to perks, those might go faster. The ones where kind of

full tokenization is needed, that's a bit slower. you know, there's still some stuff that has to be worked out with the the the you know, the clarity legislation and all that, but again, that it's it's going to uh is going to happen as well. And then, you know, we're on the US side, you know, we're working closely with the CFTC to make that happen. So, so yeah, I mean, I think by um by the end of the year, uh we um are, you know, I think we we could be in a really strong place across all three. And uh that's that's what we're building towards.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Vlad, one last thing. I know we're running up on time, but you mentioned the CFTC working closely with these guys and and being part of this innovation council. I I realize that there's this innovation exemption that's sort of on the horizon as well. If this is to go through, we saw Citadel and some others may be, you know, pursuing litigation against the CFTC as a result of this. So, it seems quite significant. if this thing goes through this innovation exemption, who do you think is the biggest stands to be the biggest benefactor of this exemption? >> Right. So, I mean the the exemption language and I mean I I think Citadel, you know, they're weighing in on kind of what's in the like there there's some

things that are in the legislation and there are some things that'll be worked out by the agencies, right? So I think um you know I think right now they're and we understand their perspective too, right? Like I started my career at Citadel like I like I think Trafi in some of these cases has a legitimate point as well, right? But I think the innovation exemption I mean I think it's you know the innovation advisory committee and the innovation exemption you know very are unrelated right the the committee is actually kind of um pretty um you know there's a lot of very mature companies there but just everyone some smaller players like us but like everyone who's thinking about innovation

and how to regulate everything from per to prediction markets to AI agents onchain all that the innovation exemption My read on that is that that's meant more for like really like like let's say someone was starting a new DeFi project like right now and they you know they don't have a compliance staff or legal you know they just want to build something that you know a few thousand people will will use and see if it works like that there there should be exemptions for folks like that right like protecting developers protecting those innovators just to build you know a v1 or you know test center or something right like before even folks like that would be scared to build in the US where that shouldn't be the case

now if it's product like lighter that has hundreds of thousands of registered users and we have you know real revenue and resources like I think we should have a path to registration and now that should look different than a trati exchange but again our goal is to actually have institutions from the US trade on lighter so so we we don't view the innovation exemption as meant for necessarily players like us but more for somebody who's just starting out, you know, building something, um, experimenting, innovating at the very early stages. That that that's my take on it. But, um, you know, I I I don't I I think, um, there should also be paths for for kind of more mature projects as

well. And and we're very happy that the CFTC is uh kind of very thoughtful about all all these paths. >> Yeah. Washington DC is a shark tank. So we appreciate your hard work there and uh fighting it out for you know the industry as a whole. Uh not everyone has the opportunity to you know send some representation up there and and you know do some of the good work kind of pushing the regulation forward. So appreciate you you doing all the hard work in uh Washington DC and and spending some time with us today. >> Well thank you so much. Great conversation.

>> Lighter looking good here guys. Let's give Vlad some love. Thank you Vlad for coming on man. Speak to you soon. Best of luck. I know you're slammed men. And have a good weekend, buddy.