Jack Kubinec 

Mert Mumtaz

Jeffrey Albus

The essential source for all things Solana — exclusive news, deep analysis, and the latest trends.

Lightspeed

Gm! This week we're joined by Cindy Leow &amp; Chris Heaney to discuss Swift, the most recent liquidty upgrade to Drift. We deep dive into how Swift will improve onchain execution, competing with CEXs, how to accelerate Solana DeFi, whats next for Drift &amp; much more. Enjoy!--Follow Cindy: https://x.com/cindyleowttFollow Chris: https://x.com/crispheaneyFollow Jack: https://x.com/whosknaveFollow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/LightspeedpodhqSubscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed Join the Lightspeed Manlets Collective Telegram: https://t.me/+QUl_ZOj2nMJlZTEx--Use Code LIGHTSPEED10 for 10% off tickets to Digital Asset Summit 2025: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-new-york--Ledger, the global leader in digital asset security, proudly sponsors the Lightspeed podcast. As Ledger celebrates 10 years of securing 20% of global crypto, it remains the top choice for securing your Solana assets. Buy a LEDGER™ device now and build confidently, knowing your SOL are safe. Buy now on https://shop.ledger.com/?r=1da180a5de00.--Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/--(00:00) Introduction (01:23) What Is Drift? (04:49) Onchain Execution (07:02) Ledger Ad (10:32) Decentralization (11:23) Is Swift An L2? (18:43) The REV Impact (23:01) MEV On Solana (24:21) Building On Solana (26:25) Ledger Ad (30:58) The Key To Building An Onchain Exchange (31:45) The Evolution Of Drift (35:48) CEX vs DEX Perps (38:50) What’s Next For Drift? (41:25) Prediction Markets (44:52) Accelerating Solana DeFi --Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Drift: The Solana DEX Powering Onchain Liquidity | Cindy Leow & Chris Heaney

(00:00) Introduction (01:23) What Is Drift? (04:49) Onchain Execution (07:02) Ledger Ad (10:32) Decentralization (11:23) Is Swift An L2? (18:43) The REV Impact (23:01) MEV On Solana (24:21) Building On Solana (26:25) Ledger Ad (30:58) The Key To Building An Onchain Exchange (31:45) The Evolution Of Drift (35:48) CEX vs DEX Perps (38:50) What’s Next For Drift? (41:25) Prediction Markets (44:52) Accelerating Solana DeFi

LS-167

Gm! This week Tzvi Wiesel joins the show to discuss building a great consumer app in crypto. We deep dive into the Baxus playbook &amp; how Tzvi is creating an onchain market place for the world's most collectible spirits. Enjoy!--Follow Tzvi: https://x.com/web4OFollow Jack: https://x.com/whosknaveFollow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed Join the Lightspeed Manlets Collective Telegram: https://t.me/+QUl_ZOj2nMJlZTEx--Use Code LIGHTSPEED10 for 10% off tickets to Digital Asset Summit 2025: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-new-york--Just for Lightspeed listeners, visit https://bonkbets.io/ and connect your wallet to get 10% back on any losses to bet again. For a limited time, make two $10 bets on any game before March 1 2025 to get a free third $10 bet.--Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/--(00:00) Introduction (01:57) The Baxus Playbook (11:33) Bonk Bets Ad (12:05) The Baxus Playbook (17:41) DeFi On Baxus (29:20) Bonk Bets Ad (29:52) Building A Consumer App On Solana (44:55) Real World Assets --Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

How Baxus Is Bringing Whiskey Onchain | Tzvi Wiesel

Jeff Albus

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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The DeFi trading experience is a balancing act.&nbsp;



Market makers juggle cost and efficiency, while traders deal with delays, slippage, and the ever-present reality of MEV extraction. Onchain execution can be slow, liquidity is often scattered across different venues, and gas fees — even on Solana — still exist.



These are just a few of the problems that Drift — the largest derivatives platform on Solana — set out to solve with Swift Protocol. Its new trading standard is designed to maximize execution speed, minimize slippage, and make trading truly gasless across perpetuals and spot markets.&nbsp;



Most onchain trades today are scattered across AMMs, order books, and private market makers, leading to suboptimal execution. Swift Protocol consolidates these sources into a single execution layer. Instead of waiting for confirmations, Swift broadcasts orders to market makers, who compete to fill them in milliseconds, ensuring better prices and deeper liquidity. Not too shabby.



For Swift Protocol to work, it needs liquidity providers to be active participants. Traditionally, market makers on Solana manage order book quotes, a process that can be inefficient. JIT market making improves this by only submitting fills when needed, reducing unnecessary gas costs. Swift further enhances this by introducing a WebSocket-based system that simplifies market maker integration, allowing them to react to orders instantly and efficiently.



Swift also removes gas fees for traders, and does not impose additional costs on market makers, according to Chris Heaney, co-founder of Drift and lead on Swift Protocol. “JIT makers already pay gas to submit their fills. They don’t have to pay any additional gas fees vis-a-vis what they&#8217;re currently paying,&#8221; he told Lightspeed. This minimizes unnecessary gas expenses and ensures capital efficiency. Heaney explained that one reason market makers appreciate this system is &#8220;because they pay less gas providing JIT fills than they do placing and canceling quotes on an order book.&#8221;



Swift&#8217;s model also addresses one of the biggest challenges in onchain trading: MEV, or maximal extractable value. In simple terms, MEV occurs when transactions are reordered, inserted, or censored within a block, to create profit opportunities for arbitrage bots or validators at the expense of traders. One common way this happens is through slippage. Traders set a maximum slippage limit to ensure their trade still goes through if prices move, but in many systems, market makers can immediately fill the trade at that limit to extract extra profit.



Swift Protocol removes this risk by using a Dutch auction system, &#8220;which means a user can’t instantly pay their max slippage. It works similar to Uniswap X and other intent protocols,&#8221; Heaney explained. Instead of letting market makers instantly fill an order at the worst possible price a trader is willing to accept, Swift forces them to compete for the best price.



As good as all of this sounds, I still had to flag the protocol&#8217;s championing of staking-based order prioritization — or the idea that orders could be prioritized based on how much of the platform&#8217;s governance token a user has staked. My issue was the possibility that deep-pocketed traders and firms would get an unfair advantage in terms of execution priority. I’m no fan of plutocratic systems.



Heaney clarified that there will be no staking-based prioritization at launch, though the team is still considering how to best implement it.&nbsp;



“Proposed designs only provide a ‘first look’ to staked market makers, so normal market makers can still fill users as well,” he said. He went on to explain that “in combination with the Dutch auction, a staked market maker can only fill a user first if they&#8217;re willing to give them a great price.”



By collapsing execution times, removing gas fees for traders, and structuring orders to minimize MEV, Swift offers a new take on how high-performance trading can work in DeFi. If the protocol delivers on its promises, it could set the standard for how fast, efficient, and fair decentralized trading should be.&nbsp;



The Swift Protocol is now live for perpetuals trading, with spot markets coming soon.



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Swift Protocol takes on DeFi’s execution problem

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Solana-based perpetual futures exchange Zeta Markets has shipped testnet for Bullet, a low-latency “network extension,” the team told Lightspeed exclusively. The platform’s mainnet launch is planned for early Q2 of this year.



The move comes as Solana perps developers face competition from Hyperliquid, a new perps DEX operating as a layer-1. The chain is currently secured by four validator nodes all co-located in Tokyo, which has raised some centralization concerns. However, Hyperliquid has still vaulted past other perps DEXs. It processed roughly 6x as much perps volume as every Solana perps DEX combined last week, <a href="https://defillama.com/perps/chains">according</a> to DeFiLlama.&nbsp;



“Solana has simply lacked a reliable and performant perps DEX,” Zeta Markets co-founder Anmol Singh said in an email. “[Hyperliquid] has shown where the bar is, Bullet pushes this bar further.”



Bullet plans to pull this off with a network extension, which is kind of a Solana version of an Ethereum layer-2. Like a layer-2, Bullet will process transactions with a sequencer before batching and settling the transactions to Solana. Bullet’s zero-knowledge virtual machine lets transactions be verified with fraud proofs.



So, is it really fair not to call this thing a layer-2? Perhaps not. In the past, Bullet co-founder Tristan Frizza <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-network-extension">told me</a> network extensions were mostly a Solana marketing term. I would think Zeta morphing into a form that looks a whole lot like an ETH L2 will ruffle some feathers in Solana land.&nbsp;



Still, Hyperliquid’s launch made it seem apparent that users care about performance and UX above all else. Bullet claims it can achieve 2ms latency, which would be much faster than Hyperliquid’s median of 200ms. Of course, take such claims with a grain of salt for now, given that Bullet is still in testnet and has yet to operate in a real-world environment.&nbsp;



Bullet will roll out lending and spot trading and hopes to become a foundation for DeFi apps. This diversification looks like a growing trend among perps DEXs, which may be realizing that a single perps product does not a thriving business make.  The Solana perps DEX Drift also rolled out lending, and the rest of the sector has alternate business lines as well. Jupiter is popular for its swap aggregator, and Raydium gets a lot of volume from pump.fun graduations (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-ditching-raydium-rumor">for now</a>).



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Solana DEX ships network extension testnet as competition grows

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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A few months ago, I was bewitched into clicking on solanaroadmap.com, a website that just reads “increase bandwidth reduce latency” — Solana’s preferred rallying cry of late. So it took me a few days to get around to checking out an apparent 2025 roadmap put out by Anza, which is the developer shop spun out of Solana Labs.



This roadmap was not a troll. It teased Anza’s plans to double Solana blockspace this year and laid out a bunch of smaller improvements meant to equip Solana to handle transactions more efficiently. As Solana prepares for a wider rollout of the high-performance Firedancer client, Anza is still eating its veggies, so to speak, by making small but necessary changes to Solana’s code.&nbsp;



Anza develops Solana’s Agave client — the original validator software put out by Solana Labs — and works on a number of other engineering problems, similarly to how blockchain “labs” entities tend to work. Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz frequently mentions on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@LightspeedpodHQ">Lightspeed podcast</a> that ironing out a number of small inefficiencies in Solana’s codebase could greatly improve the network’s already-industry-leading performance. Anza’s 2025 roadmap expresses a similar sentiment.&nbsp;



“Complex systems are not optimized by one magic fix but rather the accumulation of thousands of micro-advancements,” Anza Vice President of Core Engineering Brennan Watt wrote in the <a href="https://www.anza.xyz/blog/anzas-2025-mission-on-the-road-to-1m-tps">post</a>.



Some of these micro-advancements include <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-block-scheduler">improving Agave’s scheduler</a>, scaling Turbine (which is Solana’s block propagation protocol), and switching to a faster hashing algorithm for keeping data secure.



Increasing Solana’s block limit gets the most airtime out of the improvements in the piece. Currently, Solana blocks can contain up to 48 million compute units<s>.</s> Watt says this block limit constrains Solana’s bandwidth, or the amount of data it can handle.&nbsp;



Raising the amount of CUs that can be packed into a block can makes it difficult for network participants to handle the load, so Anza is starting off with a modest block limit <a href="https://github.com/solana-foundation/solana-improvement-documents/pull/207/commits/e6d42059c24b2cf655b862b118af3428462222fe">increase</a>, from 48 million to 50 million CUs per block.



One piece of the Solana network that could struggle with higher block limits is the so-called read layer, which must take blockchain data and turn it into a format that programs can read.  The read layer is a widespread question for 2025. In a different sort of roadmap, the Solana Foundation’s head of product <a href="https://x.com/pkxro/status/1885058467758534716">said</a> Solana’s read layer “needs an overhaul” and teased improvements to come this year.



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Solana dev shop’s 2025 roadmap aims to optimize efficiency, double blockspace

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Solana-focused holding company Sol Strategies disclosed that it acquired Laine, Solana’s 65th largest individual validator. The acquisition adds another 1.5 million to Sol Strategies’ existing pile of 1.8 million delegated staked SOL — nearly doubling its position.&nbsp;



Sol Strategies has now acquired three Solana validator operators since its September <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-sol-strategies-rebrand">pivot into Solana</a>. The company’s biggest catch yet comes as a sizable cut to Solana validator revenue looks primed to pass a governance vote.&nbsp;



Sol Strategies is a publicly traded company in Canada whose business can fairly be called <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-strategies-is-solanas-microstrategy">Solana’s equivalent</a> of Michael Saylor’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/strategy-rebrand-and-2025-targets">bitcoin-buying Strategy</a>. Investors seeking regulated access to Solana can buy Sol Strategies stock, and Sol Strategies acquires SOL and runs validators. This service could be especially valuable for investors in the US, where SOL ETFs have been <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-sol-etfs-unlikely-to-be-approved-soon">slow to develop</a>. Sol Strategies is still only listed in Canada, however, though it has applied to be listed on the Nasdaq.



Laine founder Michael Hubbard was aqui-hired as Sol Strategies’ chief strategy officer as part of the deal. The company also gains access to stakewiz.com, a popular site for information about Solana validators.&nbsp;



Hubbard — who is an active member of Solana’s validator community — confirmed the hire in an X post Monday afternoon, casting the move as a way to “amplify [his] impact” on Solana.&nbsp;



As Sol Strategy doubles down on Solana staking, voting is underway and looking likely to pass <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-proposal-could-spook-institutions">for SIMD-0228</a>, a proposal to move Solana to a market-based inflation mechanism. The measure is meant to prevent Solana from overpaying for security, but the reduced SOL issuance will cut into validator revenue. I’d bet Hubbard will have SIMD-0228 landing on his desk in the new role.



As of Monday afternoon, 72% of Solana validator votes — including Laine’s and Sol Strategies’ — were cast in favor of SIMD-0228, while 23% were against and 5% abstained, according to a <a href="https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/MostlyData_/vote---simd28-proposal-wBAFS8">dashboard</a>.&nbsp;



In a message, Wald said the vote wouldn’t change the “fundamental demand” for SOL staking, and the potential approval of Solana ETFs could <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-ceo-solana-ncredible-emerging-asset">create institutional inflows</a> that would reinforce demand for staking services. In the end, Wald thinks SIMD-0228 could help drive Solana’s “potential appreciation.”



“We see these shifts as an opportunity to solidify our role as the leading publicly traded Solana company, leveraging both organic growth through staking and inorganic expansion through strategic acquisitions,” Wald said.



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Sol Strategies nearly doubles Solana stake with Laine acquisition

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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The Solana world has worked itself into a frenzy over SIMD-0228, a proposal to change Solana’s inflation mechanism. It’s either a ploy to <a href="https://x.com/solblaze_org/status/1897466559112581409">destroy</a> Solana’s decentralization or will only <a href="https://x.com/MaxResnick1/status/1897675394976723301">fail</a> to pass due to CIA-style sabotage.



I was sure voting on the proposal would be pushed back, but as far as I can tell, voting is still slated to begin in Solana epoch 753 at around 8:30 pm ET.&nbsp;



Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz, Blockworks Research data lead Dan Smith, and yours truly broke the proposal down in this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTpHMBoTjuE">Lightspeed podcast roundup episode</a>. SIMD-0228 proponents say Solana is overpaying for security and market-based mechanisms are more efficient, while <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-proposal-could-spook-institutions">detractors say</a> the reduction of issuance rewards could centralize the network’s power.&nbsp;



My editors tell me I need to add analysis to my reporting on the news, however, so I’ll give you my take.&nbsp;



Although network centralization is a concern — MEV tips will contribute proportionately more REV, so Jito will <a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1897010713031578050">have</a> relatively more power, for instance — what’s more important is that Solana doesn’t lose the scrappy pragmatism that made it so popular in the first place. Issuance is probably too high, and validator revenue should start coming from real value creation in the form of MEV and priority fees. SIMD-0228 should probably pass.



We’ll have more to say on that next week, but I think there’s an even more interesting conversation to be had around SIMD-0096, a move to stop burning half of Solana priority fees that was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-update-liquid-staking-tokens">implemented in February</a>. Since 100% of the fees now go to validators, Solana’s inflation has climbed a bit — from 3.7% to 4.6% on an annualized basis, Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo told me on this week’s <a href="https://youtu.be/GTpHMBoTjuE">other Lightspeed podcast episode</a>.&nbsp;



That’s a predictable outcome. But what I found interesting is how unpredictable parts of the response to SIMD-0096 going live has been.



If users and validators were perfectly rational, then users should have started paying fewer priority fees, Campo said. That’s because Solana removed what was essentially a 50% tax on fee revenue, so validators could charge half as much for fees while generating as much revenue as before. But so far, priority fees have stayed constant — perhaps indicating that competition between users isn’t putting downward pressure on priority fees.



On top of this, validator revenue from priority fees was proportionately lower after SIMD-0096 than it had been previously. Users made proportionately more use of MEV tips, and validators couldn’t get them to switch to paying priority fees instead. All of this is a little early to extrapolate absolute trends from, but it’s still interesting to note.  Campo offered an interesting goalpost for SIMD-0096’s success: a reduction in the number of transaction processing units on Solana. TPUs are out of protocol services for transaction inclusion, and their proliferation adds developer complexity and overhead cost. SIMD-0096 — which was first pitched as a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-validators-tackle-side-deals">way to prevent side deals</a> — could prevent new TPUs from coming to the network.



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Solana monetary decisions in the spotlight 

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Liam Heeger spent two years as a core engineer for Firedancer, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-firedancer-testnet">high-performance Solana client</a> being written from scratch by Jump. In January, Heeger announced he had left Jump to create his own layer-1 blockchain called Unto. The next day, news broke that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jump-sues-former-solana-client-engineer">Jump was suing Heeger</a> for violating his non-compete agreement by working on a new high-performance blockchain.



Jump and Heeger <a href="https://x.com/whosknave/status/1897396270639251537">settled</a> the case in late February, so I was finally able to catch up with Heeger and get more details on Unto. In short, the layer-1 will architect a new virtual machine to try and improve on Solana’s performance by an order of magnitude.



“We tend to agree with [Multicoin Capital managing partner] Kyle Samani. Incremental performance improvements don&#8217;t matter,” Unto co-founder Will Yoo said. “So we&#8217;re gonna need a 10x to be relevant.”



Heeger agreed, but added that he’s “not making any promises.”



Heeger helped push Solana’s virtual machine closer to its limits with Firedancer, but he isn’t building on the SVM partly because Solana “made a lot of design choices that they pivoted on really quickly,” he said. Unto plans to spend a lot of time designing the blockchain before beginning the coding process so that it can avoid some of these same forced pivots.



For that, Unto will likely have to raise more cash at some point. The San Francisco-based startup raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Framework Ventures. Jump’s lawsuit says the raise came at a $50 million valuation.&nbsp;



Heeger didn’t get too specific on how Unto’s new VM might look, but he said it won’t use either traditional proof-of-work or proof-of-stake for consensus. The chain will use a globally distributed validator set, so it will appear similarly to PoS — which is what Ethereum and Solana use for consensus — but Heeger aims to create something different.



“The key issue with proof-of-stake is that it incentivizes operators purely on increasing and maintaining their stake rather than the performance of the network and being an effective operator,” Heeger said.



Heeger also pointed out that in single leader based networks like Ethereum and Solana, the leader has a monopoly on blockspace for as long as they are producing a block. This is undesirable, and competition among block producers would lead to a better user experience, he added.



In any event, it doesn’t sound like Unto plans to do much media and BD in the near future. Over talking numbers or hiring KOLs, the layer-1 is looking to hire additional engineers and wants to prioritize getting some version of its virtual machine in front of people.&nbsp;



“The roadmap is we want to ship stuff,” Heeger said.



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