I'm tired of watching noise get more attention than useful projects. Long stretches where nothing seems to happen, then another hack, another move that feels manipulated. Meanwhile, projects building something useful struggle to get noticed. If you follow this market closely, it wears you down. So what do we do with that? If we've still got liquidity, the market keeps giving us opportunities in projects we've already researched and put on our watchlists. That's one reason to keep doing the homework, even when following the market gets tiring. And while we're waiting for those entries, there's also the question of making more of the positions we already hold. ethereum:0x365accfca291e7d3914637abf1f7635db165bb09 is one example for me. I've been following @protocol_fx's weekly veFXN revenue, and seeing it grow week after week has been pretty encouraging. The locker was showing 35.13% APR on my recent check. Then there's aFXN on Concentrator, another AladdinDAO protocol. It auto-compounds rewards from Convex Finance's cvxFXN, and the displayed APY was a very nice 45.04% 🔄 I've also been spending some of that waiting time on @FX100Perp's weekly testnet challenges. There's a product to get familiar with and XP to earn along the way. The team has mentioned that a high place on the XP leaderboard could open up opportunities that won't be available to everyone. With FX100 expected to launch this November, I'd like to be ready to make the most of it when mainnet arrives. Closing a 100x $BTC short at a loss this week got me thinking about the habits I want to carry over from testnet. Those first 15 minutes of liquidation protection give me time to work with 🛡️ I still want a setup, position size and exit plan I've thought through. That means looking for an entry I actually want, using limit orders where they fit, instead of opening something because of FOMO. That also means giving TP and SL more thought. They're easy to leave for later when you're focused on getting the entry right. I'd rather decide those exits before greed starts moving the target or confidence makes me dismiss the downside. I want to make better use of what I already hold and be better prepared for what comes next. That's what I'm trying to get out of this stretch.

"Survive the volatility and profit" is how @rektdiomedes framed it. Turned out to be a decent description. Opened a $BTC position about five minutes before the CPI print ⏱️ People usually think that's a bad idea. The problem isn't just calling the direction. The first minute after a print rarely moves in a straight line. It goes both ways before it picks one, and at high leverage the wrong wick ends the trade before the thesis ever gets tested. Every new @FX100Perp position starts with 15 minutes of liquidation protection, regardless of what price does during that window. So the first swing becomes something you can survive instead of something that ends you 🎢 Price did go both ways early. When the countdown hit zero the position was still open and in profit, and it kept running after protection expired. This was on testnet, but it did change how I think about trading scheduled events. I'd normally rather sit them out than be leveraged into a print, but with a protection window like that, it might be interesting.

Correction to the correction: Stable Yields currently lists #fxSAVE# third at around 7% APY, with over $50M in TVL and about 10x the TVL of each of the two ranked above it. I'll take more corrections like this 😅

Read through this $FXN breakdown, and the numbers are useful. But what stuck with me is where f(x) sits in DeFi right now. On-chain leverage and decentralized stablecoin yield are arguably two of DeFi's major demand currents this cycle. @protocol_fx has a foot in both. Leverage on ETH and BTC on one side, ethereum:0x085780639cc2cacd35e474e71f4d000e2405d8f6 and the yield built around it on the other. Plenty of protocols focus on one of those. This one has products in both.

Been hearing about a "non-liquidatable perp" for months now? 👀 Last week, it had a heartbeat. Phase 0 of the FX100 testnet closed with a first group of traders testing 100x with liquidation protection in live conditions. Not a pitch deck. Not just a concept anymore. What's growing in there is the part most people still haven't looked at closely. The 15 minute protection window. The team's point is that most high leverage liquidations hit in the first few minutes after entry, before price moves your way. The market reaches for liquidity, then it moves. @FX100Perp is built so a position survives that window and the thesis gets time to resolve. The signs of life keep stacking up. Two audits running. Public testnet getting closer. Something coming next week, and FX100 is already teasing what comes next. Most perp DEX innovation has improved speed, UX and capital efficiency. The liquidation cliff itself has barely moved. This is the first time it feels like someone is seriously trying to redesign it. There's a pulse now.