Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix and Infinex, is returning to Ethereum Layer 1 with a bold new experiment: a perpetuals DEX built directly on mainnet. In this episode, he joins Laura to explain why Synthetix is taking this contrarian step, how its hybrid “optimistic order book” can run efficiently on Ethereum’s slower block times, and why he believes the future of trading will move fully on-chain.
Warwick also discusses the tradeoffs behind using USDT, what it will take to match centralized exchange performance, and his “super app” vision for how DeFi platforms could finally outcompete CEXs.