E185: @variational_io - Zero Fees, More Assets, No Funding Rate @variational_lvs co-founded a hedge fund at 20 that Digital Currency Group acquired a year later, then walked away from that exit to build Variational that now sits second only to Hyperliquid in open interest and daily volume. His argument: crypto rebuilt exchanges before it built brokers, and that architectural gap is what's holding on-chain trading back. 0:00 Intro 2:20 Merch, Travel & Being Back in Singapore 5:13 Who Is Lucas Schuermann? 5:24 How Lucas Thinks About Building Trust 6:03 Starting College at Age 12 8:26 How Do You Actually Skip That Many Grades? 9:45 Making Friends Six Years Younger Than Everyone Else 10:40 Are You Still a "Weirdo" at 30? 11:40 Starting a Hedge Fund at 20 - "Hubris of the Young" 14:09 From Paper-Reading Group to a Real Fund 16:50 Acquired by Digital Currency Group at 21 18:59 Why Sell the Fund to DCG? 19:54 Sponsors: Variational & @Bitwise 20:47 Did You Regret Selling That Early? 21:51 The Money DCG Made Off Their Work 22:38 Starting a Market Making Firm 24:46 Explain Variational Protocol to Your Mom 26:49 Biggest Mistake Building Variational 28:13 The "Holy Sh*t, We Built Something Massive" Moment 29:54 Reason #1#: Zero Fees 32:59 How Do You Trust the Price With Only One Market Maker? 34:33 Are Trading Fees a Scam? 35:29 How Much Do Fees Actually Cost Traders? 36:33 Reason #2#: Asset Selection & What "Liquidity" Really Means 40:20 Why Hasn't Crypto Solved This Already? 42:39 Where On-Chain Order Books Break at Scale 46:04 Sponsor: @KASTxyz 46:52 Why Wouldn't a Hyperliquid Trader Switch to Variational? 49:28 Who Gets Destroyed When Wall Street Liquidity Arrives On-Chain 51:18 Reason #3#: Swaps 52:34 The Real Problem With Perps: Funding Rates 55:18 Roger's BitMEX Story: "Holy Sht, I Can Print More Bitcoin" 58:44 The Hard Lesson: Wiped Out by Funding Fees 1:00:38 Why Perps Are Easy but Options Aren't 1:01:13 What Is a Swap, Really? 1:03:20 How Swaps Beat Perps 1:05:28 Why Raise $50M in May? 1:07:30 Sponsor: @JupiterExchange & @ethena 1:08:14 Does VC Funding Help or Hurt a Project? 1:09:46 Variational vs. Hyperliquid: The Architecture Difference 1:11:44 Why Didn't Hyperliquid Build for Hundreds of Assets First? 1:13:14 Staying Relevant After the Points Program Ends 1:15:11 The "AWS of Liquidity" Analogy, Revisited 1:16:47 What Hyperliquid Gets Wrong About the Future 1:17:48 What Variational Could Get Wrong 1:19:06 Who Wins Long Term: Binance, Coinbase, Hyperliquid, or Variational? 1:21:39 Bitcoin Price Outlook & Crypto Adoption in 2026-27 1:23:59 Variational's Endgame 1:25:51 The One Thing to Remember 1:27:18 Closing Thoughts